1: She doesn't have much time

Mica pov

The day my sister died, she asked me to marry her husband.

Not because she stopped loving him.

Because she knew she wouldn't live long enough to give him the family they'd dreamed of.

I just didn't know that yet.

All I knew, sitting in the back row of a lecture hall that smelled like old coffee and dry-erase markers, was that Professor Kane would not stop talking about supply chain elasticity.

"...and this is precisely why demand forecasting fails when—"

I stifled a yawn and glanced at the clock. Four minutes left. I could survive four more minutes of elasticity.

My phone buzzed against my thigh, silenced but insistent. I ignored it. Then it buzzed again. And again. A steady, relentless drumbeat against my leg that finally made me slide it halfway out of my bag under the desk.

The screen was a wall of notifications.

*Missed Call — Ethan.*

*Missed Call — Ethan.*

*Missed Call — Nyric.*

*Missed Call — Aunt Lydia.*

*Missed Call — Unknown.*

*Missed Call — Ethan.*

My stomach dropped before my brain even finished counting. Six. Twelve. More than that. I lost count somewhere past twenty.

"Miss Hale, is there somewhere else you need to be?"

I looked up. The entire lecture hall was staring at me.

"I— sorry. I have to go."

I didn't wait for permission. I shoved my laptop into my bag and half-ran up the aisle, ignoring the whispers trailing behind me, my heart already pounding for reasons I couldn't name yet.

Outside, the hallway was too bright and too loud with the shuffle of students changing classes. I ducked into an alcove by the stairwell and finally looked at my phone properly.

Forty-seven missed calls.

Forty-seven.

From Ethan. From Nyric. From my aunt. From three numbers I didn't recognize.

My hands were shaking before I understood why.

I called Ethan back first. He always answered by the second ring. This time, he picked up before it even finished the first.

"Mica! Thank the goddess—"

"Ethan, what's going on? Why does everyone—"

"It's your sister." His voice was tight, clipped, nothing like the calm, steady Beta I knew. "She collapsed at the house. They're taking her to St. Victoria Medical Center right now."

The hallway tilted.

"What? Collapsed how? Is she okay, is she—"

"I don't know details, Mica, I just know it's bad. Nyric's already on his way. You need to get there."

"I'm coming. I'm coming right now."

"Drive safe. Please."

The call ended, and for one full second I couldn't make my legs move.

*Not her. Not Ophelia. Not again.*

She'd been living with a heart condition since birth, but she'd been *better*. She'd smiled at me that very morning over a plate of pancakes she wasn't supposed to be making.

"Ophelia, sit down. I'll do that."

"Mica, it's pancakes, not a marathon."

She'd laughed. Called me overprotective. Kissed my cheek on her way out the door like it was any other Tuesday.

Now I was sprinting through campus, keys already in my fist, tears blurring the parking lot in front of me.

*Please. Moon Goddess, please. Don't take her from me.*

I don't remember most of the drive. I remember running two red lights. I remember gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles went white. I remember praying to a goddess I wasn't sure was even listening anymore.

The ER doors slid open just as I stumbled inside. The scent of blood hit me first. Then the noise — machines shrieking, nurses shouting orders, gurneys crashing through swinging doors.

"Ophelia Ashcroft!" I grabbed the nearest nurse by the arm. "Where is she? Please, I need to see her!"

"ICU. Seventh floor. Family only."

"I *am* family, I'm her sister—"

But she was already gone, swallowed by the chaos.

I didn't wait for permission. I ran.

By the time I reached the ICU, my lungs were on fire. The hallway up there was different — quieter, colder, the kind of silence that makes your skin crawl.

Then I saw him.

Alpha Nyric Ashcroft.

The strongest Alpha in the country. The billionaire every pack feared. The man my sister loved with everything she had.

His black shirt was soaked in blood.

Her blood.

His silver eyes were locked on the operating room doors, his fists clenched so tight I could hear his knuckles cracking from three feet away.

For the first time since I'd known him, he looked breakable.

"Nyric." My voice cracked on his name. "What happened? Talk to me."

He didn't move. Didn't blink.

"Nyric."

"You weren't answering your phone."

The words came out flat. Cold. Aimed like a blade.

"I was in a *lecture*, Nyric. I have forty-seven missed calls, I got here as fast as I—"

"I called you. Twice, before Ethan started calling for me."

"And I came the second I saw it, what do you want from me?"

His gaze finally snapped to mine. Sharp enough to cut.

"If you'd had your phone on you like a normal person, maybe you'd have been there. Maybe she wouldn't have collapsed alone with no one but the housekeeper to call for help."

"You think this is my fault?"

"I think she worried about you more than she ever worried about herself."

That landed like a slap.

"You don't get to say that to me. Not now. Not covered in her blood, blaming me for something you weren't there for either."

"Careful."

"No!" My voice bounced off the walls. "You don't get to stand there and pretend this is my failure because you can't accept what the doctors have been telling you for *months*. She was never built for the life you kept dragging her into — the galas, the summits, the councils. She wanted rest. You gave her a calendar."

His Alpha aura rolled down the hallway like a pressure front. Mine wasn't strong enough to push back against it, but I didn't move either.

We'd never liked each other. He thought I was reckless, immature, a bad influence on his wife. I thought he was cold, controlling, so busy carrying the world he forgot to notice who was standing next to him carrying it too.

The only reason we tolerated each other was because we loved the same woman.

"I'm not trying to fight with you," I said, quieter now. "I'm scared. That's all this is."

Something in his expression flickered. Just for a second. Then it sealed shut again.

The operating room doors burst open.

A doctor stepped out, stripping off bloodied gloves, and every thought in my head went white with panic.

"Mr. and Miss Ashcroft?"

"I'm her husband." Nyric's voice was immediate. Absolute.

"I'm her sister." Mine came out smaller than I wanted. "Please. Just tell us she's alive."

The doctor's expression fell in a way that made my stomach drop through the floor.

"I'm afraid we need to talk."

"Talk about what?" I stepped in front of Nyric before he could speak. "Say it. Whatever it is, just say it."

"Miss Hale—"

"*Say it.*"

He glanced back toward the room behind him, then lowered his voice.

"Her heart is failing much faster than we anticipated."

The hallway went silent around me. I couldn't hear the machines. Couldn't hear my own breathing.

"How fast." Nyric's voice had dropped into something eerily controlled — the tone he used right before making a decision no one could argue him out of. "Give me a number."

The doctor's eyes moved between the two of us.

"There's something your wife wants to discuss. With both of you."

My stomach twisted. *Both of us. Together.* Why would Ophelia need us in the same room?

I turned to Nyric.

For the first time in my life, I watched fear break across the face of a man the entire world called invincible.

"Take us to her," he said, his voice cracking on the last word. "Now."

The doctor hesitated.

That hesitation told me everything before he said a single word more.

"She doesn't have much time."