Together We Rise From Ashes

Together We Rise From Ashes

Gavin

5.0
Comment(s)
36.8K
View
10
Chapters

My sister and I were stranded on a deserted road, eight months pregnant and with a flat tire, when a truck' s headlights pinned us in their glare. It wasn't swerving to avoid us. It was aiming for us. The crash was a symphony of destruction. As a monstrous pain ripped through my pregnant belly, I called my husband, Kade, my voice choked with blood and fear. "Kade... accident... the baby... something' s wrong with the baby." But I didn't hear panic. I heard his stepsister, Florence, whining in the background about a headache. Then came Kade' s voice, cold as ice. "Stop being so dramatic. You probably just bumped a curb. Florence needs me." He hung up. He chose her over me, over his sister-in-law, over his own unborn child. I woke up in the hospital to two truths. My sister, a world-renowned pianist, would never play again. And our son, the baby I had carried for eight months, was gone. They thought we were just collateral damage in their perfect lives. They were about to find out we were the reckoning.

Chapter 1

My sister and I were stranded on a deserted road, eight months pregnant and with a flat tire, when a truck' s headlights pinned us in their glare.

It wasn't swerving to avoid us. It was aiming for us.

The crash was a symphony of destruction. As a monstrous pain ripped through my pregnant belly, I called my husband, Kade, my voice choked with blood and fear.

"Kade... accident... the baby... something' s wrong with the baby."

But I didn't hear panic. I heard his stepsister, Florence, whining in the background about a headache.

Then came Kade' s voice, cold as ice.

"Stop being so dramatic. You probably just bumped a curb. Florence needs me."

He hung up. He chose her over me, over his sister-in-law, over his own unborn child.

I woke up in the hospital to two truths. My sister, a world-renowned pianist, would never play again. And our son, the baby I had carried for eight months, was gone.

They thought we were just collateral damage in their perfect lives.

They were about to find out we were the reckoning.

Chapter 1

Gloria Carpenter POV:

The first call to my husband went to voicemail. The second, too. On the third, as the headlights grew into blinding suns pinning us to the side of the deserted road, I finally understood.

My marriage was a lie.

Just hours ago, Charlene and I were the shimmering centerpiece of Gotham' s high society pages. The Carpenter sisters, the envy of every woman who dreamed of a fairy-tale ending. We had married the Conrad twins, Kade and Carlisle, heirs to a corporate empire that could buy and sell small countries. Our lives were supposed to be set, gilded cages of comfort and adoration.

Tonight, the gold had peeled back to reveal cheap, rusted iron.

"They' re not stopping, Glo," Charlene whispered, her voice tight with a fear that mirrored my own. Her hands, those gifted, insured-for-millions hands that could make a piano weep, gripped the steering wheel of our stalled car.

I clutched my phone, my thumb hovering over Kade' s name. A wave of nausea, sharp and acidic, rose in my throat, completely unrelated to the eight months of pregnancy that made my movements clumsy. The baby inside me, a tiny, insistent flutter of life, kicked against my ribs as if sensing my panic.

Pick up, Kade. Please, just pick up.

The mental link between us, once a vibrant current of shared thoughts and emotions, was silent. It hadn't always been this way. In the beginning, his mind was an open book to me, full of reassurances and a fierce, possessive love I mistook for devotion. But lately, especially since his stepsister Florence returned, the connection had grown frayed, then muted, and now... nothing. It was like screaming into an empty room.

The truck accelerated. It wasn't swerving to avoid us. It was aiming for us.

My breath hitched. "Try Carlisle again," I urged Charlene, my voice barely a tremor.

She shook her head, her knuckles white. "I did. He said the same thing as Kade. That they' re busy."

Busy. The word was a slap. Busy consoling Florence because she' d had a minor argument with her ex-boyfriend. Kade' s voice from his last brief, irritated call echoed in my ears. "For God' s sake, Gloria, can' t you handle a flat tire? Florence is having a panic attack. Her needs come first right now."

Her needs. A broken nail was a tragedy for Florence. A cancelled shopping trip was a crisis. And my husband, and my sister' s husband, treated her trivial dramas as matters of state security, while their pregnant wives were stranded on a dark, forgotten highway.

The headlights were inescapable now, the engine a deafening roar that vibrated through the floor of our car. There was no time to get out, no time to do anything but brace for the inevitable. Charlene screamed my name, a sharp, terrified sound that was swallowed by the screech of tires and the cataclysmic crunch of metal.

My head slammed against the side window. Pain, white-hot and blinding, exploded behind my eyes. The world tilted, spun, and then everything was just a symphony of destruction-the shattering of glass, the groan of twisting steel, and my own ragged gasp as a monstrous force threw me against my seatbelt. The strap dug viciously into my swollen belly.

A new, terrifying pain ripped through me, low and deep. It was a cramp of such impossible intensity that it stole my breath.

"The baby," I choked out, my hand flying to my stomach. It was as hard as a rock. "Char... the baby."

But Charlene didn' t answer. She was slumped over the steering wheel, unnaturally still. A dark stain was spreading across her sleeve, and her beautiful, talented hands were twisted at an angle that made my stomach heave.

The truck, its job done, sped away into the darkness without a second glance.

We were alone. Bleeding. Broken.

