Chapter003
1267 Words
You lost the pregnancy
Eliana's POV
“Luna,” he said quietly. “Let me take you to rest.”
I let him lead me away. Behind us, my sister laughed at something my mate whispered into her ear.
Nobody prepared me for how bad life could get once I lost the favor of the Alpha.
Word had gone round the pack house before the week was up. My sister was pregnant with Alpha's child. She was his chosen. And, like that, my authority was worth less than the pearls they’d bound into my hair two nights ago.
Maids who used to bow now walked past my door without knocking. And apparently, there are always people who are happy to watch their leaders fall. I learned their faces fast.
This week, my orders were deliberately not being delivered.
I summoned Kyle through the mind link. I hated using it… It always drained me, left my hands shaking… but it was what it was. He walked in a minute later.
“Luna. You summoned me.”
I smiled weakly and pulled the curtain open. “Yes. I ordered food an hour ago, and it’s not here. Can you please ask the kitchen to hurry up?”
“Yes, Luna.” He walked out.
He came back a minute later with the head chef. Both of them empty-handed.
I looked at the chef’s hands, then his face. “Please… where is my meal?”
“Sorry, Luna.” He didn’t sound sorry. “I was busy preparing breakfast for the Alpha and his chosen. I didn’t have time to make yours.”
Kyle’s growl filled the room. “How dare you speak to Luna like that?”
The chef shrugged. “If she’s hungry, she can prepare her own food, no? The Alpha has ordered that all kitchen resources go toward the care of his new mate. And besides, she likes cooking anyway… doesn’t she?”
Fresh pain tore through my heart. So that was it. Daniel was really determined to make me a nobody. He’d even turned my own dream into an insult.
“It’s fine,” I said quietly. “Everyone leave.”
They left. I sat there for a moment, breathing through the hollow feeling, then stood up. Fine. I would cook my own meal. I had fed this entire pack once. I could feed myself.
I took a step. Then another. Then…
Everything went dark.
I woke up to white light and the smell of antiseptic.
I was obviously at the healer’s office. I’d spent half my life here.
Everything hurts. Not the usual sickness… something deeper, lower, an ache that pulsed through my whole body like something had been scraped out of me.
“Easy.” Dr. Maren’s face appeared above mine. She’d been my healer since I was a pup, and her hands were the gentlest in the pack. But her eyes were red like she’d been crying.
“Maren?” My voice came out as a rasp. “What happened? How long was I…”
“Eliana.” She never called me by name. Always Luna. My stomach dropped before she even said it. “You collapsed. Kyle brought you in.” She took my hand in both of hers. “I’m so sorry. There’s no easy way to say this. You lost the baby.”
The room went silent.
“…The what?”
“The baby. You were pregnant, Eliana.”
I gasped, and the ache in my belly answered like a wound being pressed. “I… how? I didn’t know. I didn’t know I was pregnant.”
“You were two weeks pregnant.” Her thumb stroked over my knuckles. “You lost it because your body was too weak to carry it. Your system simply… couldn’t hold on to it.”
Two weeks ago I was happy. Two weeks ago he still slept in our bed, still kissed my forehead, still mixed my tonic and watched me drink it.
Two weeks ago there had been a tiny piece of something growing inside me… his heir, the thing he wanted most in the world… and my broken body had crushed it before I ever knew it existed.
Sharon’s voice floated back to me. Daniel needs someone strong. Someone who can bear him an heir.
I laughed. It came out as a sob.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why am I like this, Maren? Why is my body like this? What is wrong with me?”
Maren was quiet for a long moment. She glanced at the door. Then she pulled her stool closer and lowered her voice.
“Eliana. To be honest with you… I wasn’t going to say anything until I was sure. But when you came in, I ran a full blood panel. And I found traces of a drug in your system. A particular compound. It’s been there a long time… years, judging by the buildup in your liver.” Her jaw tightened. “It’s what’s been making you sick. It is harmful, Eliana. This is not an illness you were born with.”
The room tilted. “That’s impossible. I don’t take anything.”
“Nothing at all? Think. Anything you take regularly. Anything at all.”
“… vitamins.” My mouth had gone dry. “Supplements. Because I’m constantly ill. My sister gets them for me… she has since we were young. She always said omegas need…”
I stopped.
Maren’s face had gone very still.
“Do you have anyone who can bring me one of them?” she asked carefully. “Right now?”
I reached for the mind link, weakness be damned. Kyle came through the door in under a minute, and when I told him what to fetch, something dark crossed his face.
He was gone and back before I could count my own heartbeats… the little brown bottle from my bedside drawer in his hand. The one that had followed me from room to room my whole life.
Maren took it and opened it. Shook one of the small white pills into her palm.
She didn’t even need to test it. She lifted it to her nose, breathed in once, and her whole face changed.
“Eliana.” Her voice was shaking. “This is wolfsbane.”
The word didn’t hit me at first. I was genuinely confused.
“That’s… no. Wolfsbane is poison.”
“Refined and given in slow doses. It was ground and pressed to look like a supplement.” She set the pill down as it might bite her.
“A dose this size won’t kill a wolf outright. But taken every day, for years… it suppresses your wolf. It wrecks your strength, your healing, your fertility. It would make a healthy wolf sick, and a sick wolf…” She couldn’t finish.
Kyle finished it for her, his voice like gravel. “It’s been killing her.”
I stared at the little white pill on the metal tray.
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