The Ashwood Family Saga
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Jessica Bailey
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Chapter 1
[POV: GIDEON]
“I’m sorry. She’s gone. There was nothing I could do.” The doctor’s words hit me like a punch to the gut, his eyes filled with a mix of fear and sorrow.
“Nothing?! There’s nothing?! Bring her back!” I was screaming, my whole being in turmoil. I knew. I knew before he said anything. I felt her in my heart say goodbye and let go.
A pain like no other seared through me, reaching into the very core of my being.
“I wish I could, but she’s already gone. You know she is. Right now you don’t have time to grieve. They need their dad.”
His words directed my attention to the two newborn baby girls, their cries piercing the sterile hospital air. How was I supposed to do this alone?
In an instant, my world had changed, but not in the way I had imagined. My mate had died giving birth. She had preeclampsia and couldn’t hold on after the birth.
She left me with two beautiful baby girls, Rose and Daisy. She smiled at them, then left this world, left them and me.
All I wanted to do was rage and destroy everything in my path. I was a warrior and an investigator. All I knew was how to fight my way out of problems.
I couldn’t comprehend how she was gone and I was alone. I couldn’t fight to save her. She was just gone. I looked down at my two daughters screaming for their mother, and all I could do was cry.
Me, the alpha of the Druit Guard, sobbing as hard and as loud as my two baby girls. Two girls. What was I going to do?
How was I going to raise two girls? I didn’t even know how to change a diaper yet. Their life rushed through my mind as they grew, all the possibilities and what-ifs.
Would I be able to teach them necessary girl things? What were the necessary girl things?
I could teach them to fight. I could teach them how to lead an army of warriors. But that was it!
I had never felt so hopeless and helpless in my life. These two tiny little girls had already broken me.
They were all I had left of my mate, my last connection to my love. I could not blame them for what happened, but I wanted to.
I was hit again with a wave of sadness as I realized these two beautiful babies would never see their mother smile at them. They would never hear her voice reading them a bedtime story.
They would never listen to her laugh at their silly antics or feel her warm embrace. Could I do this, be both mother and father?
With the help of the nurse, I picked up my tiny daughters. I gave them each a kiss.
“I promise to give you all that I have. I can’t promise I will be perfect or I won’t make mistakes, but I will give my life for yours to keep you safe. We are all we have now.”
I tried to stop my tears from flowing again, but I failed. Trying not to let my tears fall on my daughters, I laid them back into the bassinet.
They had stopped crying, and they wiggled their little arms toward each other till they were holding hands.
I sighed, “At least they will always have each other.” I sat down in a chair next to them, just watching them sleep—a little paranoid they would stop breathing, honestly.
As I sat there, I knew I needed to help myself gain control over my grief. I needed to complete our family bond. As much as it hurt, I needed to live for my daughters.
I extended my claw on my left hand, sliced a small cut on my right, and then as gently as possible pricked both of their big toes.
I touched each of their tiny toes to my cut, letting the smallest drop from each of them enter my cut. I felt them enter my soul, and the sliver of hope and love started to heal me.
I looked down at my chest, right where my heart was, and I could see my daughter’s family mark forming a white rose and a white and yellow daisy.
“My tiny flowers, you have no idea how much you have saved your daddy,” I whispered.
The doctor was right. I didn’t have time to grieve. I had to live on no matter how much it hurt. It hurt. My mate mark burned the moment she left this world.
I looked at my mark, and it was already fading. I had to focus on my girls now. I could lose myself in the pain and sorrow that was eating away at my very soul.
My mate would never forgive me if I didn’t live on and push through for our children. I just wasn’t sure how to do it, where to start.
I knew I would be fighting, just not with my fists, claws, or fangs. I’d be fighting my broken heart from giving up. I just wasn’t sure how yet. I only had my little flowers to help heal me.
