Chapter Forty-Five

When I awaken again, it’s to a foggy mind and full-body ache, along with a horrible sensation of nausea crawling up my throat. There’s a cramp low in my stomach, pulsing and insistent. I swallow down the bile several times before attempting to crack open my eyes. The process is a struggle; it feels like thirty-pound weights have been attached to my eyelids. When I finally manage to open them, light blinds me, forcing me to blink repeatedly while I adjust.

I feel worse than I have…ever. The witches, the treaty, finding out I’m pregnant, and running into rogues right after resolving to protect the pregnancy flash through my mind.

Once my vision adjusts and the worst of the blurriness has abated, I let my eyes travel over my surroundings. I’m in Camden’s room. With great effort, I force myself into a sitting position, feeling like all the energy has been siphoned from me. Tears gather in my eyes as I move an arm—it feels made of rubber—down to my stomach. I lift the nightshirt I’m wearing and see that the only evidence of the dissection I got via shifter claws are faint pink scratch marks. A deep sadness grips me, an abysmal depression that feels like it drags me down with every breath. That sadness is replaced by anxiety when the door to the room opens and Camden steps inside. He has dark circles under his eyes and his hair is disheveled.

“You’re awake,” he looks at me, eyebrows creased.

“I am,” I croak out and then, because there’s only one thing on my mind, I ask, “The baby…did it survive the attack?” I suspect the answer, but I need confirmation.

Camden’s eyes widen as he stares at me, making me recall that I hadn’t yet told him I knew about the pregnancy, about his successful scheme to entrap me.

“You knew?” His voice is laced with shock.

That doesn’t seem like the greatest concern at the moment; it certainly isn’t the most pressing in my mind. Irritation renews within me, but it’s overshadowed by a need to have my question answered. “Yes, the witches sensed the pregnancy and informed me. Something neither you nor anyone in this godsforsaken castle had the grace to do. Did my baby survive?”

“No,” he snaps, his voice dripping with anger. “Claude expended half his power healing you, but no, the wounds were too severe and the child was lost.” His eyes bore into me, filled with an anger I’ve never seen before. “You knew about the pregnancy, and you left the warded grounds? Was that your plan all along, to get rid of our child?”

I gape at him, shock filling me. He thinks…he thinks I wanted to get rid of it? I was given the opportunity and I chose to protect it! Following my shock comes a rage so consuming that my vision goes red and my body starts to tremble.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I hiss, my voice rising in pitch. “You think I wanted to lose the baby? Even though you practically forced the pregnancy on me and lied when I asked you if I was at risk, I was going to keep it! Raise the child, love it, protect it! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Camden works his jaw for several moments, looking to the wall. “So you’re attempting to convince me that, after finding out about an unwanted pregnancy, you planned to go through with it? Really, Sierra?”

“Yes, Camden, fucking really!” I yell. “Your deceit and trickery do not justify putting a stop to the growth of an innocent life. I left warded grounds and went into the forest so I could think after receiving the shock of my life, not to do myself harm. That you could think otherwise means you don’t know me at all!”

His eyes cut a path back to me, feeling like they slice through my skin with the ire swirling in them. Not just ire but distrust. Dear gods, he thinks that I wanted to get attacked? That I wandered off the property with the intent of…of aborting my child?

“You knew you were pregnant, and yet you left the warded grounds without telling anyone, without properly protecting yourself. You left yourself open to attack, and that attack cost us our child.”

I’m stunned that Camden is actually going as far as to blame me for what happened. I didn’t ask to be targeted by a group of witch-hating shifters; I was half out of my mind with confusion, anger, and fear! How could he think this is in any way on me? I chose to keep the life inside me even though I didn’t ask for it.

Feeling tears well up in my eyes, I ask, “How can you say that? You were the one who tricked me into this!”

“I gave you freedom, and this is what you did with it!” Camden shouts, more enraged than I’ve ever seen him.

I’m also more enraged than he’s ever seen me. “I gave you a chance and you used it to betray me!” I yell back.

“Don’t act like the damn victim here, Sierra. You wanted me just as much as I wanted you—you tore my clothes off in your haste to fuck me.”

That makes me seething mad. How dare he use that against me? I am not the one who knew it would be a blood moon that night, nor was I told the effects that a blood moon would have on me. Nobody in this fucking palace had the goddamn decency to inform me of the risks of sleeping with him on a blood moon, especially after he marked me without even asking for my consent; namely, that it was a near-guarantee I’d end up pregnant.

