Rise of the Immortal

Chapter 14: Broken Dreams

The pain started three days after Kale and I completed our mate bond.

At first, I thought it was just my body adjusting to the new connection between us. The bond had brought so many changes—I could feel Kale's emotions as clearly as my own now, could sense his presence even when he was across the pack house, and my wolf was slowly, tentatively beginning to emerge from the depths where she'd hidden for so long. With all these transformations happening inside me, a little discomfort seemed normal.

But as the morning wore on, the mild cramping in my lower abdomen grew worse. I was sitting in the pack house kitchen, trying to eat the breakfast Sarah had lovingly prepared, when a sharp pain lanced through me that made me gasp and double over.

"Talia?" Sarah was at my side immediately, her hand warm on my shoulder. "What's wrong?"

I pressed my hands against my stomach, trying to breathe through the pain. "I don't know," I managed. "It just... it hurts."

Through the mate bond, I felt Kale's immediate alarm. He was in his office reviewing security reports, but the moment my pain spiked, his attention snapped to me like a rubber band. Within seconds, I heard his footsteps pounding down the hallway.

"Talia," he said as he burst into the kitchen, his eyes wide with concern. Through the bond, I could feel his fear—not just for me, but that this was somehow connected to the trauma I'd endured. "What's happening?"

Another wave of pain hit me, worse than before, and I couldn't suppress the whimper that escaped my lips. "Something's wrong," I whispered, tears springing to my eyes. "It feels like something's tearing inside me."

Kale was beside me in an instant, his arms gentle as he lifted me from the chair. "We're going to Dr. Whitman," he said firmly. "Right now."

I wanted to protest that it was probably nothing, that I didn't want to bother the pack doctor with what might just be normal healing pains. But another cramp hit me so hard that black spots danced at the edges of my vision, and I found myself clinging to Kale's shirt as he carried me through the pack house.

Dr. Whitman was in his clinic when we arrived, organizing medical supplies with the methodical precision that had made him Red Moon's head physician for over twenty years. He took one look at my pale face and Kale's panicked expression and immediately cleared his examination table.

"What are her symptoms?" he asked as Kale gently placed me on the table.

"Severe abdominal cramping," Kale said, his voice tight with worry. "It started mild this morning but it's getting worse."

Dr. Whitman nodded, his weathered face creased with concern. "Talia, I'm going to need to examine you. Given what you've been through, I want to make sure we're not dealing with any internal complications from your captivity."

The clinical way he said it made my stomach clench with more than just physical pain. Complications from my captivity. We all knew what that meant—complications from the years of rape and abuse I'd suffered at Greg's hands.

"I need to examine you internally," Dr. Whitman said gently. "It might be uncomfortable, but I need to check for any structural damage or infection."

My whole body went rigid at the thought of being examined so intimately. Even though I trusted Dr. Whitman, even though I knew it was necessary, the idea of being so vulnerable again made panic claw at my throat.

Through the bond, Kale felt my terror and immediately moved to my side. "I'll stay with you," he said softly, taking my hand in his. "If you want me to. Whatever makes you feel safest."

I squeezed his fingers gratefully. "Please. I need you here."

Dr. Whitman was incredibly gentle and professional throughout the examination, explaining everything he was doing and checking with me constantly to make sure I was okay. But even with Kale's steady presence and the doctor's careful approach, I couldn't stop the tears that streamed down my face as memories of Greg's violent assaults flashed through my mind.

When Dr. Whitman finally finished and helped me sit up, his expression was grave. "I'm going to need to do an ultrasound," he said quietly. "There's significant scarring around your cervix and uterus. I need to get a better look at the extent of the damage."

My heart sank. Damage. The word echoed in my mind as Dr. Whitman prepared the ultrasound equipment. I'd known that what Greg had done to me was brutal, violent, designed to cause maximum pain and humiliation. But somehow I'd hoped that my body would heal completely, that I could put those violations behind me and move forward as if they'd never happened.

The ultrasound gel was cold against my skin, and I flinched when Dr. Whitman placed the probe on my lower abdomen. On the screen, grainy black and white images appeared, showing the inside of my body in ways I'd never seen before.

"There," Dr. Whitman said quietly, pointing to areas on the screen that looked different from the rest. "Do you see these darker areas? That's scar tissue."

I stared at the screen, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. "How bad is it?"

Dr. Whitman was quiet for a long moment, studying the images with a professional detachment that somehow made everything worse. "It's extensive," he finally said. "The scarring affects your fallopian tubes, your uterus, and the surrounding tissue. It's consistent with... repeated violent trauma."

Through the mate bond, I felt Kale's rage spike so sharply that it took my breath away. His hand tightened on mine, and I could sense his wolf clawing to get out, desperate to hunt down Greg and make him pay for what he'd done to me.

"What does that mean for me?" I asked, though part of me already knew the answer and was terrified to hear it confirmed.

Dr. Whitman cleaned the gel from my skin and helped me sit up before answering. "The scarring is severe enough that it will likely affect your fertility," he said gently. "The damage to your fallopian tubes means that even if you do ovulate normally, an egg would have difficulty reaching your uterus. And the scarring in your uterus itself would make it very difficult for a pregnancy to implant and develop normally."

The words hit me like a physical blow. I'd known that Greg's assaults had damaged me, but I'd somehow held onto the hope that I could still have the future I'd dreamed of. The future where Kale and I would have children together, where I could be the mother I'd always wanted to be.

