After My Husband Chose His Mistress Over Our Baby

The argument spilled out of the living room and into the foyer, echoing off the vaulted ceilings like a curse. Cameron paced in front of the grand staircase, his movements jerky and unnatural. The sage oil Ava had been dosing him with clung to his skin, a sickly-sweet shroud masking the graying tone of his complexion. He looked manic, his chest heaving with a breath he didn't actually need.

"You're jealous," he rasped, pointing a shaking finger at me. The necrosis on his hand had spread, the skin around his fingernails turning the color of wet ash. He didn't even feel it. "You can't stand that she's giving me what you never could. A legacy. Life."

"I am giving you life!" My voice broke, raw and desperate. I pressed my hands against my stomach, shielding the twelve-week miracle growing there. "I have bled for you every month for five years, Cameron. I have stitched your soul to your bones. And I am carrying your child right now."

He stopped. For a second, the fog in his eyes seemed to clear. He looked at my abdomen, confusion warring with the drugs in his system.

Then Ava screamed.

She stood at the top of the marble staircase, clutching the railing with one hand and her prosthetic belly with the other. Her face was a mask of theatrical terror.

"Cameron!" she shrieked, her voice piercing the tension. "She's trying to hex the baby! I can feel it! She's using her blood magic to stop its heart!"

It was a lie so absurd it should have been laughable, but to a man high on hallucinogens and paranoia, it was a command. Cameron’s head snapped toward me, the confusion instantly replaced by a feral, protective rage. The whites of his eyes were veined with red.

"Don't you touch them," he growled, closing the distance between us.

"Cameron, listen to me—"

"I said stop!"

He lunged. It wasn't a calculated strike; it was a blind, thrashing shove meant to clear a path to his mistress. But we were standing at the edge of the drop. His cold, dead hands slammed into my shoulders with supernatural force.

My heels slipped on the polished marble. The world tilted sideways.

I reached for him, but my fingers only grazed his sleeve. Then there was nothing but air. I fell backward, the chandelier spinning above me in a dizzying blur. My body struck the first step, then the next, a brutal cacophony of cracking bone and tearing flesh. I tumbled down the flight, instinctively curling around my stomach, trying to turn my own body into a shield.

The final impact against the foyer floor knocked the air from my lungs. Darkness rushed in at the edges of my vision. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Jax shouting my name, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony. And faintly, from the top of the stairs, I heard Ava’s sharp, victorious intake of breath.

Then the pain in my abdomen exploded, tearing through me like a hot knife, and I knew—with a certainty that shattered me more than the fall—that the spark was gone.

***

The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and pity. I woke to the rhythmic beeping of machines that monitored a life that was no longer whole. My left arm was in a cast, my ribs taped tight, but the physical pain was a dull roar compared to the silence in my womb.

Jax sat in the chair beside the bed, his head in his hands. He looked like he hadn’t moved in hours. His shirt was stained with my blood.

"June?" He lifted his head as I stirred. His eyes were red-rimmed, haunted.

I didn't need to ask. I could feel the hollowness inside me, a void where the hum of magic and life used to be. The connection to the baby—the impossible thread I had woven from love and ancient herbs—was severed.

"The doctor..." Jax’s voice cracked. He reached for my hand, his grip trembling. "There was too much trauma. They couldn't save it."

I stared at the ceiling tiles, counting the perforations. One, two, three. Tears slid hot and fast into my hairline, silent and endless. I didn't scream. I didn't wail. I just felt something inside me die—not just the baby, but the last tether binding me to Cameron. The love I had held for him, the duty that had enslaved me, it all bled out on that marble floor.

I closed my eyes and reached out with my senses. I could still feel the faint, rotting pulse of Cameron’s soul anchor across the city, but it no longer felt like an obligation. It felt like a tumor.

"Get the car, Jax," I whispered.

"June, you can't. You have internal bruising, a concussion—"

I turned to look at him, and he stopped. He saw the shift in my eyes. The meek, sacrificial wife had died on that staircase. What lay in the hospital bed was something else entirely.

"I am not staying here," I said, my voice cold and steady. "Take me to the lawyer."

***

Two days later, I sat in the plush leather chair of a high-rise office in Midtown, ignoring the throbbing ache in my ribs. My lawyer, a sharp-eyed woman named Evelyn, slid a thick document across the mahogany desk.

"Are you sure about the terms, Mrs. Brooks?" she asked, her pen hovering. "Usually, in cases of... domestic disputes, we advise a cooling-off period."

"There is no cooling off," I said. I picked up the pen. My hand was bandaged, but my grip was iron. "I want a full dissolution of the marriage. Irreconcilable differences. Cruelty."

I looked down at the papers. *June Owens vs. Cameron Brooks.*

I wasn't just filing for divorce. I was signing his death warrant. Without me, without the ritual I had denied him for weeks, he was already a walking corpse. This was just the paperwork to make it official.

I signed my name with a flourish, the ink dark and permanent.

"Serve him today," I told Evelyn, standing up. The room spun slightly, but I locked my knees and forced the weakness down. "I want him to know exactly what he lost."