“It's the pack's baby. Our future. You're just the vessel carrying it.”
The words had stung, but I'd tried to stay calm, tried to be diplomatic. “Of course. I just meant—”
“You don't get to make decisions about how we prepare for the pack's future,” he'd interrupted. “You don't get to set up nurseries and act like this child belongs to you. It belongs to all of us.”
I'd wanted to argue, wanted to say that the baby growing inside me was mine regardless of who had put it there, that I had the right to prepare for my child. But I'd learned by then that arguing with Alphas only made things worse.
So, I'd apologized. Kept my head down. Tried to be what they wanted.
It hadn't been enough.
They'd started finding fault with everything. The way I walked was wrong, too slow; I wasn't getting enough exercise. The way I ate was wrong, too much, I was being greedy. The way I spoke was wrong, too quiet. They said I was being disrespectful. Every day brought new criticisms, new rules, and new ways I was failing to serve the pack.
And when I'd tried to defend myself, when I'd finally snapped and said I was doing my best, that I was trying —
The first blow had caught me across the face, splitting my lip. I'd tasted blood, felt shock and terror flood through me in equalmeasure. I'd raised my hands to protect myself, to shield my stomach, and that had only made them angrier.
“You dare raise your hands to an Alpha?”
The beating had been methodical, precise, designed to hurt without leaving marks where anyone outside the pack might see. They'd focused on my back, my sides, my legs. And my stomach.
I'd begged them to stop, pleaded that they were hurting the baby, their baby, the pack's future. They hadn't cared. Or maybe they'd decided that a vessel that questioned their authority wasn't worth keeping, that it was better to start over with someone more compliant.
I'd lost the baby three days later. Cramping and bleeding that wouldn't stop, pain that felt like my body was tearing itself apart from the inside. No one had taken me to a hospital. They'd just left me in my room with towels and told me to deal with it quietly.
The cradle had still been there, white and waiting, when I'd finally been able to stand again. Mocking me with its emptiness.
Chapter Seven
Jasmine
I ran two weeks later. Waited until I was strong enough to walk, stole what little I could carry, and fled in the middle of the night. I've been running ever since.
My hand was shaking against my stomach, trembling so hard I had to press it flat to stop the movement. The surrounding bedroom blurred, tears filled my eyes, and cascaded down my face before I could stop them.
I wrapped my arms around myself, felt the soft fabric of the dress, and shivered despite the room's warmth. My legs gave out, and I sank onto the floor, back against the wall, pulling my knees up to my chest.
Gone. My baby was gone. Had been for almost a year now, but the grief felt fresh and raw, like it had just happened. Like I was still bleeding, still cramping, losing the only thing I'd ever wanted to protect.
I rocked slightly, an unconscious motion, the soothing movement you'd use with a crying infant. Except there was no infant. Would never be an infant. Just me, alone, broken, trying to survive in a world that had made it very clear I didn't matter.
My breath came in quick gasps, not quite hyperventilating but close. The room felt too small, with the walls pressing in.I needed to move, needed air, needed something to ground me before I spiraled completely.
I pushed myself up on shaking legs, and moved to the window. The view stretched out before me, all that impossible sky and distant buildings glittering in the afternoon sun. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, letting it anchor me, reminding me where I was.
Not in that packhouse. Not in that room with the empty cradle. Here. In a penthouse. Clean and safe, and locked away from anyone who might hurt me.
For now.
That's when I heard it.
Music, soft and distant, filtered through the walls from somewhere else in the penthouse. Piano music, with the notes clear and precise, building into something that sounded both mournful and hopeful simultaneously.
I lifted my head from the glass, listening.
The melody was complex, layered. It climbed and fell, twisted back on itself, and created harmonies that made my chest ache in a way that differed from the grief.
Whoever was playing understood music the way I did. Understood that it wasn't just notes arranged in pleasing patterns, but a language that spoke the things words couldn't reach. The things that lived too deep for speech.