"How difficult?" Kale asked, his voice carefully controlled though I could feel the storm of emotions raging through him via our bond.

Dr. Whitman's expression was compassionate but honest. "I would estimate your chances of natural conception at less than ten percent," he said. "And even if you did manage to conceive, the risk of miscarriage would be very high due to the uterine scarring."

Less than ten percent. The number echoed in my head as I tried to process what he was telling me. I had less than a ten percent chance of ever carrying Kale's child.

"Is there anything that can be done?" I whispered, hating how small my voice sounded.

"There are surgical options," Dr. Whitman said carefully. "We could attempt to remove some of the scar tissue, but it would be risky. And there's no guarantee it would improve your fertility significantly. There's also the possibility that your wolf healing abilities could help repair some of the damage over time, but given how long you were suppressed and the extent of the trauma..."

He trailed off, but I understood. My wolf had been buried so deep for so long that even now, with the mate bond helping her surface, she was weak and fragmented. It would take time for her to fully emerge, and even then, there was no guarantee she'd be strong enough to heal damage this severe.

"I'm sorry, Talia," Dr. Whitman said quietly. "I wish I had better news for you."

I nodded numbly, not trusting myself to speak. Through the mate bond, I could feel Kale's devastation matching my own, his dreams of our future children crumbling just as mine were.

"Thank you for being honest with us," Kale said, his voice rough with emotion. "What can we do to help her heal? Both physically and emotionally?"

Dr. Whitman prescribed pain medication for the cramping and scheduled follow-up appointments to monitor my healing. He also gently suggested that I might want to speak with the pack's counselor about processing this new trauma on top of everything else I'd endured.

The ride back to the pack house was silent. Kale carried me to our room and settled me carefully on the bed, his movements gentle but distant in a way that made my heart ache. Through the bond, I could feel his struggle to contain his emotions, his desperate attempt to be strong for me when his own world had just been shattered.

"Say something," I whispered after several minutes of painful silence.

Kale sat heavily in the chair beside the bed, his head in his hands. "I don't know what to say," he admitted. "I'm so angry I can barely think straight, and I don't want to burden you with my rage when you're dealing with your own pain."

"Your rage is my rage now," I reminded him, placing my hand over my heart where the mate bond pulsed between us. "We promised to share everything, remember? Your pain is my pain, your joy is my joy."

He looked up at me then, and I saw the tears he'd been trying to hold back. "I wanted to give you everything," he said brokenly. "I wanted to give you the family you deserved, the children who would have your strength and compassion. I wanted to watch you be the amazing mother I know you would be."

My own tears started falling again. "I wanted that too," I whispered. "I used to dream about it, even in that cell. I'd imagine little ones with your eyes and my stubbornness, running through the pack house and driving Sarah crazy."

We sat there for a while, mourning the future we'd lost before we'd even had a chance to fight for it. The mate bond carried our shared grief back and forth between us, doubling the pain but also ensuring that neither of us had to bear it alone.

"This doesn't change how I feel about you," Kale said finally, his voice fierce despite the tears on his cheeks. "You're still everything to me, Talia. Children or no children, you're still my mate, my Luna, my heart."

"But you wanted them too," I said. "I could feel it through the bond when Dr. Whitman was explaining. You wanted our babies just as much as I did."

"Of course I did," he admitted. "But I want you more. I've spent five years thinking you were dead, five years believing I'd never hold you again. Having you here, alive and healing and bound to me—that's more than enough. That's everything."

I wanted to believe him, wanted to let his love wash away the devastating sense of loss that was crushing my chest. But all I could think about was how I'd failed him. How the woman he'd searched for so desperately was broken in ways that couldn't be fixed.

"What if this is just the beginning?" I asked, voicing the fear that was eating at me. "What if there are other things wrong with me that we haven't discovered yet? What if I can never be the Luna you need me to be?"

Kale moved from the chair to the bed, gathering me carefully in his arms. "You already are the Luna I need," he said firmly. "You're brave and compassionate and strong enough to survive twenty-one years of hell without losing yourself. The pack doesn't need you to bear children to respect and love you. They need your heart, your wisdom, your capacity to care about others even when you're struggling yourself."

Through the bond, I felt the sincerity of his words, felt how deeply he meant every syllable. But the grief was still there, raw and overwhelming.

"I feel like he's still winning," I whispered against Kale's chest. "Even though I'm free, even though we found each other again, Greg is still controlling my life. He took my choice away from me, took away the future I wanted."

"He took away one possible future," Kale corrected gently. "But he can't take away all of them. We'll find other ways to build our family if that's what we want. We can adopt pups who need homes, we can pour our love into the pack members who look to us for guidance. There are so many ways to be parents beyond biology."

I knew he was right, knew that there were other paths to the family we both wanted. But right now, with the physical pain still cramping my abdomen and the emotional devastation fresh and raw, it was hard to see past the loss.

"I need some time," I said quietly. "To grieve this, to figure out how to move forward."

"We have all the time in the world," Kale promised, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of my head. "We'll take this one day at a time, one step at a time. And whatever comes next, we'll face it together."

The mate bond pulsed between us, carrying his love and commitment directly into my heart. Despite everything—the pain, the loss, the uncertainty about our future—I knew he was right about one thing.

We would face whatever came next together. And maybe, eventually, that would be enough.