Chapter 21

Alpha Blake’s POV

The doctor’s news broke something in me that I hadn’t known could break that way. Leah had lost the baby.

Everything I’d felt in that single moment she’d told me, the joy that had cut through the tension of preparing for war, had been undone in the space of a single phone call.

I should have been there. I’d left her alone to chase Derick, certain the mission mattered more than staying beside her, and now I understood exactly what that choice had cost me.

I held her hand as she lay there, still weak, still in pain, and felt tears slide down my face without any intention of stopping them.

“I’m sorry, Blake,” she whispered, managing a faint, exhausted smile. “I coul