Chapter nine

Leticia

I could hear voices around me, but my eyelids felt too heavy to open. The sounds drifted in and out of my consciousness, sometimes close enough to understand and sometimes so distant that they sounded like whispers carried by the wind. My entire body hurts. Every muscle ached. Even breathing felt difficult. For several seconds I simply lay there, trying to understand where I was. The last thing I remembered was the forest. The rogues. The pain. Then darkness. A terrible thought immediately crossed my mind. Had I died?

The possibility felt real enough to make me force my eyes open. The effort sent pain shooting through my head, but eventually my vision cleared enough for me to see a large unfamiliar room. Sunlight streamed through tall windows and illuminated furniture far more elegant than anything I had ever owned. The bed beneath me was soft. The blankets were warm. Nothing about the room looked familiar. Nothing about it looked like Nightshade Pack. My throat felt painfully dry and I instinctively tried to sit up.

The movement sent a sharp pain through my body.

A gasp escaped my lips.

Almost immediately, a woman standing near a table rushed toward me. "Easy," she said quickly. "You shouldn't be moving around yet."

The sound of her voice barely registered.

My child.

The memory hit me so suddenly that my heart nearly stopped.

My hands immediately flew to my stomach.

I froze.

Flat.

My stomach was flat.

The world seemed to tilt beneath me.

"My child."

The words left my lips before I even realized I had spoken.

The woman stopped.

Something about her expression immediately terrified me.

I looked around the room frantically.

"My child."

This time my voice sounded louder.

More desperate.

"Where is my child?"

The woman didn't answer.

Instead, her eyes moved toward the opposite side of the room.

I followed her gaze.

A man stood near one of the windows. I hadn't noticed him before. He was tall and broad shouldered, dressed entirely in black. His dark hair was neatly combed back and his gray eyes remained fixed on me. He carried himself with the quiet confidence of someone used to authority. Even before he spoke, I knew exactly what he was.

An Alpha.

I looked between him and the woman.

"Where is my child?" I demanded again.

The Alpha slowly walked closer.

His expression remained calm, but something about his eyes made my chest tighten.

"We don't know."

The words hit me like a physical blow.

I stared at him.

"What?"

His gaze didn't waver.

"When our patrol found you, there was no child."

For a moment I couldn't process what he had said.

The sentence didn't make sense.

It couldn't.

My breathing quickened.

"No."

The Alpha remained silent.

"We found you unconscious near the eastern border," he continued. "You were covered in blood."

"No."

"There was no child with you."

My hands started trembling.

"No."

The woman moved closer.

"Please try to stay calm."

I turned toward her so quickly that she actually took a step back.

"Stay calm?" My voice cracked. "What do you mean there was no child?"

Tears immediately filled my eyes.

"There has to be a mistake."

The Alpha didn't interrupt.

Didn't argue.

Didn't try to comfort me.

He simply watched.

As though he understood there was nothing he could possibly say.

"There has to be," I whispered.

My vision blurred.

I remembered carrying my child for months. I remembered talking to him when nobody was around. I remembered protecting him through every insult, every humiliation and every lonely night. I remembered placing my hand over my stomach after Arnold rejected me because no matter what happened, I still had my baby.

Now he was gone.

A sob escaped my lips before I could stop it.

The woman immediately sat beside me and tried to calm me down, but I barely heard her. My mind was spiraling. My child couldn't simply disappear. Someone had to know what happened. Someone had to have seen something.

Minutes passed before I managed to regain enough control over my emotions to think clearly. My breathing gradually slowed. The tears eventually stopped. The silence that followed felt suffocating.

Then a memory surfaced.

I frowned.

The forest.

The labor.

The pain.

Then something else.

Someone had arrived.

I sat up slightly.

The movement immediately caught the Alpha's attention.

"There was someone."

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"What do you mean?"

I pressed a hand against my forehead.

The memory felt frustratingly incomplete.

"I wasn't alone."