And the silence from my husband' s end of our mental bond was louder than the wreck itself.

I fumbled for my phone, my fingers slick with something warm. The screen was cracked, but it still glowed. I hit Kade' s number again, praying to a God I wasn' t sure I believed in anymore.

It rang once. Twice.

Then, his voice. Not concerned. Annoyed. "Gloria, I told you I' m with Florence. What is so important that you have to keep calling?"

A sob tore from my throat, raw and desperate. "Kade... accident... we were hit... Charlene' s hurt, I think she' s unconscious. And the baby... something' s wrong with the baby."

There was a pause. For a fraction of a second, a stupid, naive part of me expected to hear panic, to hear him shouting orders, to feel the rush of his concern through our bond.

Instead, I heard Florence' s voice in the background, a pathetic, manipulative whimper. "Kade, my head hurts so much. I think I' m going to be sick."

Kade' s tone softened instantly, a gentle murmur meant only for her. "It' s okay, Flo. I' m here. Just breathe." He came back on the line with me, his voice like ice. "Look, stop being so dramatic. You probably just bumped a curb. Call a tow truck. I can' t leave Florence right now. She needs me."

"Dramatic?" The word was so absurd, so cruel, it felt like another blow. "Kade, the car is destroyed! I' m bleeding! Please, you have to help us!"

"You' re always making things about you, aren' t you? Florence is fragile. Unlike you. Handle it. And don' t call again unless the world is actually ending."

The line went dead.

He had hung up.

He had chosen her. Over me. Over his sister-in-law. Over his own unborn child.

The truth settled over me, cold and heavy as a shroud. This wasn' t just neglect. This was a deliberate abandonment. We weren' t his priority. We weren' t even on his list.

A wave of agony, sharper than any physical pain, washed over me. I looked at Charlene, so still and silent, and then down at my rigid belly where the frantic fluttering had ceased. An awful, spreading wetness was soaking through my dress. Red. So much red.

The child I had carried for eight months, the child I had loved with every fiber of my being, was slipping away from me. And his father didn' t care.

Tears streamed down my face, hot and useless. I tried to reach for Charlene, to do something, anything, but my body felt like it was filled with lead. My consciousness was fraying at the edges, the darkness beckoning.

In that moment, lying in the wreckage of my car, my sister, and my life, I made a vow. If I survived this, Kade Conrad would pay. They would all pay.

My last conscious thought was not of my husband, but of the child I was losing. My little boy. A silent scream for him echoed in the ruins of my heart. The world finally went black.

Continue Reading

Other books by Gavin

More
Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Contract With The Devil: Love In Shackles

Mafia

4.5

I watched my husband sign the papers that would end our marriage while he was busy texting the woman he actually loved. He didn't even glance at the header. He just scribbled the sharp, jagged signature that had signed death warrants for half of New York, tossed the file onto the passenger seat, and tapped his screen again. "Done," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. That was Dante Moretti. The Underboss. A man who could smell a lie from a mile away but couldn't see that his wife had just handed him an annulment decree disguised beneath a stack of mundane logistics reports. For three years, I scrubbed his blood out of his shirts. I saved his family's alliance when his ex, Sofia, ran off with a civilian. In return, he treated me like furniture. He left me in the rain to save Sofia from a broken nail. He left me alone on my birthday to drink champagne on a yacht with her. He even handed me a glass of whiskey—her favorite drink—forgetting that I despised the taste. I was merely a placeholder. A ghost in my own home. So, I stopped waiting. I burned our wedding portrait in the fireplace, left my platinum ring in the ashes, and boarded a one-way flight to San Francisco. I thought I was finally free. I thought I had escaped the cage. But I underestimated Dante. When he finally opened that file weeks later and realized he had signed away his wife without looking, the Reaper didn't accept defeat. He burned down the world to find me, obsessed with reclaiming the woman he had already thrown away.

Unwanted by Him, Chosen by the Stronger Alpha

Unwanted by Him, Chosen by the Stronger Alpha

Werewolf

4.3

I was the Pack’s shame, a twenty-year-old "Runt" who had never shifted. Yet, I clung to the desperate hope that Alpha Marcus, the man I had loved my entire life, would finally claim me at the Full Moon Gala. Instead, he stood before the entire Pack with Izzy, a woman who looked at him with hunger rather than love. With eyes as cold as stone, he didn't just ignore me; he destroyed me. "I, Marcus Thorne, reject you, Olivia Hayes." The rejection snapped our bond, but the nightmare was just beginning. When Izzy framed me for poisoning her, Marcus didn't hesitate. He chained me in the dungeon and wielded the silver whip himself. Each lash burned like liquid fire, tearing through my skin as he demanded a confession I couldn't give. I woke up in a pool of my own blood, only to hear the nurse whisper the truth I was never meant to know. The silver toxicity hadn't just broken my body; it had killed the unborn pup I didn't even know I was carrying. Marcus had whipped the mother of his own child to protect a liar. He had killed his heir for a woman who was faking her own pregnancy. That night, as I crawled through the mud to escape, the weak Runt died. In the freezing waters of the river, my bones snapped and reshaped. I didn't just shift; I became the legendary White Wolf. And when Marcus finally realized the truth and came begging on his knees, I looked at him with my new, violet eyes and prepared to give him the rejection he deserved.

You'll also like

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book