LOGINWillow’s POVA few hours later, I was awake again.The chair beside my bed was empty.For a brief moment, disappointment settled in my chest before I pushed it away.It was ridiculous.Three days ago I had been terrified of him after watching that girl being executed on his orders.Now the empty chair beside my bed felt... wrong.I sighed.After sitting beside me for two days without sleeping, Mordecai was probably finally getting the rest he desperately needed.The thought should have reassured me.Instead, I found myself staring at the empty chair longer than I meant to.The clinic door opened and I looked up, expecting the healer.Instead, Diana walked in.The moment her eyes landed on me, she smiled. “You’re finally awake.”I returned a small nod, but said nothing more.Everything I had overheard before falling asleep kept replaying in my head.The smile on her face faded almost immediately. She knew me well enough to notice when something was wrong.She crossed the room.“I’m sor
Willow’s POVI drifted off again with his hand still around mine.I had asked him quietly, not to let go, and he hadn’t. It was strange how much easier sleep came knowing he was still sitting there.I wasn’t sure how long I had been out when the sound of the clinic door opening pulled me halfway back to consciousness.I kept my eyes closed. I was too tired to move, and I assumed it was the healer coming to check on me again.Instead, Diana’s voice filled the room.“Are you still here?” She asked Mordecai.She didn’t sound surprised. She sounded exasperated, the way she always did when I did something exhausting.“Don’t start,” Mordecai said.“I’m not starting anything.” There was a pause, and I could feel her scowling. “You haven’t slept. You haven’t changed those clothes. You haven’t left this chair in two days.”Another pause. “In all the years I’ve known you, I have never once seen you behave like this for anyone.”Mordecai said nothing.“Not even for me,” Diana went on. “But you s
Willow’s POVThe relief on his face faded slowly, replaced by something heavier. He didn’t let go of my hand, but his thumb stopped moving.He was quiet for a long moment before he finally asked the question I could tell had been sitting in his heart since I woke up.“Why did you run?”There was no anger in it. He just sounded tired and confused, like he genuinely couldn’t make sense of it.I looked away from him, toward the wall, because I couldn’t answer that while looking at his face.His hand tightened around mine before I answered, almost like he was afraid of what I was about to say.I hadn’t even noticed until then that neither of us had tried to let go.“I didn’t want to die,” I replied finally. My voice came out barely above a whisper.His fingers went still.Silence.I heard him shift slightly in the chair.“What are you talking about?”I didn’t answer right away, and when I finally looked back at him, his brows had furrowed in confusion. Then something in his expression shi
Willow’s POVI surfaced slowly, the way you come up from deep water when you’ve been under for too long.Everything felt heavy. My arms, my legs, even my eyelids. Opening my eyes took so much effort.The first thing I saw was a plain white ceiling I didn’t recognize.Then the smell of herbs and disinfectant reached me.I was in a clinic.My stomach tightened at that realization. The last time I had woken up in a clinic, my entire life had fallen apart in a few minutes. I had woken up to Alpha Kelvin standing over me, telling me my child was gone, telling me I would wish he had killed me instead.I braced myself for the familiar pain that came with those memories.But it didn’t come.There was an ache, yes. But it was a dull one, like an old bruise that had healed.The memories were still there. I could still see the healer’s herbs on that shelf back at Pinecrest, still hear Kelvin’s flat voice delivering the worst news of my life. But none of it had the same sharpness anymore.I trie
Noah’s POVThe clinic records room was at the back of the building, after the treatment wards.I had never had any reason to go there before. The door wasn’t locked.I went through the filing system quickly. It wasn’t organized the way official pack records were. These were handwritten, and arranged by dates.I started from the day Willow disappeared and moved backwards.I started pulling out files.It took twenty minutes to find the right one. The date was written clearly at the top.I read it twice.My hands were shaking by the time I reached the end.The date of Willow’s appointment was the same day I found out Stacey was pregnant.Six weeks along, the file said.My child.She had been carrying my child.The miscarriage was documented two days later. The cause was: ‘accident’.But the date matched exactly with the day of the stairs.My legs stopped cooperating. I sat down on the floor of the records room with the file in my hands and just stayed there.She had lost the baby when she
Noah’s POVI rubbed both hands over my face and stared at the ceiling of my office.Something wasn’t adding up.I had been sitting with this thought for hours, going over it again and again.Willow wasn’t a trained warrior.She wasn’t someone who had contacts outside the territory.She didn’t have money saved away somewhere. She was a wolfless omega who had spent eleven years doing laundry and eating whatever was left at the end of the day.So how had she disappeared so completely?She had been injured. The healer had said she had taken a hard blow to the head after falling down the stairs.I pressed my fingers against my eyes.I had not let myself think about the stairs properly since it happened. Every time the thought came, I quickly redirected my mind by focusing on work, on Stacey’s complaints, and on whatever my father was saying.I was still doing it now.I pushed back from my desk and stood up. I needed air. I needed to move.I left my office and walked without any particular
Willow’s POVI turned my head slightly, like I was just looking around casually, and scanned the area behind us, but there was nothing that explained what I was feeling.I turned back and kept walking.But the feeling stayed.It had been there in the garden too, I realized. I hadn’t registered it p
Willow’s POV I did not sleep at all.I sat on the edge of the bed until morning came, then I lay down, then sat up again, then stared at the wall for a while.My body simply refused to settle. Every time I closed my eyes, I was back against that wall, with his hands on either side of my head and h
Willow’s POVMy voice was barely a whisper.“Please.”Then something even stranger happened.Mordecai’s head lowered.I froze completely.His forehead brushed my shoulder, then he leaned forward, until his head rested on the side of my neck.My entire body went rigid.For a second, my brain simply s
Willow’s POV“Hela?” One of them called, and there was clear amusement in his voice. “What in the — are you babysitting?”Hela. So that was her name.It fit, I decided immediately. Goddess of death. She looked like one.“Get lost,” Hela replied, not even glancing at them.They didn’t get lost.“Is t







