Can Rainbow Bridge Quotes Help With Pet Loss Grief?

I am Alpha Asher's fated mate. His Luna, blessed by the Moon Goddess. But when I started bleeding out, our pup's life hanging by a thread, Asher was at a party for her son—Seraphina's son—celebrating his first shift. I cried out to him through our mind-link, begging for help. He just sounded annoyed. "Bleeding? How long are you going to keep up this act? Last time it was a headache that turned out to be nothing. Now it's bleeding. Aurora, enough is enough. I'm at Leo's first shift party. This is a huge day for him. I can't just leave." Then I heard Seraphina's child call him "Daddy," and Asher's voice, so full of love, answer him. Before I could say anything else, he ruthlessly severed the link. Three hours later, the doctors declared my pup dead. I sent Asher the wolfstone that held our pup's shattered soul, then went to the pack elders alone. "Asher has betrayed me. I demand the severing of our mate bond."

My grandfather died on a covert mission, and authorities approved a grand funeral in his honor. Concerned about my grief, my fiancé offered to handle the arrangements. On the day of the funeral, I arrived with my grandfather's ashes, only to find his portrait discarded on the ground, replaced by one of a dog. Furious, I tried to remove it, but my fiancé's adopted sister stopped me. "Hands off that portrait!" Suppressing my fury, I countered, "This is my grandfather's funeral. He was a decorated hero." "So what?" She shrugged, sneering, "Isaac said Luck deserves the grandest send-off. If you've got a problem, take it up with him. Adoring me, he'd cancel your engagement and ditch you in a heartbeat." I laughed incredulously, calling Isaac's family. "You people begged for this engagement. Since when does your adopted daughter get to call it off?"

The night my mate died saving me, his last words were: "If there is a next life, let me be with Odette." So when I woke up, back on the day I begged my father to let me marry him, I chose someone else.

When I'm four months pregnant, I come home from a checkup to find my mate, Ethan Hale, standing on a ladder in the nursery, pressing glow-in-the-dark constellations onto the ceiling. His childhood friend, Mia Vance, sits below with her chin in her hands, directing his every move. "Ethan, Orion's crooked. Shift it right a little. Yes, like that, so my goddaughter can see it from her crib." "You're worse than the actual mom, you know that?" He laughs. They joke back and forth, and neither of them notices me in the doorway. A pack member wrapping up a furniture delivery catches Ethan on his way out. "Alpha, the Luna really cares about the pup. That star map looks perfect." Ethan glances at Mia, who ducks her head with a blush, and says nothing to correct him. I don't move. Every detail in this nursery is Mia's doing. She picks the snow-white paint on the walls and the carousel mobile over the crib. Even the baby's nickname is Amber—named after a rabbit Mia had for eight years before it recently died. I tell Ethan over and over that I don't like any of it. He always says the same thing, that it's just a casual nickname and not worth getting upset over. I open my phone and submit a mate bond dissolution request to the Elder Council because this is my pup, and I'm going to be the one who names her.

Three months after we lost our pup, Gavin took me to Moon Goddess Peak to pray for the baby we'd never gotten to hold. On the way, his ex-mate, Mia, joined us with their daughter, Leah. Halfway up, an old injury sent Mia's wolf into a violent flare. Gavin held her tightly in his arms. "Erin, go back to camp and get her wolf stabilizer." "Mia barely survived wolfsbane poisoning. If her wolf slips out of balance again, she could be in real danger." Weak from the night before the new moon, I fought my way back through the freezing mountain wind. By the time I reached the pass with Mia's medicine, they had vanished. All that remained were three stacked moonstones and a Polaroid. In the photo, the three of them stood before the moonstones. Gavin held Leah. A message was scrawled across the back: "A family pilgrimage should be made as a family." Gavin's voice sounded in my head through the bond. "Erin? Why are you still on the mountain? We're already back at camp." "I figured once you saw we were gone, you'd come down on your own. A storm's coming. Don't go any higher. You've always been good with directions." The night before a new moon was when a wolf's power ran thinnest. And it had only been three months since I'd lost my pup. My body stood no chance against the silver frost. I crawled desperately through the snow. Just before I blacked out, a mountain patrol ranger found me and dragged me to safety. When I pushed open the door, the three of them were gathered around the fireplace, looking through the photos they'd taken. Gavin didn't even look up. "What took you so long?" He finally glanced at me. His gaze swept from my frost-covered hair to my soaked coat, and a crease formed between his brows. "Go change before you make yourself sick. Mia still isn't stable, and I can't handle two patients tonight." Forget it. I deleted the rest of the pilgrimage itinerary. Then I signed the acceptance letter for the Geneva posting.

The day Alpha Marcus and I marked each other, his first love, Cecilia, threw herself off a cliff into a ravine overgrown with wolfsbane. The pack searched for three full days and nights before they found her, barely clinging to life. She was once the most spirited she-wolf in our pack, but the fall cost her a leg and the ability to bear pups. I grieved for the beautiful life that had been ruined, and I blamed myself for not seeing how fragile she'd become. Marcus comforted me gently. "Elena, this wasn't your fault. Cecilia made her own choice. You did everything you could. Don't beat yourself up." Later, not long after our pup, Rylan, turned five, a sudden illness tore through him, and he died in my arms. Night after night, Marcus held me, wiping away my tears. "Don't be sad, Elena," he would murmur. "We'll have other children." I had always believed my mate was the most considerate, most protective Alpha in the entire world. Until the day I overheard him speaking with his Beta, Adrin. "Alpha, the dosage of wolfsbane we gave Rylan was perfect—just as you ordered. It looked like a genetic defect. No one will ever suspect." "It's been so long. Don't you think it's time to forgive the Luna?" "What's one pup compared to what Cecilia lost? She lost a leg, her future as a mother. Everything."