Negative

Lysera

Blood still clung to my skin, tacky and dark, drying in uneven streaks along my back and arms. Every breath pulled pain through me, but it was different now—no longer the sharp, endless tearing of the cane. It was slower and duller now. I was slowly healing.

My wolf was awake.

I could feel her beneath my skin, fragile but present, knitting me back together piece by piece.

A healer I did not recognize knelt in front of me. He smelled of unfamiliar herbs and old parchment. His hands were efficient, careful in a way that felt distant, as if I were already a verdict and not a person.

“This is only to confirm,” he said, not looking at my face as he tied a strip of cloth around my arm.

A sharp sting followed as the needle pierced my skin. I barely reacted. Compared to what I had endured, this was nothing.

Around me, the pack members present were still murmuring among themselves. Their voices were filled with unease, doubt and anger.

I caught fragments—lying… disgrace… impossible… curse—but they blurred together, meaningless.

My eyes were fixed on Alpha Henry.

He stood a short distance away, tall and unmoving, elders gathered around him. My father was among them, speaking sharply, his hands slicing through the air as if he were arguing a verdict. Other elders leaned in, their faces tense.

But Henry wasn’t listening. I could see it in his eyes.

They were distant, unfocused, staring into nothing. His lips were pressed together tightly, his jaw rigid, as though he were holding himself still by force alone. He looked as if he was trapped in his own thoughts.

This man was my mate.

The bond tugged faintly in my chest, a quiet ache that felt almost cruel now. It offered no comfort or protection. Only the hollow reminder of what it was supposed to mean.

My chest tightened painfully. He’d agreed to everything that happened and sat quietly as I was flogged before the pack.

I knew I could have died from the flogging. I had felt my body slipping, felt darkness closing in. And if I had died there on the pack ground, surrounded by wolves who hated me, nothing would have changed.

Least of all for him.

My wolf whimpered softly inside me, curling in on herself, confused and hurting. Her pain bled into mine until it felt like one and the same.

I couldn’t look away from him.

This world was cruel and merciless.

I wasn’t just born to be overlooked by everyone and forgotten by my family. Even my mate wanted no part of me. The bond that was supposed to mean protection, loyalty, salvation meant nothing to him.

He had turned away with my sister in his arms and left me on the floor. He’d ordered for me to be imprisoned just minutes after discovering we were fated mates.

The healer withdrew the needle and stepped away to conduct another test.

My hand drifted to my stomach. A baby.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe I should do both.

What would I do with a baby? How was I supposed to take care of a child on my own? I had no work, no money, no standing in this pack. And now, I have been branded a criminal.

If it was truly confirmed that I carried a child, who would care for my baby once my punishment resumed and I was sentenced to life in the dungeon?

While I wasted away in a cold cell, curled on the hard stone floor, forgotten by the world—who would hold my child? Who would feed them? Who would love them?

The fear hurt almost as much as the wounds on my back.

Would my parents take my baby and raise them? Or would my child grow up with the same coldness I had known all my life—judged, unwanted, punished simply for existing?

Tears burned my eyes as I squeezed them shut. I prayed the test would come back negative. I prayed this nightmare would end here. Maybe the flogging would finish what it started, and I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life rotting in a cell for a crime I never committed.

Maybe once the pack was rid of me, they would finally be satisfied. Maybe then everything would be fine.

I didn’t know how long I stayed on my knees, whispering broken prayers into the dirt.

Everybody fell silent, causing my eyes to snap open.

Alpha Henry was looking at me.

A muscle jumped in his jaw, and the moment our gazes met, he turned away, disgust written all over his face.

“Alpha,” the second healer called as he returned, another junior healer at his side. “Lysera is truly pregnant.”