Chapter 141
No.
Impossible.
There’s no way that’s possible,
No.
I’m pregnant.
Rya
First light of the day filters in through the blinds, its beam unhurried while it travels across. the wooden floor in a show of time crawling slowly forward.
Fingers probing low, I feel for that hardness that’s just below the surface of the skin. The telltale sign of a lining that’s building a nest for my future inside me. Feeling it, just the slightest, barely there swell. Not noticeable if I wasn’t trained to look.
How could I have been so blind about myself?
How did I miss all the signs that were in front of my nose?
Looking back, I put each piece together. The big neon sign in my mind going off. I’ve been an idiot not to recognize what my own body was telling me. Everything made sense: the increased appetite for food, then seeing Dallas, how my appetite grew for much more than food. How he fed my body over and over again with his nutrients.
Sometimes the most educated wolves are the most blinded when it comes to themselves.
Part of me wants to keep this little secret safe and secure for just a few more weeks. There’s time to tell, but do I really want to tell?
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Do I want Dallas to forgive me because I’m carrying his future? Maybe he will only take me back out of obligation, staying with me because of our young. I don’t want that for him or for me. I want him to want me without knowing this. But then I shouldn’t keep this from
him either.
Decisions.
Picking up the phone, I dial Lama Grace. I hold my breath. Please be home.
There are a few rings before a tired voice answers the other end.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Luna Grace, this is Rya.”
“Rya.” A little crack of her throat. “Thank you for calling.” It’s as if her voice is on autopilot, as if someone else is guiding her to say the right words for the occasion.
“Luna Grace, are you all right?” I’ve never heard this side of her before.
“Rya, you haven’t heard?” My heart starts to tick just a little faster, apprehension prickling the back of my neck.
“Heard what, Luna Grace?” I
wobble of anxiety, the sun Can’t control the rise of panic coming through in words. The
wobble of anxiety, the small tremor in fingers that holds the phone.
A pause.
Muffled cry.
“Rya, I’m so sorry to tell you this, but…” I could picture her sitting down with what she needs to say, the heaviness so great in her voice it actually weighs me down into a sitting position.
“Rya, Kennedy had the pups late last night-” Luna Grace begins to paint the picture in words of grief.
“The pregnancy was hard on her body, weakening it. The labor was long. She just wasn’t
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Chapter 141
strong enough with the demands of having twins.” Another pause, trying to get tight
emotions under control.
Bracing myself for the
at the center of my che
1 sentence is like trying to stand against a sledgehammer aiming
“She just couldn’t push the first out. The twins were in distress. She started to hemorrhage. They couldn’t stop the bleeding.” It’s as if she’s reliving it again. Cries so deep, short intakes of breath. Her words become unclear, my vision blurring and unfocused, words slipping into one another with the strangulation of breath.
“A decision was made to use silver. She couldn’t push them out. We had to take them.” She stops to gather herself, sniffling into the phone.
“She already lost a lot of blood. She understood what was happening almost to the very end,
until she couldn’t keep her eyes open. She put her best effort to stay with us, with them,
with Cash.” It takes Luna Grace time to rein in the storm of emotions. “She was able to see
her beauties before-”
Wiping away my own tears, it’s hard to swallow with the constriction I feel in my throat. Luna Grace takes a few minutes to regain her composure just enough to say the next line.
“She passed away in Cash’s arms last night.”
Crumpling, the sledgehammer strikes true, dead center.
“Cash, my poor Cassius.” Luna Grace’s pain is a horror to my ears.
“We don’t have enough nursing mothers in the pack to support two pups. I don’t think we can even support one.” Hearts know pain, and mine is now experiencing pain on a whole.
new level.
The realization of life hitting me in the face, how life easily begins to quickly end.
Mothers have a hard time sharing what is meant for their young. Survival of the fittest. If you can’t provide, then yours die. Every feeding is needed to a growing pup. To take one away is not noticed, but to take several feedings away, then the growth and development are affected. No mother will endanger her pup for someone else’s, no matter whose it is.
Instinct.
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“They’re beautiful, Rya. They look like Kennedy. They have her eyes.” Another muffled cry and I cry along with her.
She has now become t
neral hymn that they will sing about.
“What can I do, Luna Grace?” I feel helpless, useless.
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