I Bore His Heirs, Then I Vanished novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Another Child
Morven agrees to carry a second child for the Luna, the healer carries her newborn daughter away, and in front of the whole pack she takes the baby back, rejects her mate and crosses the river, where Greywater's Alpha stares at the white lock on the baby's head.
The Luna asked for my womb at the breakfast table, in front of eight elders.
My son sat among them on a cushion with jam on his chin.
He was four years old. He called the Luna Mama, and he called me by a nickname, like a nurse.
"The first one was an easy carry," the Beta said, and buttered his toast. "The Luna wants a second child. You'll give her one."
Everyone in the pack knew why.
Eight years ago the Luna took a silver spear meant for her husband, and the wound left her unable to bear pups.
Nobody ever said what it cost me to be the one who could.
I looked at my fated mate, the Alpha.
He had named her his Luna the week after the spear, and a year later he found me and never took it back.
He cut his sausage and did not look up.
Delphine reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
"Only if you want to, Morven. I would never force you."
Her palm was warm. She had carried my tea in from the kitchen herself.
"Once more," Aldric said to his plate. "Then it's finished, and I'll make it right."
I said yes.
I had been saying yes to him for seven years.
I carried that child for ten months in the east wing behind the kitchen.
Every month Delphine sat me down with a small brown bottle and painted over the white lock at my temple.
"The pack stares at you enough," she said, combing the dye through. "Let them look at me instead."
She was kind about it. She was kind about everything.
Aldric came to my bed on the nights the healer named, and he never stayed.
My daughter came in the dark hour before dawn, after nine hours of labor.
Delphine had said she couldn't bear to watch me hurt, so it was only me and the healer.
When the baby cried, I saw her face for one moment.
She had a white lock at her temple, the same as mine, and nobody had painted it.
The healer cut the cord and carried her out of the room.
"Wait," I said. "Please. Let me hold her."
"The Luna is waiting, dear," the healer said, and shut the door.
Then the pack bell rang across the whole territory.
Through the window I heard Aldric's voice from the front steps.
"Duskmoor has a daughter! The Luna's daughter!"
The pack cheered. Nobody said my name.
I got out of bed. I was still bleeding.
I held the wall down the stairs and across the hall, and I walked out the front doors in my nightgown.
The whole pack stood in the courtyard.
Delphine stood on the steps with a blue bundle in her arms. Aldric stood beside her with Rowan on his shoulders.
"Give me my daughter," I said.
The courtyard went quiet.
Delphine turned to me with wet eyes. "Morven, sweetheart, you're exhausted. Go and lie down. You'll have her at every feeding."
"Tell them whose she is," I said to Aldric.
He looked at me for the first time that day.
"Go to bed, Morven."
That was his answer. It was the same answer I had gotten for seven years.
Delphine sighed and held the bundle out to me, loud enough for the pack to hear.
"One minute. Say goodbye to her."
I took my daughter in my arms. She was warm, and she smelled like me.
"Her name is Linnet," I said, and I did not hand her back.
Delphine's smile stopped.
"Morven," Aldric said, and for the first time he sounded afraid.
I looked at every face in that courtyard.
"I, Morven Teasdale, reject Aldric Brandreth as my mate and my Alpha."
The bond tore, and it hurt worse than the birth.
The pack gasped. Aldric dropped to one knee with his hand on his chest.
My son slid off his shoulders and ran to me, shouting the name he had made up for me. "Mori!"
Delphine caught him by the collar and covered his eyes with her hand.
"I'm coming back for you, Rowan," I told my son. I don't know if he heard.
So I took my daughter and walked out of Duskmoor.
Nobody stopped me. Their Alpha was on his knees, and no one else dared.
The Beta started for the gate anyway.
"Let her go," Aldric said hoarsely from the dirt.
It was the only useful thing he said that day.
Delphine called after me, gently. "Come home when you're rested, Morven."
Everyone in that courtyard heard how kind she was.
I ran down the hill to the river with blood running down my legs.
I crossed at the shallows, waist deep, holding Linnet over my head.
Four riders waited on the far bank, and the man in front was the Alpha of Greywater, Torin Garrow.
He looked at the wet blanket and at the white lock stuck to my daughter's head.
"Where did she get that mark?" he said.
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