A Womb for a Womb

I nearly died giving birth to my second son.

The healers cut me open from hip to hip after the labor failed. I bled so much the sheets turned black-red beneath me. For eight hours, I floated between life and death, hearing voices beyond the delivery room doors.

My husband’s mother, Martha Hale, was the loudest.

“Save her if you can, but don’t you dare remove her womb!”

I remember that clearly.

Not my husband’s voice.

Not a prayer.

Not someone asking whether I was in pain.

Only Martha, screaming that the healers must not take my womb, because I still needed to give the Hale family more pups.

I survived.

Barely.

Before the stitches stopped burning, before I could sit up without seeing stars, Martha began talking about the third child.

“You already gave birth to two boys,” she snapped, standing beside my bed with my newborn son in her arms. “Do you know how expensive sons are?”

I stared at her, too weak to answer.

“A house, a car, mating gifts, dowry payments,” she continued. “When your sons grow up and take wives, where will the money come from?”

My mouth was dry.

“Then maybe we should stop having children.”

Martha looked at me as if I had said something disgusting.

“You know nothing. Girls cost less. They eat less. Dress them simply, raise them until they start bleeding, and marry them into another pack. The bride price can help your sons take wives.”

I thought the painkillers were making me hallucinate.

“You want me to give birth to a daughter so you can sell her later?”

“Don’t make it sound ugly.” Martha lifted her chin. “That’s how families survive.”

“No.”

Her eyes narrowed.

I said it again, clearer this time.

“I am not having another child.”

That was when she began to scream.

She called me selfish. Ungrateful. A useless daughter-in-law who wanted the Hale bloodline to suffer.

When I still refused, she ran toward the street.

“If you won’t give me a granddaughter, I’ll die right now!”

In my first life, I chased her.

I had just been cut open. My stitches tore as I stumbled after her. Blood soaked through my clothes, but I still reached for her.

Martha survived.

I did not.

A truck crushed my body before anyone could pull me back.

The last thing I saw was Martha standing safely on the curb, crying like she was the victim.

As my bones shattered beneath the wheels, the moon above me turned red.

Then a voice whispered from somewhere deep inside its light.

Old.

Female.

Merciless.

“A womb for a womb.”

“A life for a life.”

“Name her, and she shall carry what she demanded of you.”

When I opened my eyes again, the pain vanished.

I was back in the bedroom.

My newborn son was crying.

My incision burned.

Martha stood in front of me, one hand holding the baby, the other pointing at my face.

“You need to understand,” she barked, “you gave birth to two sons. If you don’t have a daughter to earn bride price for her brothers, how will my grandsons marry?”

For a moment, I only looked at her.

I had returned.

The red moon’s voice still echoed in my bones.

A womb for a womb.

This time, I smiled.

Martha frowned.

“What are you smiling at?”

I reached out and snatched my son from her arms.

“Get out.”

Her face twisted.

“What did you say?”

“I said get out.”

“You dare talk to me like that?”

She stepped forward and shoved my shoulder.

Pain ripped through my abdomen.

My vision went white for half a second.

When it cleared, I looked at her and thought of tires, blood, and the sound of my body breaking.

The old me would have cried.

The old me would have begged my husband to handle his mother.

The old me would have believed peace was worth swallowing pain.

That woman had died under a truck.

I held my baby close and shouted,

“Ethan! Come get your mother before I throw her out myself.”