Wild Darlin’ (ROUGH & RUGGED ALPHAS #1)

Chapter 1 Veda

one

Veda

When I need it the most, it’s a stranger who holds my hand.

Her short pale-pink nails dig into my hand, creating half-moon patterns across my skin.

Her scrubs are in a soft blue, eyes are full of determination, while mine are home for nothing but doubts.

Another contraction comes barreling through, cutting my thoughts in half.

Curse words burn my tongue as sweat drips down my nose.

“You have to push, Veda,” she reminds me.

The contractions come from my back, and I’m like a twig ready to split in two. A wave of nausea sways me. I hold the bitter taste in my mouth and do everything I can not to puke on top of my sweet stranger.

I’m not strong enough for this.

“Yes, you are, honey,” she says sweetly, and I’m not sure if she can read my mind or if I said it out loud.

Teeth graze my bottom lip. I want to draw blood, but instead, I snap my mouth closed.

I need to do this. There’s no way around it.

I can’t push the kid back inside just because I’m scared shitless.

There’s only one way out of this, and I guess it’s pushing.

I take a fortifying breath, tears race down my cheeks, and instead of strength, my body responds with an anguished sob.

Crying doesn’t help.

It never does, but especially not now. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands, and I nod more to myself than to her.

It’s time. Something snaps inside me. I swallow every doubt and fear and surrender to the moment.

To the pain. To whatever has to happen. The urge to push overcomes the fear, and I let out a guttural scream that doesn’t seem to have an end.

I’m more animal than woman, and I blindly claw, trying to grab my guardian angel’s hands on mine once again. She’s all I can see right now. There’s nothing beyond her hazel eyes and the wrinkles by her temple. She nods, gripping my hand, and with strength I didn’t know I had, I push.

She praises me, reminding me how strong I am, and for a moment, I believe her. Like this, I’m another version of myself. Someone stronger who I can be proud of. Each ticking second makes me terrified of the next, yet I push like I’m told to do.

Something moves out of me in surreal, suspended magic. Fear and anticipation meet outside my body. The air becomes heavy with hope, and I hear the most beautiful sound in the world.

A baby’s cry. My baby’s cry.

The useless tears leak down my cheeks unbidden. I gasp for air, and for the first time, my gaze goes beyond the woman beside me and to a nurse carrying my baby away from me. My eyes devour the small patch of dark hair as she moves about the room, and my arms feel so empty without her.

“Is she okay?”

They don’t answer me right away, so I ask once again, hoping they hear desperation in my tired tone. They weigh her and make notes, ignoring her shrieks just as they do my questions. Panic and love create havoc inside my chest every time I hear the strength of her lungs.

“Do we have a name?” the woman still holding my hand asks.

As if I swallowed it with honey, the name gets stuck in my throat. I was told not to name her, since she won’t carry the name anyway. But as my grandpa always says, I’m not very good with instructions. In my head, she has a name, and I wish I was brave enough to say it out loud.

The startling noise of the door opening in anger draws my eyes from my angel to the figure of my grandpa entering the room.

His cruel eyes scan the scene, landing on my legs still open and a nurse between them, and he grimaces.

Shame colors my cheeks as if it’s my fault that he’s here.

He didn’t even bother to wear a mask, and I know if I fall ill with an infection, he will blame me for that too.

“You can’t be here!” A nurse jumps into action, her small body trying to block his, but I know better than to think he’ll retract.

He never does.

“Give me the baby,” he says with authority.

His request cuts deeper than any blade. My vision curls in black around the edges, and the clock inside my very soul rings, announcing I ran out of time. Desperation comes to the surface in the form of pleas even though I know it won’t work with him.

“Grandpa, please…”

I can barely see him through the tears, but his presence weighs like shackles keeping me in place.

For my whole life, Grandpa has been telling me who I am before I even understand myself.

He wasn’t happy that he got saddled with me, especially after my early celiac diagnosis.

I’ve always been a burden, and he always made sure I knew.

Things didn’t get better when I got pregnant. When I got myself pregnant.

