Back to Asher’s POV

I feel groggy.

My hand is painful. The top of it. It stings and pulls on the skin.

I’m hot, too.

Too hot.

Groggy.

Parched. My lips are… weird.

Cracked? Is that what it feels like?

Hot.

Why am I so hot?

I try to lift my heavy eyelids.

Or move. Move anything.

My stirring is blocked by something heavy. And hot. And moving, no, breathing .

I open my eyes and try to pat my surroundings. My eyes slowly adjust to oddly familiar bluish-gray windowless walls. Déjà vu. No. It’s different. The room is the same but everything else is different. There are no weird conversations, no talking at all, and no hospital gown, I’m naked and so… weak.

My hand stops at someone's very short, thick hair. They move, and soon, Cain’s Beta smiles at me. I smile back, but it feels like a wince instead.

Then, my brain fully registers what I already feel, and my face falls completely.

I’m seized by a huge black wolf! Cain. His heavy paws are slung over my torso, his hind legs intertwined with mine, and his whole weight is pressed on my sore body. I turn my head slowly, only to be met with his huge fangs way too close to my face.

Another déjà vu. Being hunted by this beast in the forest, trying to survive by blocking his jaws with my bare hands…

I try to push him off, wiggle out from under him…

Something in the room starts to beep frantically, and I feel Beta hands on my not-wolf-covered shoulder. “Calm down, Luna, that’s only the Alpha. He finally fell asleep ten minutes ago.”

The wolf shifts its weight, but I’m too weak to get from under him completely.

“I know it’s him,” I say groggily and try to clear my throat. “It’s just… he tried to kill me in that fucking form!”

“Okay, she’s back,” Beta states, and I notice the doctor watching me intently from a few feet away.

I feel Cain’s slick black fur retreating and I’m suddenly embraced by his naked human body. He pushes himself up to a sitting position on the narrow bed, and I instinctively try to catch him before he falls off it. I’m stopped by the IV stuck in my hand.

Oh, that’s why my skin is being pulled here.

“Well, this fucking form was the only thing that could help bring back your dormant wolf side, so…” Cain’s husky voice barely registers in my brain.

“What happened?” I look around the room, so confused.

All the monitors, apparently connected to my body, ultrasound machine, my favorite flowers in all colors of a rainbow, Beta sitting in the chair at my bed, and the male nurse moving around. Then I simultaneously notice the doors barely hanging on one hinge and the fact that no one is answering my completely valid question.

But my brain doesn’t work that great yet, so I point at the doors instead of grilling them first.

“Alpha went all alpha male,” Beta chuckles at his joke, which makes me crack.

And laughing makes me wince for real, so I clutch my chest. “Oh, that hurts, I need to…”

Cain's hands are instantly on me, trying to comfort me. I close my eyes and try to heal the pain’s source. I clench my fingers on Cain’s hand he put on my chest. He squeezes it back and it helps me ground myself enough to use my powers.

“Okay, how bad was it?” I move my head to the Doctor.

He exchanges a look with Cain before clearing his throat.

“Do you remember what happened to you?”

Looking for Cain, being held and kicked, bleeding , fighting, finally locking our gaze… I nod slowly.

“You were unconscious for five days, and weren’t healing because your wolf powers went dormant after, um…”

I feel so cold suddenly and don’t want to have this conversation any longer. But as much as I know what he’ll say next, I still need to know what exactly happened to my body that ended in the state I am in.

“Just say it,” I plead, but never in my life have I wanted so badly for someone to lie to me as I do right now.

“You lost your baby pup at 4 weeks and 3 days, according to your last reported menstrual period. Your uterus is… still healing. You bled for a few days, but don’t panic if you have more bleeding or spotting while, um, it tries to heal after all,” he pauses and I nod.

I do it because that’s what I should do when someone looks at me expectantly after explaining something medical to me. Right? I’m not sure. Nothing feels natural anymore. Nothing feels right anymore. Nothing feels…

“We are not sure what happened there,” Doctor resumes and I trail off.

I think I got stabbed at some point, but before I collapsed, it already started healing on the outside. My little trick is to close the wound first to not bleed out on the battlefield. That’s why they didn’t see the wound that would match the shambles inside. I do it without thinking after years of war with the same Rogues that are taking care of me right now.

“Do you understand?” The doctor asks me a question and I nod again.

