Chapter 2
Freezing cold water crashed over my body, sending a violent shiver through me. The pain in my
abdomen intensified, sharp and consuming.
I could feel something slipping out of me, something warm and wet, something that took my last
shred of hope with it.
I lost my baby.
The agony reminded me I was still alive.
Still trapped in this nightmare.
I wanted, so desperately, to ask Carter: what was the point of three years of bonding? What did it all
mean?
But as the ice water reached my lips, flooding into my mouth, I realized it didn’t matter anymore.
None of it did.
Just before I blacked out, I saw it.
A small, bloody mass slipping from between my legs. My child.
Á maid nearby let out a horrified scream. “Oh my God–what is that?!”
My arms moved on instinct, trembling as they reached out to cradle the barely–formed life in my
hands.
My baby. My child. The one I had carried, the one I had bled and suffered for.
But her was torn from me–by the very man who fathered it.
I looked down at the tiny body in my arms and let out a choked, broken sob. “I’m sorry… I’m so
sorry…”
That apology wasn’t just for the baby. It was for the version of myself who, three years ago, had sealed a mate bond with blind devotion and a hopeful heart.
Footsteps echoed from the doorway. Carter and Mila stood there.
His gaze dropped to the bundle in my arms–and his pupils dilated in shock. For a moment, he actually looked like he might step forward.
But Mila threw herself into his arms with a shrill cry, clutching at him like the victim she’d always pretended to be.
“This is just like what those rogues Harper hired did to me!” she wailed, “They raped me… got me pregnant… and then made me lose the baby!”
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“I could’ve had your child too, Carter… but now I never can…”
Lies. Every word of it was a lie. I never sent anyone to hurt her.
But Carter believed her.
Of course he did.
He turned to me, his eyes full of bitter, icy contempt. “You’re sick, Harper.”
He strode across the room, ripped the baby from my arms, and tore the umbilical cord without
hesitation.
“My baby!” I screamed, the sound tearing through my throat like a razor.
“Carter, no! Please, the baby–our baby!”
But he didn’t even glance back at me.
Instead, he smiled softly at Mila, brushing her hair from her tear–streaked cheeks.
“An eye for an eye,” he murmured. “Let this one be dinner for your dog.”
Before I could even move, he tossed the bloody bundle at Mila’s feet, right in front of her monstrous, snarling hound.
“No-!”
I lunged forward, half–crawling in desperation, but Carter slammed a boot into my ribs and kicked me backward into the freezing water.
It surged into my mouth and nose, choking/me–but it still couldn’t numb the agony in my chest.
I stared up at him through bloodshot eyes, trembling, seething with a rage so deep it scorched my
soul.
“Carter, how could you?!” I rasped. “That was our child!”
He looked down at me with nothing but scorn.
“That wasn’t my child. That was a mistake.”
I had never fully trusted Carter to love me–not really.
But I never imagined he’d destroy our baby. That he’d do it with his own hands.
In that moment, something inside me shattered forever.
In that moment, rage consumed me completely.
“I’m breaking the mate bond with you, Carter!”
Chapter 2
