001 | Marital Crisis

Aurora’s POV

I stared down at the pregnancy test. My heart pounded. Another ten seconds, nine, eight…

It was time. I swallowed hard, squeezed my eyes shut, and then–

I looked down. My hands shook where they held it. I tried to focus my gaze on the trembling test.

Two pink lines stared back at me. I gasped; a sob built in my throat. I clutched the pregnancy test to my chest, kicked my legs, and whispered to myself, “I’m going to have a baby!”

Tears streamed down my cheeks. I let them fall, gazing down lovingly at my flat stomach, cupping it with one hand and still clinging onto the test with the other. “I’m going to have a baby,” I breathed again, my eyes widening.

Finally.

After three years of marriage, Ethan and I were going to have a baby. I smiled as I cried, imagining my belly swelling with our child, imagining Ethan pressing his hands to my pregnant belly and singing sweet songs to our little one. 

He’d always wanted to be a dad, just as much as I’d wanted to be a mum. But it wasn’t just the two of us that wanted this, that needed this; it was our whole pack. With every year that passed – heck, every month – the pressure from our wolves grew and grew.

We needed an heir to secure our positions as Alpha and Luna of the Silver Shade Pack. I’d always known we’d have one, despite the callous whispers I heard around the pack.

“She can’t conceive.”

“That’s what happens when you mate with an Omega.”

“There won’t ever be a baby – unless he cheats.”

“Of course he’ll cheat. What can an Omega give him, really?”

I dabbed at my tears and murmured, “We’ve proved them wrong, little one. You’ll prove to them that I’m worthy of being their Luna, and you’ll grow up as the strongest kid in this pack. Everything will work out now.”

As an Alpha, Ethan needed an heir to continue his legacy. As his Luna, I needed to provide him with one.

Nobody had ever expected him to fall in love with me.

Three years ago, just after my eighteenth birthday, I’d been working as a maid to put myself through college. I was stationed at banquets for big bosses and powerful Alphas – and it was at one such party that I’d met Ethan.

I hadn’t thought he’d even look at me, let alone acknowledge me as his mate. He was everything a girl like me dreamed of, with his dark hair, always artfully dishevelled, with his smirking, arrogant lips, and those eyes…

They were so brown they almost looked black – and they’d been fixed on me.

Not a week later, we’d become a couple. A month after that, he’d asked me to marry him.

And now we were going to be a family. “Ah!” I squealed, grinning to myself.

I couldn’t wait to tell him. I stood up from the bed, my legs wobbly, and crossed over to the window to call him. I looked outside, watching a crow come to land in the tree opposite my window, as the phone rang. My breath hitched on every missed beat. Come on, Ethan, I thought, answer…

The call didn’t connect. I pulled the phone away from my ear and frowned down at it, disappointment swelling in my chest. It wasn’t like him to not answer a call from me, even if he was busy.

‘I’m sure he’s just in a meeting,’ my wolf, Violet, said gently. 

‘Yeah,’ I agreed, but something in my gut twisted. ‘I’m sure that’s it.’

Not wanting to think about it, I headed downstairs and started making dinner. My disappointment ebbed away, becoming excitement again as I scattered rose petals over the table and laid out candles. If I couldn’t call him, then I’d cook him a candlelit dinner and tell him in person instead. 

‘Now that’s romantic,’ sighed Violet. ‘Him not answering is a good thing. Maybe it was even fate!’

I couldn’t quite shake my worry. On the rare occasions that Ethan couldn’t take my calls, he always rang me back as soon as he could. But dinner was ready, and the table was laid, and I still hadn’t heard from him.

I turned the stove down and left dinner warming on it. Something big must’ve come up at his meeting, I decided, and I flopped onto the couch and flicked the TV on.

My eyes fluttered closed. I tugged the blanket off the back of it and snuggled in, inhaling the warm aroma of spices coming from the kitchen.

Bang!

I jerked awake. “Ethan?” I called, sitting up and stretching. 