The expression implies that Joe, the son of his business partner, wasn't a willing participant. We are both in our early twenties, but Joe is just a boy, while I’m a vixen. He doesn’t understand the consequences, while I should know better.

My biggest secret is that I don’t regret the pregnancy.

For nine months, she grew inside me, and I loved her more than life itself, even knowing that we were going to arrive here at this cursed moment.

What I really regret is that I forgot who I am in exchange for stolen moments with a guy who couldn’t love me.

I’m hardly the perfect rich wife material. So what was he supposed to do with me?

Joe doesn’t matter. He never did. But her? She’s everything, and he’s going to take her away.

“You’re a disgrace, Veda.” Grandpa spits the rehearsed words I’ve heard many times before. “But I’ll fix it for you, as always.”

His chest puffs with self-importance as his eyes land on the baby. My whole body shakes and rebels. I try to get up because everything inside me screams that I should fight, but strong hands hold me to where I am, and I have to watch Grandpa make his way to my child.

He has been controlling every appointment and answering every question for me. How many times has he told me this is for the best? He says I won’t make a good mother, but right now, I can’t understand why. I want my baby.

“Grandpa, please, listen to me. Can we talk?”

He doesn’t spare me a glance. His arms reach for the baby, expecting everyone to just hand her to him, no questions asked.

“Can I hold her?” I croak, and he stops in his tracks. “Just once.”

That he heard just fine. His face hardens, and I know the answer before he spills it for the room. “No.”

The pain breaks me in two, and hollow emptiness blossoms like a black flower from my chest. It takes root quickly; its blackened edges spread around, taking all the space my daughter once occupied.

I break like glass, and the small shards of who I was scatter around the labor room for everyone to see.

Grandpa doesn’t get what he came for right away.

The nurse holds my daughter to her chest, a warrior protecting us, but the doctor intervenes and tells her what to do.

The baby cries when Grandpa takes her. She’s only a few minutes old, yet she knows this is wrong. Her little feet kick the blanket off, and Grandpa makes a disgusted face. He doesn’t like it when we disobey.

Her cries take a turn. She’s desperate now, and I match her, unable to hold back. Our sorrows become one, twisting and forever linked. My arms reach for her, even though I know, rationally, he won’t let me hold her. Still, my body urges me to try.

“Don’t embarrass yourself, Veda,” he says harshly before turning away and leaving the room with my baby.

He takes her away.

Dumb, dumb Veda. I knew it was going to happen, but I wasn’t prepared.

The cries turn into shrieks weighted in pure, untamed sadness.

I don’t know how to stop this pain. I am not sure if I ever want to exist without the unbearable pain of losing her.

My kind stranger squeezes my hand, and when I gaze her way, I realize she’s crying too.

“It’s okay.” I find myself soothing her. “I agreed to give her away.”

There’s very little truth to my statement. I was told it was the best for the baby. All I want is to do right by her, so I accepted. Grandpa is the mastermind of this whole thing, though. I was barely aware while he planned the saddest day of my life.

That’s why Grandpa chose this small hospital instead of the fancy one in Dallas.

I thought he was just embarrassed that people would see me come and go with a big belly, but in reality, he can pay his way to do exactly what he just did.

My eyes move to the doctor, and he’s the only one unmoved by the situation.

Every gaze burns in rage as they take him in, and for a moment, I feel vindicated.

It doesn’t bring my child back.

“The placenta,” a nurse at the bottom of my feet says.

“What?”

The one beside me squeezes my hand again, and her eyes carry all the hurt to mirror mine. “I’m sorry, honey, I need you to push again. Just one more time.”

But how can I? There’s nothing left in me. Numbness takes over, spreading from my heart down to my fingertips. It feels so physically real that I almost think something went wrong, but I wiggle my toes and realize this is just my body tired of fighting the sadness he put me through.

Like an obedient girl, I push. Nothing matters, but I push knowing that there won’t be a little girl at the end of this pain. I’m a mother without her baby. A shell of who I was.

After it all, I’m finally left alone and curl into a ball with the empty hospital walls watching me. I cry through the night, and only her name echoes inside me.

Mirasol.