Rejected as Barren, I Had Quadruplets with My Ex's Alpha Rival

Every werewolf family on Maine's North Shore knew the Bennett daughters ran fertile. My oldest sister had twins. My second-oldest had triplets. Even a distant cousin gave her mate three healthy cubs inside three years of the bond. The only exception was me. Five years mated to Gareth Blackwood, Alpha of the Silvercrown Pack, and I never once got pregnant. Eventually Lady Victoria Blackwood ran out of patience. After humiliating me in public for what had to be the thousandth time, she made her son sever the bond. My father decided I'd dragged the whole Bennett name through the mud. The day after I came home, he loaded me into a black Bentley and shipped me off in the dead of night to the newly minted Alpha of the Ironridge Pack. As the car pulled away, I cried so hard I smeared lipstick down my sleeve. I'd heard the talk about the man at North Shore galas. Barely finished school. Came up out of the mines. His territory was crawling with homeless rogues, and he'd only struck it rich overnight because some dead mine happened to reopen. None of the hundred-year bloodlines in Black Pine Bay figured he was worth the dirt on their shoes. But the man in the doorway didn't square with any of it. He stood there looking cold and put-out, like someone waiting on a servant who was running late. Nothing in the room said newlyweds lived in it—no white roses, no silver-moon candelabra for a fresh bond, even the sheets a dreary charcoal gray. He wore a black shirt. He set a bank card on the nightstand. "Card's linked to my account. Money goes in every month. Keep a clean record of what you spend." A beat. "I've got two kids, a boy and a girl. They're at St. Alban's Alpha Academy. From here on, treat them as your own." His eyes moved over my face. "You can't have children anyway. At least this way you'll have someone to look after you when you're old." Then he turned and left. I clutched the card until my knuckles went white. "You can't have children." There it was again. Five years she'd said it. Five years she'd had me on my knees. I'd finally clawed my way out of Silvercrown, only to land somewhere new and hear the exact same words. He didn't come back until two in the morning. The water shut off in the bathroom, and the mattress dipped beside me. The night stretched on like it had no end. No soft words, no comfort. The hurt brought tears to my eyes, and I didn't even have anyone to bring it to. When I woke at dawn, the space beside me was already empty. I pushed myself up on my arms, aching everywhere. My nightgown had slipped off one shoulder, and a scatter of dark bruises showed underneath. I stared at them a while. Then the tears came again. Last night he'd told me I couldn't have children. This morning he hadn't spared me a second look. I'd thought leaving Silvercrown would at least let me breathe. Now I couldn't tell whether I'd gotten married or just been relocated. I hugged my knees, buried my face in them, and cried alone all over again. I'd barely gotten the nightgown back in place when the housekeeper, Martha, came in with two kids in tow. Beaming, she introduced them as Mr. Hale's son and daughter. They were about the same height—the boy with his lips pressed flat, the girl hugging a stuffed rabbit, both peeking out shyly from behind Martha. I glanced at them and looked away. I hated kids. In my five years at Silvercrown, any time a guest brought a cub along, Victoria would call me downstairs. "Come touch the baby. See what a useful she-wolf's child looks like." "Five years and not one cub. A hunting dog would earn its keep better than you." The room full of ladies would laugh till their shoulders shook, and I'd stand there under the chandelier, too humiliated to even pull my hand back. And that wasn't the worst of it. After the guests left, Victoria would have me hauled into her room and force so-called fertility cures down my throat—a black broth boiled from rotten roots, bitter wine cut with animal blood, lye-water so harsh I could barely breathe. If I spat it out, they'd clamp my jaw and pour in more. A few times they split the corners of my mouth. I'd drag myself back to the bedroom on shaking legs, and Gareth would accuse me of making trouble again. "Can't you just go along with Mother? She's only doing this so you'll conceive sooner." In the end, even the wolf inside me went quiet. When I jolted out of a nightmare, I couldn't help asking why I had to carry a child at all—and if I couldn't, whether that meant I had this coming. After a while, I couldn't even stand the sound of a cub crying. When I stayed unresponsive, Martha told me a few more things about the kids, then led them away. I didn't call them back. After that I holed up in the bedroom all day—reading, scrolling my phone, now and then going back over the old formulas from when I used to make skincare. The man left me to it. He was off the territory before sunup and back only after I was asleep. Some nights he'd reach for me, and by morning we were strangers again. Two people a contract had shoved into the same bed. Six months in, I still called him Mr. Hale, same as the staff. I'd never bothered to say the full name on our bonding contract out loud, and he'd never introduced himself. The only thing that shifted was that I got used to the fir-and-tobacco smell on him. Sometimes, when he reached over, I'd even lean into him in that blurry space between asleep and awake.