“I trusted you with my body, Camden, and what you did was use it to meet your own ends. Sure, I was under the effects of a blood moon, so yeah, I ripped your clothes because I was in the moon’s thrall. Something you would’ve warned me about if you had even an iota of respect for me. Instead, you put me in a situation like that blind, knowing the outcome. I may have wanted to fuck you in that moment, but I sure as shit did not want you to bite me.”

“Is that why you nearly strangled my cock with the force of your orgasm when I marked you?” he asks snarkily.

The low blows just keep coming. I don’t think Camden’s yet grasped that his anger can’t hold a candle to the force of my rage. Rage that stems from the fact that I was just starting to trust him, which he turned around and used against me. On top of that, I just had a miscarriage! Instead of supporting me, he has the gall to try to blame me. That, even more than his deception, is unforgivable.

“You motherfucker,” I seethe, throwing the blankets off and pushing myself out of bed.

Instantly, a wave of overpowering weakness washes over me and my head spins, but I don’t let that pull me down; I clutch one of the posts of the bed to stay upright, glaring at Camden.

“You knew what you were doing while I didn’t. That means you took advantage of me and of my compassion in the worst possible way. Then you swore everyone in this godforsaken castle to silence to meet your own ends. You think you have the right to be angry, Camden? We both just lost a child, but what you took from me is much worse; you stole any possibility of safety or a future for me here with you. You twisted my trust and used it against me. You used me.” I let out a low, dark laugh, scratchy and filled with hate. “You know, the witches gave me an option to put an end to the pregnancy. I said no—

In a blur of movement so fast I don’t even see it coming, Camden lunges at me, taking us both down to the mattress. I let out a shriek and a loud cracking noise precedes the windows in Camden’s room all breaking at once, causing glass to shatter to the floor, but Camden doesn’t even seem to notice—I barely do either. He straddles my waist, pinning my hips to the bed. He gathers my hands in one of his and pins them above my head before bringing his other hand around my throat, squeezing until my airflow isn’t entirely cut off, but my breathing is constricted. I struggle, trying to buck him off and free myself from his grip, but it has no measurable impact; Camden’s too strong and too angry for me to dislodge him.

He says in a voice so soft it raises the hairs on my arms, “You committed treason, Sierra. You killed a royal. That’s a crime punishable by death regardless of your fucking station.”

I gape at him. “I did no such thing! I wanted to keep the baby—

His hand around my throat tightens as his eyes blaze, and for the first time since I met him, I fear for my life. He’s furious enough in this moment that I think he just might kill me. If he does see my actions as killing a royal—which I absolutely did not do, though he seems convinced otherwise—then I am in very dangerous and uncharted territory.

A wolf in a rage is a deadly thing to all around them. Right now, I’m the only person around, and this wolf’s rage is directed solely at me. Camden’s hand around my throat squeezes so tightly I fear he’ll crush my windpipe. Pain blooms from my neck to my chest, and my head starts to pound with a horrible headache that feels like a knife twisting in my skull.

“Be careful,” he whispers. “Be very, very careful, Sierra. Right now, I have very little reason to let you live. You’re a traitor living under my roof, and I have no use for traitors.”

My vision starts to blur as black dots take over, the lack of oxygen starting to take its toll. I struggle, trying to free myself, but Camden doesn’t budge, if anything he squeezes harder, and I realize this is a punishment. I’m not sure he knows if he’ll kill me, just as I don’t know if he’ll kill me, and that terror makes me desperate. Unfortunately, that desperation still isn’t enough for me to free myself; I’m too weak right now, too depleted. He said Claude had healed me, not Leisel, so I’m probably not entirely healed yet, which is why I lack the strength to dislodge him to try to make him see reason.

Just when I’m positive Camden is about to end my life, belying everything ever said about a wolf’s devotion to his mate, he lets go of my throat. I suck in deep lungful’s of air, feeling my throat and chest burn with pain as my eyes water. I cough several times, each one feeling like hot needles scraping across my raw throat and diaphragm.

Camden seems entirely unconcerned as he climbs off of me and stands from the bed, glaring at me. “Get the fuck out,” he barks. “You’re quarantined to your room until I figure out what to do with you. There’ll be guards posted outside, so don’t even think about escape. You’re in deep enough shit with your treason as it is.”