Stop this madness

Lysera

For a moment, I was certain I had misheard him, because the words made no sense. They hovered in the air, heavy and wrong, as if they belonged to another language entirely, something twisted and unfamiliar.

Give my baby… to Isyra?

I stared at my father, my thoughts scrambling uselessly, my heart stuttering painfully in my chest. Surely I had imagined it. Surely the pain, the blood loss, the shock had distorted his words into something monstrous that couldn’t possibly be real.

I looked around the pack square. No one was moving.

Not the elders. Not the guards. Not even Alpha Henry.

They were all staring at my father in stunned silence, their expressions frozen somewhere between disbelief and quiet calculation, as if they were already weighing the cost of his words.

My ears hadn’t betrayed me after all.

My father straightened when no one spoke, his jaw tightening with impatience, his authority settling over the space like a verdict.

“I said,” he repeated, louder now, his voice carrying across the square, “that Lysera should be made to carry the child to term. And when it is born, the baby will be given to Isyra. It is only fair.”

The silence shattered. Voices erupted from every direction at once, colliding into chaos.

“That child would be cursed!”

“It came from Lysera, her blood is tainted with evil!”

“Isyra shouldn’t accept such a thing!”

“Or maybe that’s exactly why she should,” another voice cut in sharply. “What punishment is greater for a mother than losing her child?”

“She killed Isyra’s baby!”

“Yes! Compensation is only right!”

“She deserves it!”

The words crashed over me like waves, each one stealing more air from my lungs. I felt myself shrinking inward, my arms instinctively wrapping around my stomach as if I could shield my baby from their voices, from their judgment, from the fate they were so eagerly carving out. My body trembled violently, barely holding itself together.

“Yes,” my mother said, her voice slicing cleanly through the noise. “Lysera’s child should be given to Isyra.”

Her agreement landed harder than any blow I had taken that night.

I turned my head slowly toward her, my vision blurring, my chest aching so fiercely it felt like it might tear open. If I didn’t look exactly like Isyra—if I didn’t see her every time I looked into a mirror—I would have believed my parents weren’t mine at all. How could they do this? How could they be so cruel to me? They really would take my baby and give them to Isyra just to protect their lies. They would go this far to cover their tracks. Why did I have to be punished just to shield their own evil plot?

My parents were speaking as if they were discussing the exchange of property, not the fate of their own flesh and blood. My baby—my child—would be their grandchild.

Something inside me shattered completely, breaking apart as my body shook with heart-racking sobs. They couldn’t do this. I wouldn’t let them. Alpha Henry wouldn’t accept it. He wouldn’t make me give my child to Isyra. She might be the love of his life, but I was his mate.

It didn’t matter that he was punishing me now, that he had even agreed I deserved a life sentence. He had done all of that because he believed I had killed his child.

But this—this was cruelty. This was a fate worse than death. My child was mine.

With what little strength I had left, I lifted my eyes to Alpha Henry.

“Please,” I cried, my voice barely audible, but he was looking at me. The way his face tightened told me he heard me. Hope flickered weakly in my chest.

“Please don’t make them do this. Stop this madness.”

Then he looked away.

The sound of my sobs grew louder, more broken, as I crawled forward on my hands and knees toward him, begging that my child not be given to Isyra. Strong hands grabbed me, the guards holding me down, preventing me from reaching him.

“Look at you,” my mother sneered. “An outsider would feel compassion for you with this performance. Nobody would ever guess the despicable thing you did to your sister.”

I shook my head violently, crying harder. “You know I didn’t kill Isyra’s baby. She wasn’t even pregnant. This child is your grandchild. How could you be this cruel?”

“Since it is my grandchild,” she said coldly, “while you spend the rest of your days in the dungeon, I will help care for the baby.” She grinned at me, malice flashing openly in her eyes.

“No,” I sobbed. “No. Isyra would kill my baby. She hates me. All of you hate me.”

“Elders,” Alpha Henry called, cutting off my mother’s next words. “Let us have a moment.”

He turned and walked away. The elders hesitated only a second before following him, their robes swaying as they hurried after him, their voices dropping into urgent murmurs.

The pack watched them go.

And I was left kneeling on the blood-soaked ground, clutching my stomach, realizing with terrifying clarity that my child’s fate was hanging in the balance—and that if they agreed, my baby would be taken from me and given to my sister, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.