Chapter 3

Elena 

I don’t remember driving home. The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of our dark, empty bedroom. The silence was louder than any noise. I could still smell the feast from the celebration, and underneath it, the faint, sweet scent of Lydia’s perfume that clung to Marcus’s clothes.

My body felt heavy, like it was made of stone. A deep, throbbing pain had settled behind my eyes and in the center of my chest. It was a physical hurt, so strong I could barely stand.

I walked to the bathroom and caught my reflection in the mirror. 

The woman in the red dress looked hollow. Her eyes were empty, red-rimmed from crying. This dress, this color… It was all a lie. With shaking hands, I pulled it off, throwing it into the corner like it was on fire. I put on my own soft, worn sleep shirt, the one Marcus always said was too plain. It smelled like me. Or at least, the me I used to be.

I crawled into our cold bed alone. The space beside me felt vast and empty. I curled into a ball, hugging my knees to my chest, but the pain didn’t stop. It grew. A sharp, twisting ache in my belly joined the storm in my heart. My wolf was silent inside me, too wounded to even whimper.

It’s just the shock, I told myself. Just a broken heart.

But as the night turned to morning, the pain got worse. It was more than sadness. It was a sick, dizzy feeling. The room began to spin even though I was lying still. A cold sweat broke out on my skin, but I was burning up.

I needed water. I tried to sit up, but the world tipped sideways. The last thing I saw was the bedroom door, so far away, before everything went black.

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I woke up to a soft sound, the beeping of a hospital machine, and the rustle of fabric. 

I opened my eyes to a bright, white ceiling. The smell was clean and sharp... antiseptic. 

Goddess, I am in the pack hospital.

I turned my head. An IV tube was taped to my hand. Sarah, our maid, was sitting in a chair nearby, her face pale with worry.

“Luna? You’re awake. Thank the Moon Goddess.”

“What… what happened?” My voice was a dry crackle.

“You fainted, Luna. At the house. You hit your head on the bedside table. Alpha Marcus… he was called. He had you brought here.”

He had you brought here. Not, he brought you here. The difference cut deep even in my foggy state.

Just then, the door opened, and Dr. Evans walked in. Her kind face was serious. She carried a clipboard.

“Elena, good, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Weak and dizzy,” I whispered.

She nodded, checking my IV. “That’s to be expected. You’ve had quite a shock to your system. Physically and emotionally.” She paused, looking at me with a gentleness that made new tears prick my eyes. “Elena, when we did tests, we found something. Something important.”

Sarah squeezed my other hand. I looked from her face back to the doctor’s.

“What is it?”

Dr. Evans sat on the edge of the bed. “You’re pregnant, Elena. About six weeks along.”

The world stopped.

The beeping of the monitor seemed to fade away. Pregnant. A baby. Marcus’s baby. Our baby. Created in love, or what I thought was love, just weeks ago.

A storm of emotions crashed into me. A fierce, sudden joy, a tiny light in all this darkness. Then, immediate, crushing fear. He doesn’t want me. How can he want our child?

“A baby?” I breathed, my hand drifting to my stomach.

“A baby,” Dr. Evans confirmed softly. “You’re very early, and the stress and your fall… we need to keep you here for a day or two to make sure everything is alright. You need rest. For both of you.”

A new strength, fragile but real, sparked inside me. This changed everything. This was a part of us, a part of me. Maybe… maybe this would change his mind. The bond of a child was powerful. He couldn’t reject his own flesh and blood.

“I need to see Marcus,” I said, trying to sit up. “I need to tell him.”

Dr. Evans and Sarah exchanged a look I couldn’t read. “He was here earlier,” Dr. Evans said carefully. “But he left. He knows you’re stable.”

“I have to tell him about the baby,” I insisted, the urgency building. He needed to hear it from me. He would see that our story wasn’t over. It was just beginning.

Against the doctor’s advice, I made them help me out of bed. I was shaky, but the desperate need to find my husband pushed me forward. Sarah helped me into a robe and slippers, and I walked out of the hospital wing, through the quiet pack house corridors, toward our home.

Our home. The place where he had destroyed me yesterday.

The front door was unlocked. The house was silent. My heart pounded against my ribs as I climbed the stairs, each step a mountain. I would go to our room. 

I would rest, and then I would call him. I would say the words: Marcus, we’re going to have a baby.

I pushed the bedroom door open. And my world shattered all over again as I saw my husband… and Lydia on our bed. Our matrimonial bed.

The white sheets were tangled around their bodies, carelessly thrown over them like they had fallen asleep from exhaustion. Lydia lay close against him, her head resting on his chest, her body pressed to his as if she belonged there.

Marcus didn’t move. He didn’t push her away.

A raw, guttural sound escaped my throat, not a scream, not a sob, just pure, animal pain.