“Stop it, I am not pregnant.”
But Dominic did not paid any attention to my words, He yanked me towards himself, urgently trying to confirm the pregnancy.
"You have done well, this is perfect timing." he said, almost to himself. "Mom is expecting you to give birth to atleast five sons, even if there are one or two daughters along the way, it is of no issue." He grabbed my arm, already pushing me inside the bathroom.
"Go. Take the test. We need to confirm."
I stood there, shaking. My hand pressed to my hollow womb.
Earlier, the excitement that made butterflies flutter in my stomach now appeared excessively hypocritical.
Minutes later, I opened the door. The test in my hand indicating what I had already known all along.
[Not pregnant.]
Dominic took it from my fingers. His face, which had held a flicker of hope, darknened immediately.
"Negative." His voice was quiet. Controlled. "How?"
He grabbed my shoulders gently and yet his eyes that bore into my skull were full of suspicion. "Don’t tell me….are you taking contraceptives behind my back?"
“Now that you say it.” I gritted my teeth “I regret not taking them sooner.”
“Elara!”
Dominic snapped before he pinched the bridge of his nose like it was another tantrum.
"We've been trying for months now! Right when I desperately need an heir blessed with a white wolf, you fail me again!” He stopped, looking at me like a tool that had gone faulty.
“Every single time something goes wrong. You conceive, and then…you fucking miscarry.” He stepped closer. "Something is wrong with your womb, Elara-”
“Wrong?” My wet lashes quivered as I barely looked at him, suppressing my erupting hatred.
Two years ago, heartbroken, with wide open eyes, I had bled on the operating table as the doctors removed my seven-month-old fully developed fetus from my body.
It was then I had heard the doctor whisper to my ‘devastated’ husband:
‘Alpha, Luna’s womb is badly scarred. She needs time to heal. Even if she is a pureblood omega her body cannot endure another pregnancy so soon. If pushed again… she may not survive.’
Yet a week later, Dominic still walked into our bedroom and gently fed me a soup laced with the fertility serum that immediately forced any she-wolf into heat.
That night, he had embraced me, apologizing with bloodshot eyes:
‘Elara, my uncle is eyeing the Alpha position. I received a report that he is colluding with rogues to usurp my throne. I don't know how long I will live to accompany you but…only with strong heirs can I protect you...so don’t hate me.’
He was the one who ruined me step by step and yet, still had the audacity to blame me?
"Wasn’t this all orchestrated by you?!" I spat. "Even when the doctor said my body couldn’t bear to carry another pregnancy-”
“The doctor knows nothing!” His jaw clenched hard “Your body is made for this!”
Made for this.
His words landed like a fist to my gut, knocking the air straight out of my lungs.
He kept pushing my broken body into heat. After every miscarriage, he waited weeks, sometimes days and tried again.
And all along he thought my body was made to endure such pain?
The truth that I have been avoiding since so long stood stark naked at this moment. In all five years of marriage, Dominic had never once seen me as his mate…from the first day of our marriage he had been planning a glorious return for my adopted sister.
Since she was a human who could not survive giving birth to an Alpha pup he was using me as her surrogate all along.
My fingers curled sharply at my sides despite the agony jabbing my heart.
“Elara, even if you had contraceptives these days.” Dominic stepped closer, towering over me. "...It ends tonight. You are my wife, so don’t forget it's your duty to serve your husband."
My blood turned to ice as he embraced me, his fingers already unbuttoning my top.
For a second I almost lost all my reason and shoved him away hard.
"No! I don’t want it!"
Dominic's eyes turned cold. "No? Are you refusing me now?"
He frowned, racking his fingers through his hair before looking at me with quiet, terrible certainty.
"Elara. Have you completely forgotten who is the one keeping your White Luna Pack afloat now? Your mother and little brother all depend upon me.”
Blood rushed to my ears and for a moment I almost thought I misheard before he continued.
“If you don't behave, you can forget about your father's medical treatment."
My father-Alpha Alexander of the White Luna Pack was Dominic’s mentor, the man who helped him claim his position as Alpha and treated him like a son.
His last words before falling into a coma by poison was to ask Dominic to protect me for life.
And now he was using my own father as a bait?
The fight drained out of me like blood from an open wound. My arms fell limp at my sides before trembling as they fumbled with the hem of my shirt.
Dominic sighed. “Now, its not that hard is it?” His eyes didn't waver. They moved over my body like he was inspecting livestock.
I pulled the shirt over my head, my skin burning raw as his took in my breasts, my stomach, the scars from the miscarriages pale, silvery lines he had never bothered to notice before.
When he laid me down on bed I clenched my jaw tightly, tears pooling in my eyes as my body trembled beneath him while he took whatever he wanted and labeled it as love.
"Get cleaned up." He finished, standing up before straightening his clothes.
Minutes passed as I turned my head away, my entire body quivering as I refused to even glance at him.
All those innocent memories I had clung to like a lifeline now appeared like a brand of red hot iron on my soul.
Eight years ago, the son of a rival Alpha had cornered me in the garden almost ready to defile me when Dominic found us.
Beating the man until he lay unconscious in a pool of his own blood, Dominic hadn’t even cared about the punishment that came as fifty whiplashes, splitting his back open.
The mate who raped me tonight was the same boy who pulled me close beneath his blanket that night, his arms trembling around me. ‘No one’ he had whispered against my hair ‘dares lay their hands on you Elara.’
Watching my frail back shuddering with silent sobs, Dominic’s tone softened a bit “Elara, I am doing everything for your own good.”
Good?
Building a life where Amelia would have your heart and throne, and I would have the storage room and secret midnight visits like a dirty mistress was for my good?
“If you take care of Amelia she will recover soon….once she is completely stable, I will tell her the truth about our arranged marriage, I am sure she will forgive you.”
Forgive me?
Something inside me snapped, anger seeping through cracks in my composure.
In four days I will reject you.
This mate bond that you trampled upon…I will tear it apart with my own hands.
I will become the first she-wolf in wereworld to reject her mate.
