CATRINA

"What? No. I have just met you all," I whisper-yell not wanting to scare the baby.

Sierra is already shaking her head at me and smiling whereas Fenris frowns a bit and then sighs while moving his hands through his hair and pulling at the ends.

"Catrina, I want my daughter to have all her family with her. I have named my maternal cousin, Calum as her godfather and I want you to be her godmother."

"But how can you be so sure? You don't know me as much as you know Cayden or my mother. Name my mom as her godmother, but I don't think I am capable enough," I whisper, suddenly scared of this prospect.

"I talked to Cayden and your mom they both want you to be my daughter's godmother. We also talked to Connor," replies Fenris not accepting any other alternative.

I don't react when Fenris tells me that he talked to Connor but it's as if Fenris knows what I am thinking because he replies to the same question that formed in my mind.

"I am sorry but Connor he had to leave because of some pack emergency," Fenris says, his eyes shining with pity. I don't like that. I don't want anyone to feel pity for me even if my life is pitiful at this moment.

"You don't have to be sorry," I whisper to Fenris and focus on the baby and the prospect of being her Godmother. Is this God's way of compromise? I can't be a mother but maybe I can be a godmother for this cutie.

Is it so?

"Thank you for choosing me," I whisper and watch as the baby becomes quite fascinated with my hair and starts playing with them. She holds a handful of my hair and pulls them closer to her eyes as if to inspect them and then giggles loudly.

We all chuckle at her fascination with my hair since probably I am the odd one out here. Everyone else's hair is brown or black here except for mine and my mom's.

The baby claps and then giggles showing my hair to her mother who's cooing at her daughter.

God! She's cute but all this is becoming quite overwhelming.

The baby looks at me then as if sensing that I am having an emotional overload and then places her hands on my cheeks, both of her chubby palms cupping my cheeks and then she lays her head over mine, resting her forehead against mine and then closing her eyes.

I am too consumed in my grief over the loss of my own twins that I don't register the baby's movements. A few moments pass by and I feel a current like sensation go through my entire body and the memory of my miscarriage flashing in my mind.

Suddenly, I gasp in pain as if my body is relieving the moment and I feel myself trembling, my knees buckling under me. I clasp on the baby tightly protecting her as I feel my knees give up and my body collapsing. The baby's eyes are still closed and her palms still on my cheeks but her head is now buried under my chin where I tucked her to protect her in the fall.

I am so focused on the baby that I don't realise that I am being held by my twin brother and Fenris is holding on to his daughter who has a tight grip on my cheeks. The pain hasn't subsided even a bit and I cry out when I suddenly feel a sharp pain in my head.

I gasp, shocked at the pain and this foreign feeling as if someone's trying to bring out my deep-buried emotions to the surface.

"What's happening to her?"

"She's not even holding on to the baby."

"No, our pup's holding on to Catrina."

"How's that possible Fenris? She's a baby," whisper-screams Sierra which makes the baby in my arms open her eyes and what I see makes me gasp in shock. Her eyes are sparkling and they are completely blue, not a hint of her pupil anywhere.

"Shhh, it's okay. Let me hold her," says Fenris as he is hovering above me waiting for his daughter to loosen her grip on my cheeks.

The baby looks at me and then shakes her head, her chubby fingers rising to wipe my eyes, or trying to since she directly puts her fingers in my eyes, wiping them. I wince at the prick and take her hands in mine while holding her with the other hand.

I realise that Cayden is still acting as a support and I lean into him more, focusing on this baby. She did something to me. I am sure of that. I still feel the pain of my miscarriage and all those memories are so clear in my mind.

"She did something," I whisper unable to say anything else.

"Yes, she did. I am sorry," whispers Fenris and then pulls his daughter out of my arms. The baby cries out in anger, wailing loudly, her arms outstretched towards me.

"What did she do?" I ask when Fenris backs off with his daughter and I sit up straighter, wincing as my body is still feeling the shocks. Cayden's rubbing his hand over my back, soothing me. I clutch my stomach tightly, as something starts churning inside my body.

Something's very wrong with this child.

"What was that?" I ask, gasping for air now. My mom rushes forward towards me with a glass of water and I eagerly take it from her, down the glass of water in one go.

My attention is on Fenris as he and Sierra are looking at each other, both of them looking worried, the source of their worry, that bundle of joy or pain, I don't know, is sleeping soundly in my cousin's arms.

Fenris looks at me and then back at his mate, only this time transferring the baby into his mate's arms and then walks towards me. He kneels on his knees in front of me and takes my hands in his.

Closing his eyes, he mutters something and I watch as Sierra has joined him now and both of them have closed their eyes. Suddenly Fenris's eyes open and he looks at me. I gasp at the same sparkling blue eyes that were his daughter's a minute ago and move back a little, burying myself deeper into Cayden's body who tightens his hold on me.

"What's wrong, Fenris?" my twin asks the question that's brewing in my head.

"I think my daughter found her powers. Something in inheritance from me and something from her grandmother," he whispers but all I feel is confusion and pain and this overwhelming surge of sadness. I feel lonely, I feel alone.

God! I want to cry.

"What does that mean and what's it to do with Cat?" Cayden asks and Fenris shakes his head.