I don’t know what he was even telling me, but it’s not hard to guess he tried to tactfully explain why I can’t have more kids in this state. I should probably listen to him, I was the one who wanted to know what happened to me, but…

I can’t.

I start sobbing and Cain shoots his death glare at the Doctor. He wraps my legs around his waist and lifts me whispering to my ear to heal my hand. Next thing I know he yanks my IV out and carries me out of the infirmary to the Doctor’s objections, both of us wrapped in a blanket.

I concentrate on healing my bleeding hand because it somehow helps to numb my thoughts.

Just hand, wound, power, healing.

“Alpha!” I can see over Cain’s shoulder that the Doctor is running after us, but Beta stops him by firmly, putting his hand on Doctor’s chest.

I wrap my arms around Cain’s shoulder tighter and whisper a faint ‘thank you’ into his ear.

“Mhmm,” he purrs back, and I try to anchor the calm feeling I know his body and scent can give me.

I pull my head back to look at him confused, “You smell… different.”

“You too,” he says with a sexy, amused smile .

“No, I mean it. You smell bad.”

He chuckles at that, “Of course, I smell bad. I was laying down with you for five days almost non-stop, and the last few days were full wolf.”

He was? I get this overwhelming feeling of gratitude, so I lean and kiss him because I know that’s his love language.

With my chapped lips. It instantly makes me concentrate on healing them. I know it won’t last long if I don’t drink a gallon of water, but still.

“Nice trick,” he murmurs against my brand-new lips and tightens his hold on my body. “Can you—”

I look into his eyes, knowing what he thoughtlessly wanted to ask, and for a second there, I catch a glimpse of sadness in them.

I shake my head, “I can’t concentrate on that because I… I can’t think of that.”

I think we both realize at this point that my inability to speed-heal the insides of my abdomen is effectively blocking the process at all.

Cain opens the doors of our bedroom and steps inside kicking it back shut after us. He stops abruptly before the bed, and I follow his intense gaze.

The black newborn bodysuit is spread on the bed exactly as I left it there before investigating Cain’s absence.

He really was with me the whole time without coming here even for a moment.

I close my eyes as if it could stop the overwhelming pain burning deep in my soul.

They say a hero would sacrifice you to save the world and a villain would sacrifice the world to save you. I thought I was a hero when I married Cain, but it turned out I was just the villain.

I marched the whole army for you, risked their lives for you, left all others with a Rogue King for you…

“It’s my fault. I chose you over—” That unbearable new realization is stuck in my throat like a painful lump, and I can’t end this sentence.

“I choose you too,” he says quietly. “I can have more kids; I can’t have more of you.”

The thought of any more kids when I can’t have that one, only enhances my excruciating pain.

It makes me desperately hug him with all my strength, like holding to something physical would help me hold on to myself. He squeezes me back and burrows his head in the crook of my neck.

I can’t even be mad at him for saying that to me because it was ultimately what I showed him. I can have more kids; I can’t have more of him.

Except, I can’t have more kids. Not in this state. Maybe never.

And it feels appropriate for my sin.

The self-punishment, if you will.

I’m gently laid down on the bed under the covers, and I reluctantly let go of Cain when he whispers to wait for him. I look after him. He pulls on some black jersey shorts on his naked ass and looks at his phone that was left in the desk’s top drawer. He rubs his temples with his thumb and pointer finger of his right hand before finally stepping in front of the bed and looking at the tiny bodysuit again.

He picks it up. The biggest man I’ve ever seen holding the tiny piece of fabric that barely covers his hand. I soak this bittersweet moment up with a sad smile.

“Claudia bought it for me, and I thought it would help me break the news,” I feel unsure.

“It’s the tiniest and cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” he says smiling, and then looks up at me. “Do you want to keep it?”

“Would you want to keep it? The fetus, I mean.”

He looks back at the bodysuit, carefully folds it, and puts it in one of the desk drawers. I patiently follow his every move, until he’ll be ready to answer. Or maybe that silence is his answer ?

He turns to me, throws me a bottle of water, and stands with his arms defensively crossed under his chest.

“You never fell in love with me, did you?”

I look at him blankly trying to process the source of his question. Is he being self-conscious again? Does he think I didn’t want to keep a baby because it was his? He’s such an arrogantly confident man, but now and then I feel like he cares if I accept him or not—it’s so out of character for him I’m not sure if I read him right.

