For His First Love's Leg, the Alpha Stripped Me of My Right to Be a Mother

By midnight, the pain pump was empty.

I pressed the call button once. Then twice.

No one came.

A third press finally brought a young nurse into the room. Her badge read EMILY CARTER. She glanced at the dark display on the pump and went pale.

"I'm sorry, Luna. This should have been replaced twenty minutes ago."

"Then replace it."

She hesitated. "I need the attending physician to sign the refill."

"Call him."

"Dr. Evans is in the east wing."

Of course he was.

"Why?"

Emily lowered her voice. "Miss Vanessa is having a panic episode. Alpha Thorne requested the surgical team stay nearby until her heart rate settles."

The first unmedicated wave hit hard enough to blur my vision.

I pulled Damon's coat over my hospital gown and stood.

Emily stepped in front of the door. "Please don't. Your blood pressure is low."

"Then get me the signature."

"I can't leave the floor unattended."

"Neither can I lie here while my stitches feel like they're on fire."

I took the refill form from her hand and walked.

The east wing looked nothing like mine. Someone had dimmed the lights. Fresh lilies filled two vases outside Vanessa's suite, and a tray of untouched food sat beside the door.

Her crying reached me before I saw her.

"Every time I close my eyes, I hear the truck."

I stopped in the hall.

Damon sat on the edge of her bed. Vanessa clutched his forearm with both hands while he rubbed slow circles between her shoulders.

"You're safe," he murmured. "Breathe with me."

Noah sat cross-legged near her feet, peeling an orange with serious concentration.

"You can stay with us when you get out," he said. "Our house is huge."

Vanessa sniffed. "I don't want to cause problems."

"You won't," Noah promised. "Dad won't let Mom be mean to you."

Damon's hand stopped moving.

"Noah," he warned.

"What? She was mad at Vanessa all day."

I stepped into the doorway.

Vanessa saw me first. Her eyes widened. She recoiled against the pillows.

"Damon."

He turned.

His gaze dropped to the blood staining the front of my hospital gown.

He stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor. "Aria."

"I need Dr. Evans."

"You shouldn't be walking."

"My pain medication ran out."

Dr. Evans emerged from behind the privacy curtain, still holding Vanessa's chart.

I extended the form.

He looked embarrassed. "Luna, I can have a nurse -"

"Sign it."

He did.

The pen trembled in his hand.

I noticed that.

So did Emily, who had followed me despite her fear of leaving the station.

Damon took a step toward me. "Let me bring you back."

I moved away before he could touch me.

Vanessa pressed a hand to her chest. "I'm sorry. This is my fault. I didn't know you were in pain."

"No," I said. "You only knew I lost my child."

Her face tightened for one second before the fragile expression returned.

Noah slid off the bed. "Mom, don't start again. Aunt Vanessa is scared."

I looked at him.

He crossed his arms, copying Damon without realizing it.

"You should say sorry for scaring her in the doorway."

Damon's eyes closed briefly. "Noah, enough."

"But -"

"Enough."

I turned before either of them could see how badly that hurt.

Emily walked beside me to the elevator. Halfway down the hall, she slowed.

"Luna?"

"What?"

She glanced behind us.

"There was something strange about Miss Vanessa's intake."

I stopped.

Emily swallowed. "I was on trauma intake when the ambulance came in. I saw her first scans before Dr. Evans took over."

The corridor seemed to narrow around us.

"What did they show?"

"I shouldn't say anything without documentation."

"Then don't say it without documentation."

Her eyes darted to the ceiling camera.

"Go back to your room," she whispered. "Lock the door."

"Emily -"

"Please."

She hurried toward the nurses' station.

I returned to my room and waited.

Emily replaced the pain medication herself after Dr. Evans signed the form. The first dose took the sharpest edge off the incision, but it did nothing for the pressure behind my ribs. I lay awake listening to footsteps pass my door. Twice I heard Damon's voice in the hallway. Neither time did he come in. The second time, he was telling a nurse to move a reclining chair into Vanessa's suite because he planned to stay until she slept.

At 2:10 a.m., my phone lit with a message from my lawyer, Rachel Pierce, checking whether I still wanted her to hold the divorce draft we had prepared the previous month. I had asked for it after Damon missed our anniversary dinner to handle another of Vanessa's "emergencies." At the time, I had not been ready to file. Pregnancy had made me desperate to believe the family could still be repaired.

I typed one sentence.

File nothing yet. Send me the mate-severance requirements.

Her reply came six minutes later with a warning that unilateral severance required proof of serious endangerment. I stared at that phrase until another set of footsteps stopped outside my door.

I checked the time again. Damon had been in Vanessa's room for nearly two hours. No one had asked whether I needed help washing, standing, or even getting to the bathroom. Emily eventually returned with a walker and helped me back into bed without making conversation. At the door, she paused.

"Luna, I am sorry nobody came sooner."

"You came. That is enough."

Her eyes filled with something close to anger. "It should not have to be."

Twenty minutes later, someone slid a folded sheet of paper beneath the door.

My hand shook once before I forced it still. Whatever was on that page could not hurt me more than ignorance already had.

I picked it up.

It was a photocopy of Vanessa's original emergency assessment.

The final line had been circled in black ink.

I unfolded the page under the bedside lamp and forced myself to read every line, not just the circled conclusion.

AMPUTATION RISK: ZERO.

Below it, Emily had written four words by hand.

They ordered this destroyed.