"I don't know but I think Catrina has buried her pain and that pain made my daughter curious. She touched Catrina's cheeks and tried to extract that pain to the surface. From what I observed I think the pup wanted to do something more but we pulled her before she could do that and that's why she cried out. She's drained and that's why she's sleeping now," explains Fenris while getting up which makes Cayden get up with me in his arms. I clutch on to my brother's arms and lean my head on his shoulder, the movement making me feel nauseous.

"No, no. Wait. I am going to puke," I whisper and Cayden stops immediately, sitting down on the cold ground with me in his lap.

I heave as my stomach churns and close my eyes at the pain that's reverberating through my body.

"It hurts, Cayden. It hurts everywhere," I whisper, clutching his arms tight. At one point I even feel my nails digging into his skin but my supportive brother doesn't even notice that. His worried eyes looking at me and then back at Fenris who's talking to my mother in hushed tones.

"Take her out, in the moonflower's garden and lay her there. She needs to detoxify all that poison pumped into her. She needs to mourn; she needs to cry it out."

I don't know who says that but I don't understand even a bit of whatever he's talking about.

All I can feel now is the pain that's rushing back in intensity, the same pain that I felt when I miscarried, the feeling of utter emptiness when my babies fell out of my body in the form of flesh and blood.

I let the tears fall vaguely feeling the movement of my body as if someone is carrying me. I don't focus on it, my attention completely on my body.

I feel myself being transported in my childhood home and I recall everything so clearly.

Oh, God! I am losing them. I am losing them!

What to do? Warm liquid flows from in-between my legs and I collapse on the stairs, calling for Fiona but that girl's as usual deaf to my calls. I watch the drop of blood falling on the floor and quickly lay on my back, applying my education into practice.

The sharp pain in my back makes me cry out and I gasp as my belly contracts in pain. I clutch on my belly, willing my body to not let them escape. They are the only ones who are mine. I have only them.

No! no! I can't lose them!

I feel myself lose consciousness as the blood now flows steadily from my body and onto the hardwood floor. I am still lying down on the floor when I hear the front door opening and my mother screaming at the sight of all that blood around me.

I am in a haze, feeling relieved that my babies will survive now that I am in an ambulance and being taken to the hospital. They'll save my babies. My babies will live!

Waking up to the beeping of the machines around me, I open my eyes and lift my heavy hands to clasp my belly. I roam my hands over and over my belly, trying to feel the bulge that is not there anymore.

No!!!

No!!!

Suddenly I am transported in some other time... in my bathroom in my new apartment when my gaze land on the mirror where it's written in bold red lipstick, the only bold colour that I owned.

"Beware, Catrina Vlček"

The scream leaves my throat as I read and reread the letters in my mirror.

Then all of a sudden, the image morphs into something else.

I turn to look at Xan. I am in his dark house. I quickly walk out of the house just when another scream echoes off, this time a lot louder and longer.

Another scream from the same direction and I lift my head just in time to see a woman screaming but this time she comes near the window giving me the first glimpse of her form and what I see scares me to the very core. She's all blood covered and she's screaming for help.

I open my eyes suddenly, sitting upright and look around myself. I am in a forest, the night air around me cold but I am sitting on a bed of flowers. This patch of land is covered in white flowers, not snow. Looking at the white land around me, the feeling of utter hopelessness washes over me, my mind portraying the snow that's being darkened by something red.

The sudden image in my head reminds me of that woman and I scream in pain, in despair, in anger.

I scream for not having my own babies, for losing them. I scream and sob in shame for my father was evil. I scream in despair for my mom had to give me away. I scream in anger at my mate for leaving me when I needed him the most. And then I scream in anger at Xanthos for manipulating me to believe that he's innocent.

Feeling overwhelmed at the onslaught of all my deep-buried emotions, I weep and sob, screaming and clutching on the flowers that surround me.

I am filled with so much rage and anguish that I crush the flowers, their juices slipping through my fingers and the pulp spreading on my clothes but I don't care. All I can think about now is how much I lost and how much I could've had if only my father had been a good guy.

He's the first one who's responsible for this. He should've been the good guy. Fathers are good, they love their children, their wife.

But my father didn't and because of him, my mother had to give me away. Because of him, I had to be adopted. Because of him, Connor thought that I was a human and because of my father I lost my babies. Because of him, Xanthos turned out to be so cruel.

My father's responsible for this. As my mind convicts my father of all the wrongs that have happened with me, I scream and scream, my anger taking over and I dig my fingers into the soil, the urge to scratch, to harm something so potent in me that I don't stop to think about the consequences.

A minute passes by and all the rage leaves me, hopelessness seeping in, making me slump forward, my body curling up in a foetal position, to protect myself from my raging emotions.

Am I that unfortunate to have nothing of my own in this world? Am I that unfortunate to have everything that belongs to me being snatched out of my hands, to watch my belongings slipping out of my fingers in just a few minutes when I spent my entire life planning for the idea of that life?

Am I really that unfortunate?

~~~~

Thank you for reading!!

That was a very tough chapter to write especially when I had to show the dynamics of breakdown. When all that pent up depression comes out and it's like a volcano. A dormant one turning into a sudden active state. 

Our Catrina is somewhat going through a phase, right?

Well, coming back to the chapter, let me know what you think of it? Was it stormy enough??

In the next chapter, we are going to meet a character who's new to Catrina but not to us. That character was in THE ROYAL ALPHA. 

Any guesses?? Do comment. Whoever gives the right answer will get mentioned at the end of the next chapter.

Please vote if you like my chapter and keep voting. 

Take care. Stay safe. Be happy.