The Alpha remained silent.

The woman looked confused.

"I remember someone coming."

The image flashed briefly through my mind. Footsteps. A voice. Strong hands lifting me from the ground. Then another contraction had torn through my body and everything became blurred again.

The Alpha took another step forward.

"Who?"

I shook my head.

"I don't know."

The frustration in my voice was obvious.

"I couldn't see his face."

"You're sure it was a man?"

"I think so."

The answer sounded weak even to my own ears.

Everything felt broken.

Like pieces of a dream slipping through my fingers.

The Alpha folded his arms.

"When our patrol arrived, there was nobody else there."

I looked at him.

"There were rogues."

His expression hardened.

"Yes."

My stomach twisted.

"How many?"

"Several."

I swallowed.

The memory of being cornered returned immediately. I remembered the way they surrounded me. The way they looked at me. The fear that had consumed me when I realized there was nowhere left to run.

"What happened to them?"

The Alpha's eyes remained fixed on mine.

"They're dead."

I stared at him.

"All of them?"

He nodded once.

A chill ran through me.

I had barely been able to stand.

I had been in labor.

Exhausted.

Terrified.

There was no way I could have killed them.

Not even one.

Yet according to him, every rogue found near me was dead.

The realization settled heavily inside my chest.

Someone had been there.

Someone had saved me.

The certainty felt stronger than ever.

The problem was I couldn't remember who.

The Alpha seemed to reach the same conclusion.

His gaze sharpened slightly.

"You're convinced someone arrived before you lost consciousness."

I nodded.

"I am."

"But you can't identify him."

I closed my eyes briefly.

"No."

The answer frustrated me more than anything else.

A face.

A name.

A voice.

Anything.

Yet every time I tried to remember, the memory dissolved into darkness.

The room fell quiet.

The woman eventually stood and adjusted the blanket covering me.

"You're lucky to be alive," she said softly.

I almost laughed.

Lucky.

The word felt cruel.

I had lost everything.

My mate.

My home.

My child.

Nothing about this felt lucky.

The Alpha finally broke the silence.

"My name is Donald Luther."

The name immediately sounded familiar.

Very familiar.

Then realization struck.

Alpha Donald Luther.

One of the most powerful Alphas in the region.

I looked around the room again.

His territory.

I was inside his territory.

"What am I doing here?" I asked quietly.

"My patrol brought you back after finding you near our border."

I nodded slowly.

The reality of the situation finally settled over me.

I wasn't in Nightshade anymore.

I wasn't in Frostfall.

I wasn't anywhere I knew.

I was completely alone.

A lump formed in my throat.

Donald studied me carefully.

"You need rest."

I looked away.

Rest felt impossible.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the forest.

The rogues.

The blood.

Then the terrible emptiness where my child should have been.

The woman smiled gently.

"I'm Clara. The pack doctor."

I nodded weakly.

At least now I knew why the room smelled faintly of medicine.

Donald turned toward the door.

My heart immediately sped up.

"What happens now?"

He stopped.

For a moment he seemed to consider his answer.

Then he looked back at me.

"We continue searching."

Hope flickered painfully inside my chest.

"For my child?"

His expression remained serious.

"Yes."

The answer nearly broke me.

I lowered my head quickly before fresh tears could appear.

Donald remained silent for several seconds before finally speaking again.

"The rogues who attacked you weren't ordinary rogues."

I looked up immediately.

"What does that mean?"

His expression darkened.

"It means they weren't hunting randomly."

A chill ran through me.

"They were hunting you."

Before I could ask another question, he opened the door and walked out. The room fell silent once more. Clara eventually returned to her work, but my attention remained fixed on the ceiling above me. Somewhere beyond these walls, people were searching for my child. Somewhere beyond these walls was the answer to what happened in that forest. And somewhere inside the broken fragments of my memory was the face of the person who saved my life. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became. Someone had been there. Someone had arrived before the darkness swallowed me whole. I just couldn't remember who.