Chapter 126 All of This
Chapter 126 All of This
Aphrodite
We tried.
We tried for a full month and I still had not thrown up once. No tenderness in my breasts. No sudden waves of nausea. None of the early signs that had announced the first pregnancy so clearly. I went back to Vivens. He told me, gently, that sometimes it simply did not take and we should keep trying.
I did not listen.
The first time it had been so easy—almost effortless. Now it felt impossible, as if my body itself had decided to refuse. The pale, ridged scars across my stomach made the idea of being near Valdus, of letting him touch me, of even calling him mine, feel heavy and wrong. Yet the opposite was also true. I could not stand the thought of space between us either. The contradiction lived under my ribs every hour of the day.
I walked outside and kept walking until the tree line rose in front of me. At the edge of the woods I shifted and surrendered control to Eris. I was too tired to stay in the front seat any longer. Let her stretch our legs. Let her hunt. Let her decide where we went.
For what felt like an hour and a half she wandered. She caught a rabbit, sniffed every familiar boundary marker, even crossed into the quieter half of the territory where fewer patrols walked. When she finally turned for home I took the reins again only long enough to shift back at the estate door. Dirt clung to my bare feet and calves. I hurried upstairs, straight into the bathroom, and stepped under the hottest water the shower would give.
Steam filled the glass enclosure. Brown water swirled around my toes and carried away the little clumps of earth that had lodged between them. I worked the grit out from under my nails one by one until the water ran clear. Then I poured shampoo into my palm and scrubbed my scalp hard, rinsing until every trace of the forest was gone. The simple act of being clean felt like a small mercy. I turned my face into the spray, eyes closed, and let the warmth slide down my neck and chest. My heartbeat stayed steady for a moment—then it quickened without warning.
I opened my eyes.
Valdus stood under the water with me. Droplets ran down his face, along the line of his throat, across the hard plane of his chest and lower. His arm snaked around my waist and pulled me against him with sudden force.
“Can we… can we try again?” The blank expression he had worn when he entered cracked and fell away.
My hand settled over his heart. I felt the strong, uneven rhythm beneath my palm—skipping once, then again.
“I’m just afraid I’ll disappoint you if it doesn’t come true,” I whispered.
“We can always try,” he whispered back, and his hand came up to grip my face.
Three weeks passed.
“Luna.”
Vivens’s voice pulled me out of the quiet fog I had been sitting in. He had already told me the test was negative. I had cried in silence so Valdus would not see the fresh failure on my face when I got home. Now the healer stood near the door with a folded paper in one hand and his clipboard in the other. He looked at me with an expression I had never seen on him before—heavy, almost guilty—and set the clipboard down on the examination bed.
“I need to tell you something I should have said earlier. I was wrong to keep it from you and the Alpha. Please take a seat.”
I had already been halfway to standing, ready to walk home and crawl into bed. Instead I sank back onto the mattress and watched him approach. He still would not meet my eyes.
He sighed and rubbed the side of his neck. “When Valdus cut the pup from your stomach, he didn’t only damage the skin and the placenta. He cut further. He damaged your uterus. That is why the attempts have failed. You two have been trying for something the injury will not allow. I should never have stayed silent this long. I’m sorry to end the appointment with worse news than you already carried, but I could not let another day pass without telling you. I’m sorry, Luna. You and the Alpha—and this pack—will not have an upcoming heir. I’m sorry.”
The words landed like stones dropped into deep water. Everything about this pack, everything about us, seemed to turn into another catastrophe. Why? Tears burned hotter than the ones I had already shed. I stood so fast the room tilted, shoved past him, and ran.
Out of the clinic. Out of the pack house. Across the open ground to the estate as if something were chasing me. I took the stairs two at a time, slammed the front door behind me, and still managed to hold the sobs inside until I reached our hallway. The bedroom door flew open under my hand and crashed against the wall.
Valdus was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling. He jerked upright at the sound, eyebrows drawn together—then his eyes went wide when he saw my face.
“What’s wrong?” He started to rise.
I shook my head hard and crossed the room, collapsing onto the mattress and burying my face in the pillow. The sobs broke free at last, muffled and ugly. My whole body shook with them.
“Aphrodite.”
All he received in answer were more choked sounds and the violent tremor of my shoulders. It hurt. It hurt in places deeper than the scar tissue. I did not know how to hold the shape of the news, much less speak it.
So many things were broken at once. Not only would Valdus and I never make another pup—the pack itself would have no future Alpha of his bloodline. I could not see where to begin fixing any of it.
“Aphrodite, please tell me what’s wrong. Was it Vivens? Was it someone on the way back? What happened? Please.”
His hand settled between my shoulder blades and tried to turn me so he could see my face. I only clutched the pillow tighter, pressing my mouth and nose into the fabric until breathing became difficult. I did not care. Breath was not the problem occupying my mind.
I kept shaking my head against the pillow. I could not imagine telling him. The pain of watching him receive the same words would cut me open all over again. Worse was the knowledge that he would then understand the pack’s eventual end was sealed.
And it’s my fault to begin with.
All of this.