Chapter 5
Serena
The first thing I noticed was the sound.
A slow, rhythmic beep cutting through my unconsciousness. My eyes fluttered open, but the light pierced my skull so sharply that I winced, immediately turning my head to the side.
A chemical smell wafted into my nostrils, pulling me further into awareness.
When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw white walls, a tiled ceiling, and a fluorescent lamp buzzing overhead. My gaze landed on a clear plastic tube snaking down my arm.
I was in the hospital, but I couldn’t quite remember how I had gotten there.
The memories arrived in a flood: thunder, heavy rain hammering the roof, and the sudden fear that had seized me before I collapsed onto the cold floor.
“Kieran?” I whispered.
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Before losing consciousness, I had called him, praying he would come for me.
I felt a flicker of hope.
Surely he was the one who brought me here. He wouldn’t abandon me; everything was just a misunderstanding.
We would talk, clear the air, and things would go back to the way they were.
He loved me.
A small smile tugged at my lips.
I pressed my palm against the bed to sit up, but a sharp pain shot through my wrist.
“Ahhh!” I cried out.
The door swung open and heavy footsteps rushed toward me. A woman in scrubs approached, checking the monitors beside my bed before speaking in a low voice.
“You’re in the intensive care unit,” she explained. “You collapsed due to stress and exhaustion.”
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I swallowed, trying to steady my breathing.
ICU.
I could hardly believe what happened had been that complicated to have landed me in an ICU.
“And… there’s something else,” the doctor continued, almost gently. “You’re pregnant.”
The air left my lungs in a single, soundless gasp.
Pregnant?
My mind reeled back to the last time he had touched me. My heart pounded against my ribs as I tried to recall if we had used protection, but my memory refused to cooperate, dissolving into static.
My throat tightened. “Did you… tell anyone?”
“No,” the doctor replied immediately. “This is confidential patient information. No one else knows.”
Relief washed over me, shaky and incomplete.
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I touched my abdomen. The sudden arrival of this little
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life left my mind blank, and I almost thought of Kieran immediately.
Just then, the handle clicked and the door swung open again. Someone entered the room. My breath caught, my heart leaping to my throat. Hope lit up inside me, wild and desperate.
Kieran.
He came. He brought me here. He cared.
My smile returned, trembling at the corners.
Until the figure came into view.
It wasn’t Kieran.
It was Jenna. Kieran’s younger sister.
“Oh my God,” she breathed, sitting on the edge of my bed and taking my hand. “How are you feeling? I was so scared.”
The fragile hope I had allowed myself to feel shattered instantly.
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I had expected him to save me. I had even decided that if he showed up, I would ignore everything that had happened and find a way to forgive him.
But he had failed me again.
His absence was loud.
“Kieran wasn’t here,” Jenna said softly, her gaze dropping to our joined hands. “I went to the house last night because he wasn’t answering his phone. The power was out, and I found you on the floor.”
I slowly turned my face toward the wall. I had been abandoned in the kitchen like something insignificant. My wolf stirred weakly, a low whine echoing through my
chest.
“How long was I out?” I asked looking between the doctor and Jenna.
“We don’t know.” The doctor responded. “You were lucky to have been brought here just in time.”
Lucky.
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How was this lucky?
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Was it luck to wake up to a life where my mate chose someone else while I lay dying in the dark? Tears slid into my hair, soaking the pillow.
“I guess, I’ll leave you two.” The doctor said before walking away.
“I called him,” I whispered, my voice trembling, “but he had turned his phone off.”
Jenna cursed under her breath and pressed her forehead to my hand. “I know. I’m so sorry.”
Whatever it was, her apology or the simple fact that she was tied to him, I couldn’t hold it back anymore.
Five years of justifying his behavior and taking whatever scraps of affection he offered finally broke me. My shoulders shook as my wolf howled inside me, mourning a bond that had never truly been ours.
When the sobs finally faded into exhaustion, Jenna spoke quietly. “Serena, what’s going on between you and my brother?”
Estaged at the wall.
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“I’m divorcing him.”
This incident solidified everything. What used to be uncertainty has become urgency.
Jenna’s head snapped up. “What? You can’t decide this right now. You’re hurt and emotional.”
“This is the clearest I’ve ever been,” I replied.
“I know he’s messed up,” she said, dragging a hand through her hair. “I know Sophie being back complicates things, but-”
“You knew?” I turned toward her.
She nodded slowly. “I went to the house last night to tell you. I thought it was better if you heard it from me.”
“So you know he still loves her,” I said, my voice eerily steady. “He chose her over and over again. And when I lost consciousness on the floor, he didn’t come back.”
We were quiet for a beat. Jenna looked away first.
can’t do this anymore,” I continued. “I can’t keep loying
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someone who treats me like this.”
She stood slowly, smoothing the blanket with trembling hands. “I’m sorry for everything.”
There was so much more beneath her apology, regret, guilt, helplessness. I felt it all, but it didn’t change what I had to do.
“I’ve decided to divorce him,” I said finally. My chest tightened around those words, but I didn’t take them back.
Jenna’s eyes widened. “You’re serious.”
I nodded.
She sank into the chair again, staring at me as though trying to read my heart. “I just… I don’t know if ending everything is the answer. I think…” she hesitated, lowering her voice, “…I think he still loves you.”
Oh, I wanted to believe that. More than anyone I wanted to believe that his heart actually belonged to me. But repeated actions have proven otherwise.
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I pressed a hand over my abdomen. A life existed there
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now. His child. Our child. Was I expected to stay and
take his maltreatment because we have a child? Because I
loved him?
“But love isn’t enough,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if I was speaking to her or myself.
Jenna leaned forward. “I’m not saying what he did wasn’t wrong. I’m not asking you to forgive him today or tomorrow. I just…” her voice cracked, “I just think you should talk to him first. Maybe don’t make a decision like this while you’re lying in a hospital bed.”
My breath wavered.
Just like her, I wanted to believe I could make this work. But I just couldn’t.
“Jenna,” I said quietly, “he didn’t choose me.”
“He might,” she argued softly. “He might surprise you. He always loved you, even when he didn’t know how to show it. Sophie being back… it shook him. It shook all of us. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you now.”
The goom fell still. My heart thudded unevenly, tangled in
fear and hope and definite longing for him.
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I turned my face away. “I don’t know what to do.”
Jenna eased to her feet, lingering beside the bed as though waiting for me to stop her, to ask her to stay, to confess that I wasn’t strong enough to walk away.
But instead, I exhaled and said, “Let me think for a while. I just… need time. Will you leave first?”
Her brows pinched with concern, but she nodded. “Call me if you need anything.”
When the door closed behind her, the silence settles heavily.
I lowered a hand to my stomach, palm flat against the thin fabric of the hospital gown.
A child.
His child.
Mine.
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