第2章

After packing my bags, I went to the pack medical center where I had been treated eight years ago.

The old doctor recognized me, but his first words were not what I expected.

"Why did you never complete the second phase? The wolfsbane purge and the psychic reconstruction?"

I froze.

"Adrian said the risk was too high. That the odds of waking my wolf were under thirty percent."

The doctor frowned.

He pulled up the old records.

The records filled the screen one line at a time.

Wolf still responsive.

Complete the purge within three months. Recovery probability: above seventy percent.

Treatment cost: $480,000.

Payer: Adrian Cross.

When I saw the payment record, my chest seized.

So he really had wanted to save me once.

But that flicker of warmth lasted only a few seconds.

The next page was a treatment cancellation request.

Signed: Adrian Cross.

The cancellation date was one day before Vivian faced the Inter-Pack Council's charges.

The stated reason read:

Patient emotionally unstable. Patient voluntarily declined wolf-recovery treatment.

I stared at the words "voluntarily declined."

In the inner world that had been silent for eight years, something felt crushed all over again.

I knew there was a second phase of treatment.

But I never knew the recovery odds were over seventy percent, or that the fee had already been paid in full.

Back then, the wolfsbane kept sending me into comas, and Adrian signed every document as my registered mate and my Alpha-appointed medical proxy.

When I woke, he held me and said it was an experimental protocol with less than a thirty percent success rate. Black Pine had just survived a border conflict, he told me, and its funds were nearly gone.

He said if I insisted, the medicine and food ordinary members needed for the winter would have to be cut.

I was afraid I would become a burden on the entire pack.

So I ended up comforting him instead.

I said I wouldn't do the treatment.

Even without my wolf, I could still manage Black Pine territory for him.

The doctor sighed.

"We contacted the Alpha afterward. He kept saying you weren't willing to endure the shock of shifting again."

I left the medical center with the copies in hand.

A livestream notice for Vivian's reinstatement hearing popped up on my phone.

The headline read: After eight years in exile, will Black Pine Pack welcome one of its own home?

I suddenly wanted very badly to know.

Where that $480,000 had actually gone.

I hurried to the hearing chamber in the pack's main house.

Before I even reached the door, I heard Vivian's stifled sobs.

"Back then, if you hadn't paid the $480,000 in council restitution for me, wouldn't I have been declared a permanent exile?"

Adrian's voice was very low.

"It's all in the past."

Vivian pressed on.

"But that money was meant to wake Elena's wolf, wasn't it?"

It was quiet inside for a long time.

Adrian didn't deny it.

He said, "By then she had already lost her wolf. But if you had been banished for good, you would have lost your standing, your territory, and every protection you had.

"What I owe her, I can make up for slowly.

"But back then, you had no one but me."

I stood outside the door, barely breathing.

So it wasn't that he had no money.

He had simply traded my chance of ever hearing my wolf again for Vivian's right to return to the pack.

I pushed the door open.

Vivian's eyes were rimmed red, as if I had just walked in on some terrible injustice done to her.

Adrian stood up so fast his knee slammed into the edge of the table.

I set the payment record and the cancellation request down in front of him.

"So you've been lying to me all along."

Adrian opened his mouth.

Not a single word came out.

Vivian said softly, "Elena, I didn't know that was your treatment money."

Then she took a step back.

"You two talk. I'll wait outside."

But Adrian stepped in front of her first.

"She didn't force me.

"I decided to take the money. If you want to blame someone, blame me."

I still clung to one last shred of hope.

"Then what about me?

"What did my wolf count for?"

Adrian's voice went hoarse.

"I'm sorry.

"Elena, you've always been stronger than her. Always more understanding.

"I thought back then that if I saved her first, I would have a whole lifetime to make it up to you.

"I'll find you the best doctors."

I smiled.

"The window to wake her closed years ago.

"And that lifetime you keep talking about stopped belonging to me years ago too."

Vivian said quietly, "I'll go. I don't want to intrude."

But reporters' questions were already rising outside the door.

She stopped and instinctively stepped back behind Adrian.

Adrian immediately pulled off his jacket and shielded her face.

He turned to me.

"It's chaos out there. Let me get her out first. I'll explain when I'm back."

I'll explain when I'm back. Again.

I didn't wait this time.

After leaving the hearing chamber, I rebooked my flight to Silver Ridge for late that same night.