Her Cloak Was Sewn With Blessings, While I Had Nothing Chapter 03

Her Cloak Was Sewn With Blessings, While I Had Nothing Chapter 03

In the night, a dull ache started low in my belly.

At first, it came in waves like ordinary contractions, and it stayed inside what I could take.

I curled up on the narrow bed with both hands over my stomach, and a cold sweat came out along my forehead.

Snoring rose and fell around the six-bed ward, and every so often, a newborn pup cried.

I didn’t press the call button.

I had had the same false contractions a few days earlier.

Then the ward door swung open.

The hallway light cut into the room along with fast footsteps.

I squinted and saw my mother, Maris, come in like a storm.

She saw that I was in the six-bed ward and only frowned once.

“What are you doing down here? There was nothing wrong with the private room.”

The pain had taken everything I had for explaining.

“It hurts.”

I got it out quietly.

She acted like she hadn’t heard it.

She went straight to the head of the bed and picked up my canvas bag.

“Sable, Brielle’s hospital bag got left at the house. Yours came from Frostveil and it’s better quality, so she’s using it. Don’t argue with me.”

She opened it and dumped everything I had put together, the pup clothes, the diapers, the care supplies, out onto the bed.

“Brielle’s skin is sensitive. She can’t use what the hospital hands out.”

She sorted through it and gathered the softest newborn onesies into her arms.

I watched her hands move, and something in my chest tore wide open.

“Mom.”

“Drystan put those together for me and my pup.”

“That’s what the Frostveil Pack prepared for its next pup!”

My voice was shaking.

Her hands stopped, and she looked back at me.

“When did you get so stingy? Your sister is in real pain. She’s using a few of your clothes and supplies. Get over it.”

She swept up the rest of it like she had every right to.

“Enough. Your pregnancy has been steady the whole way and you’ll be fine. Stay put. I’m going to take care of Brielle.”

She left without turning around and pulled the door shut behind her.

Not once in any of it had she asked me where it hurt.

I looked at the mess she had left on my bed and started laughing.

And somewhere in the laughing, the tears came.

That was my mother.

In her eyes, my pain was me making a fuss.

My hurt was that I was being difficult.

Only what Brielle needed ever qualified as an emergency.

I wiped my face and got my phone out.

My finger hovered over my mother’s name and Kieran’s for a moment, then I deleted them one by one.

For the hospital’s emergency contact, I left only Drystan.

The contractions came closer together and hit harder.

I bit through my own lip.

My hands twisted into the sheets until my nails nearly tore back.

Two beds over, an older she-wolf woke up to the sound of me.

She pulled the curtain back, saw my face, and startled.

“Good lord, are you in labor?”

“How long have you been hurting like this?”

She reached over and hit the call button for me.

“Nurse! We’ve got a woman delivering in here!”

The nurse on duty arrived quickly.

She checked me, and her face changed.

“Her water’s already broken.”

“Get the maternity team and get a gurney!”

Several nurses moved me onto it.

The wheels went fast down the hallway.

We passed the private suite at 601 with the door standing open.

Garrick, Maris, and Kieran were all around Brielle’s bed.

Brielle was crying, and my mother kept wiping the sweat off her face.

Garrick held her hand and talked her through it.

Kieran paced back and forth.

The entire Greyfang Alpha family was gathered around her.

Not one of them looked at the hallway.

Their other pregnant daughter was being wheeled toward emergency surgery.

“The pup’s heart rate is dropping!”

“She’s bleeding too much. Get blood ready now!”

“Where’s her medical proxy? Call the emergency contact!”

The healers’ voices reached me like they were coming through water.

I closed my eyes and slid down into the dark.