The Alpha Didn’t Repent Until I Was Gone Chapter 02
The second I reached my rooms, I knew something was wrong.
The door stood wide open.
My maid, Vera, was on the floor, half her face swollen from a vicious slap.
Still, she clung to the steward’s sleeve and cried through busted lips, “Don’t burn them. Miss Olivia made those for her babies…”
I looked past her.
The fireplace was roaring.
Inside it were the tiny clothes and little shoes I’d sewn by hand for three months. More than ten pieces. All for my baby.
Even the moonstone charm I’d just had blessed by the elder was burning in the fire.
“No!”
I threw myself toward the flames.
Two guards grabbed me and yanked me back.
“Lady Olivia, the Alpha gave the order,” one of them said. “These things belong to dead children. They have to be burned.”
The steward added calmly, “Alpha also said this is to keep you from putting a curse on them and harming Eloise’s baby.”
I watched the fire swallow everything.
The tiny clothes. The little shoes. The moonstone charm.
All blackened. All gone.
My knees gave out. I dropped to the floor.
Tears kept pouring down my face.
The heat from the fire burned my skin, but inside, all I felt was cold.
I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.
My babies, I’m sorry.
I couldn’t protect you.
I couldn’t even protect the things I made for you.
I cried until the room spun. Then I passed out.
When I woke up, Vera was kneeling by my bed.
She had a steaming cloth in her hand and kept wiping my forehead.
“Lady Olivia, your body’s in terrible shape. I’ll go get Alpha. I’ll make him call a healer—”
“Don’t.”
My voice came out cracked and raw.
Vera froze. “Lady Olivia…”
“It’s okay,” I lied. “In three days, I’ll be fine.”
She looked confused, but she nodded and stayed.
While she wiped my face, I felt something under my pillow.
I reached in and found one tiny shoe.
Soft silver-gray. A smiling little wolf stitched on the toe.
It was the one I never finished. The one I hid away.
I rubbed it over and over, but it still couldn’t fill the hole inside me.
For months, that baby had grown inside me.
At first, the movement was weak. Then he got stronger.
Sometimes he kicked so hard my whole stomach jumped.
I pictured him a thousand times.
Wearing those little shoes. Running into my arms. Calling me Mommy in that sweet baby voice.
But now my belly was flat again. Warm under my hand. Empty.
Then footsteps sounded outside.
Light. Slow. Deliberate.
Eloise Kessick walked in, one hand over the slight swell that hadn’t even started showing yet, with maids and servants behind her.
She smiled like she owned the place.
“All of you, wait outside. I want to speak with my sister alone.”