I squinted into the darkness. The sun had been setting when I’d dozed off, so I hadn’t left any lights on. The curtains were still open; it was cloudy outside, the air thick with pressure. A storm was rolling in.

A figure shifted in the darkness. I jumped. “Ethan, is that you?”

The shadowed figure stepped towards me. My eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the darkness. My belly fluttered.

It wasn’t just me I had to protect now.

I gulped.

“Who’s there?” I asked, drawing the blanket off my legs slowly. 

My eyes finally adjusted. I saw a hard jaw, a muscle bunching in it. I saw artfully tussled hair. I saw brown eyes, so dark they were almost black.

I frowned. “Ethan? What are you doing?”

At last he spoke – but his voice didn’t sound like his own. “What am I doing?” He laughed coldly. “What are you doing, Aurora?”

“What am I–”

He cut me off. “I never expected you to be such a despicable person,” he snarled. “I thought you were my mate, my partner, my Luna. I didn’t think you were capable of this.”

My eyebrows shot up. I tried to reach for his arm; he shook my hand off. “Capable of what? Ethan, I don’t understand. Talk to me.”

He scoffed. “There’s no point talking to a liar like you.”

“A liar?” I stumbled back, hurt. “What have I lied about?”

My head spun with a thousand possible explanations. Did he know about our baby? How could he? I’d only just found out myself!

I blinked back tears. I hadn’t lied about anything! “Ethan,” I said slowly, taking a deep breath, “tell me what I’ve lied about. I don’t understand.”

Ethan just shook his head. “There’s no point. You’ll only deny it.”

“No, let’s talk about this. I’m not a liar.” My tone slipped; I didn’t want to sound like I was begging, but I couldn’t help it. I was desperate. He never spoke to me like this. “Please, Eth. You know me.”

He backed away and picked something up. Without saying a word, he marched over to me and shoved it into my hands.

The writing on the paper trembled as my hands shook. It took me a moment to process what I was reading. When I did, I let out a cry.

“No,” I whimpered.

“I want a divorce,” he said flatly.

My world spun. Stood there in the dark, opposite him, not touching, the divorce agreement held between us, I couldn’t believe that this was really happening. It felt like a dream.

No – it felt like a nightmare.

“Why?” I eventually managed to rasp. 

Ethan just shook his head again. 

I dropped the papers and crossed my arms. “You can’t do this to me! You don’t get to decide this alone and not even tell me what I’ve done.”

He sneered at me. “I can and I will.”

“But I – I’m pregnant!” I blurted out. 

A sob built in my throat. I pictured the candles on the table in the dining room, waiting to be lit. They never would be, now. I saw our dinner going cold on the stove, saw the plates being put away, unused, and I saw the evening I’d planned disappear into dust.

This wasn’t how I’d wanted to tell him about our baby. I’d never thought I’d be using our child as a bargaining chip, as a way to get him to stay. The back of my nose burned with tears I didn’t want to let fall in front of him.

His eyebrows arched up in surprise; the corner of his lips lifted. He replaced that tiny shred of emotion with an icy mask of disdain.

 “Get rid of it.” 

My heart shattered. I opened and closed my mouth uselessly. He – he wanted me to… I couldn’t…

“You don’t deserve to bear my child.”

“But I… I’m your mate,” I whispered, clutching at my chest. The pain was physical. My blood pounded in my ears. White light flared across my vision.

“Not anymore.” His tone was clipped. “I, Ethan Savage, reject you, Aurora Everheart.”

The pain built and built, a tidal wave rising high above me – and then it crashed down, smashing me to pieces. My heart was torn from my chest and sliced apart. Bruised and battered, half of it removed, it struggled to beat.

I fell to my knees. The dull smack of them into the floor barely registered against the pain of his rejection.

Agony flowed through me like a river. Pain and sorrow joined hands to assault me, their claws like knives raking down my soul.

It was too much to bear.

I passed out.