I Loved You Through Seven Losses Chapter 01
Roxie Reed’s POV:
On her deathbed, my best friend, Sienna Miller, grabbed my hand and started confessing.
“Roxie… the thing I regret most is that bet I made with Asher and your brother.”
“I won, and I said off the top of my head that you’d never get to have Asher’s pup.”
“I never thought they’d hold to it for the rest of their lives.”
“Every time you got pregnant, they dosed you with trace amounts of wolfsbane.”
“Asher told you it was your body that couldn’t hold on, and your brother performed all seven of those procedures himself.”
I stared at her moving lips, and my chest felt like it was tearing open.
As the mate of Asher Blackwood, Alpha of the Blackwood Pack, I had been pregnant seven times over the past few decades, and seven times they emptied my womb.
Every pup I lost left my womb weaker, and my wolf withered right along with it.
One more time, and the two of us would be gone for good.
My brother Garrett Reed, the Pack’s Head Healer, blamed my body for being too weak to ever carry to term.
Asher wouldn’t let me try again either, and he refused to let me take the risk.
I lived forty years carrying that regret and that guilt, and all of it came down to one careless line in a bet.
Blood came up out of me and sprayed across the white sheets, and everything went dark.
When I opened my eyes, I was back on the day of the mating ceremony.
Sienna stood there in her bridesmaid dress with red rims around her eyes, staring at my stomach.
“Roxie, congratulations. Two blessings at once.”
I tore off my veil and headed straight for the human hospital in town.
To hell with all of it.
The game was over.
*****
The first thing I did after I ran out of Blackwood Manor was book an abortion on my phone.
The confirmation text had barely come through when Asher came after me.
“Roxie, what’s wrong?”
“Is the morning sickness hitting you again?”
The man standing in front of me looked like the perfect Pack Alpha, gentle and attentive, with love for me in every breath he took.
He had handed over every credit card in his name, carried every duty the Pack put on him, and sworn he would never lie to me.
I had never once imagined that this man, my own mate, had coldly and deliberately killed seven unborn pups in my womb for the sake of my best friend.
Before I could get a word out, Garrett came out after him, dark-faced and impatient.
“Roxie, listen to me. The Elders our parents respected are sitting right inside. Stop making a scene.”
“Don’t make Mom and Dad worry about you from the grave!”
I looked at him and couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
I wanted to scream it straight into his ear.
“What about you? You were my blood. You were the only family I had left in this world, and you helped kill seven of my pups over Sienna’s sick little game.”
But I held it in.
I turned to Asher and held his eyes. “Asher, I’m only going to ask you once.”
“Is there anything you’re keeping from me about this pup?”
His eyes cut to Sienna before he could stop himself, and panic flashed through the gold in them.
“Of course not!”
“Roxie, are your hormones all over the place? Is that what this is?”
Sienna’s eyes went redder at that.
Garrett saw her tears and bared his teeth.
“Roxie, being pregnant isn’t an excuse to act like an animal!”
“Look at yourself. What kind of mother would you make? Maybe you shouldn’t be carrying this pup at all!”
Right then, a firework opened in the night sky behind them and lit up the whole horizon.
The light shivered across Asher’s face and laid every bit of his guilt bare.
I pulled the Luna ring off my finger and pressed it into his palm.
“Asher, we’re done. I reject you, and I reject your mark.”
Then I turned and flagged down a cab. “St. Mary’s Hospital.”
I masked my scent and shut down the pack link.
I set my phone to silent.
Lying on the table, I couldn’t hold the tears back anymore.
The cold anesthetic went into my blood, and I shook all over.
I laid my hand on my stomach and whispered to the little life that would never see moonlight.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart…”
“I can’t let you be born next to a father who doesn’t know how to love.”
“Come back to me next time, and I’ll give you the home you deserve.”