Page 84 of The Alpha's Sold Pregnant Mate

“It hurts,”she lamented in severe pain. Her heart was racing, her thoughts were suddenly tugging at her brain, threatening to burst it open. Pain surged through her veins like volts of electricity. Her head was pounding, and her entire body was aching.

“I know it hurts,” he replied with a tender voice as he gently wiped her hair soaked in sweat. “Please, you have to try.” He held on tighter to her arm. “You can do it. Come on, Esme, you can do it.”

His words charged her up, and she decided to give it another try. Esme blew puffs of aira couple of times in a bid to summon the courage she needed to do what she had to do.

“That's it, that's it—atta girl.” He nodded, impressed by her zeal.

Esme let out a loud scream and pushed with all her might. The louder she yelled, the tighter she squeezed against her husband's hand.

She could feel her entrance tearing as the baby's head drew closer to coming out. Her insideswereburning, and her zeal to keep pushing gradually dropped by the second. Her breath was very difficult to catch.

“The baby's coming!” One of the midwives exclaimed joyously. “I can see it!”

“Keep pushing, my lady!” the other encouraged.

“Did you hear that?” Asher smiled. “We're almost there. Just a little bit longer.”

“Push, my lady, push!”a midwife said, positioning herself to accept the baby.

Esme's strength had completely dwindled at this point, and she felt like her soul was gradually leaving her body. The voices around her were now indistinct; her vision was blurry, and her eyes were rolling back into their sockets.

She felt like she was dying.

Esme thought about her mother at that moment. The pain was excruciating, worse than what she'd heard about childbirth, and her mom went through all of that alone. She had no one by her side, no Asher to hold her hand and tell her that everything would be alright, no midwives to encourage her and help her with the delivery.

Tears trickled down Esme's cheeks just thinking about how horrible it must have been for her mother. If she felt this way with all that love around her, how did her mother feel all alone, all by herself?

Esme thought about how she had to grow up without a mother's love or care, without anyone to truly call family because the only family she had died when bringing her into this world.

Esme's eyes gradually began to shut, and she felt like she was beginning to drift away. She tried to stay focused, but her consciousness was slipping, and the voices around her were echoing. Soon, every sound faded, and the last thing Esme saw was a blinding light.

When she opened her eyes, she was lying down on a fine white floor without any clue as tohow she had gotten there. She got up to her feet and saw a light so bright that she had to hide her face behind her outstretched hands.

When the shining stopped, she looked around her but had no idea where she was. It was like she was standing in an abyss of nothingness. Alone in that completely white space, she stood, looking around for hintsas to where she was.

She wasn't in the woods, as she often was in her other visions, and she wasn't in a city, either. There was nothing here, animate or inanimate. There was absolutely nothing.

This wasn't one of her regular visions; this was different and scarier in a way.

“Hello, Esme,” a familiar feminine voice called from behind her, forcing her to turn in its direction.

“Mom?” She rushed to the beautiful woman clothed in a white dress and hugged her tightly. “I didn't think that I was going to see you again.”

“You're not supposed to be here, my child. It's not yet your time,” she replied.

“My time?” Esme withdrew from her bosom. “What's that supposed to mean? I don't get it.” She added, “And where exactly is ‘here’?” Esme looked around, but she only saw an endless white space.

“Esme,” she called softly. “You're in the limbo between two worlds, with one leg in the land of the living and the other in the land of the dead.”

“I don't understand,” she said, perplexed. “Am I on the other side?”

“No. Not yet, but you will be soon, and I can't let that happen.”

She looked puzzled, still unable to wrap her head around what was happening.

“You're dying, Esme,” her mom blurted out.

“What?” Her brows knitted in bewilderment and fear, “No,” she objected in denial.

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