“I think you would be a great dad,” I say observing his reaction carefully.

He scoffs, looking sideways, “That’s what I thought.”

“Cain—”

“Just… stop, just stop.” He turns around and opens the doors the moment one of the servants is already prepared to knock.

I adjust the covers over my body, and the group of servants bow to me, walking inside with steaming buckets of water.

They promptly leave and a very silent Cain starts preparing a bath for me. Or him. Or us. I have no idea because he doesn’t speak, and I don’t want to vex him more.

I just look at Cain while sipping on the most delicious water bottle mankind has ever tasted.

He finally walks to me and helps me stand up, still without a word. I’m glad I can finally get rid of the mesh panties that only remind me of all my tired—but happily postpartum friends.

“You are bleeding again,” Cain says, looking down, “I’ll ask the Doctor for a—”

“No, he said it is expected,” I cut him off.

“Fine.” He lifts me and walks us into the bathtub that smells like herbs he used after he made his Officers beat me up.

I can’t believe I started a war for this jerk.

“And I won that war for you,” he lets me know, with a smirk, that I forgot to block my thoughts again.

“Sorry,” I mutter, and he gives me a toothbrush and holds a small bucket of water for me to clean my teeth.

When I’m done, he brushes his and starts scrubbing me with his fancy hipster soap and a washcloth.

“Do you always think about me as a jerk?”

“No, when we met, I used to call you a prick.”

“You are lucky you couldn’t mind link me then yet. You know, I keep wondering why you could do it at all…”

I’m too tired for lies, so I just step closer to him, wrap my wet arms around his waist, and pull my chin up, “Kiss me.”

He rolls his eyes and then bends down a little so I can reach his full lips. I capture them in a soft, gentle kiss that quickly becomes hungry and desperate.

He bites on my lower lip like always and pulls away, going back to scrubbing me.

“I think I wanted to keep it and, I guess, never ever forever have sex ever again,” I try to lose the burden burning my whole being, while I mindlessly look at Cain and the way his muscles flex with every move.

His sight is glued to the parts of my body he is cleaning slowly and deliberately, but I can see he listens to every word.

So, I let it all out.

How I wanted to discuss it first with him, ask what he thinks, and what our plans should be—then let him know I don’t want more kids as long as the King can make them fight to the death, in case that wasn’t clear before.

When I’m silent for a few seconds more, he looks up at me, no words, just waiting. So, I vent some more, and he goes back to cleaning me. About how much I hate his father, how scared I was, how infuriating his getting kidnapped idea was, and how much more infuriating it was that he didn’t trust me with his plan and lied.

I vent so long that my freshly washed hair is already getting dry, the water is almost cold, and Cain doesn’t have anyone more to scrub clean.

He sits opposite me, head and forearms resting on the bathtub’s rim, his facial muscles completely relaxed, making him look a little bit bored, but he is patiently listening.

“And I feel so fucking cheated, you know?” I hit the water between us, splashing him, and he clicks his tongue, irritated, but still doesn’t say a word. “I didn’t want to have kids, but then… and now… I don’t know… It’s… I feel…”

I can’t talk about it . Not yet. I splash the water again, and Cain catches my wrists, water dripping from his face. He yanks me up a little bit too harshly for my state and puts me out of the tub.

I throw him a towel and start to dry myself, too, but get dizzy. He immediately picks me up and carries me to the bed.

He goes around to my wardrobe and throws panties at me. “And that pink toiletry bag, please.”

He looks at it a few seconds too long and finally brings it too. Then, when I’m done putting my underwear and liner on, he climbs under the covers with me.

“Why are you taking care of me when you have so many servants and even more responsibilities,” I ask, genuinely curious.

Cain has the biggest pack of werewolves in the world—with possible warzones on two fronts, and he is here with all this patience and silent support. And he never left my side for a week while I was in the hospital. He’s not going anywhere now either, just climbing on top of me, and it looks like the middle of the day, “Is it Sunday?”

“I take care of what’s mine,” he says in my ear in his husky, low, devilish voice. “And you are mine.”

“I’m not. ”

“I chose you, and I claimed you,” he says with a smirk, pointing his chin at the mark on my neck. “ You are mine.”

“I am not,” I repeat stubbornly.

“Sure,” he chuckles, “And I’m not completely in love with you.”