Chapter 2

Three days later, I was researching interpack commerce in the business school library when a memory struck me with enough force to make me stand.

In my previous life, Ivy had died of a rare condition called wolf-spirit failure. By the time anyone diagnosed her, nothing could be done. That meant the decline of her wolf might already have begun.

My knee hit the table. Coffee spilled across my open notes, staining the pages brown. I left the mess where it was, seized my phone, and ran from the library.

"Ivy, are you free today? I want you to come with me to the Regional Pack Clinic."

We met half an hour later in a cafe near campus. When I told her I wanted to see a healer, she laughed.

"Why the sudden interest in an examination? Are you feeling sick?"

I gave her the excuse I had prepared on the way over. "The school is working with the clinic to offer students free wolf-core screenings. I've always hated clinics. Will you come with me?"

Ivy studied me. "It's really just a routine school examination?"

I nodded hard. "Really. You can be screened too. Consider it part of your health assessment before the mate ceremony. You and Adrian are holding it in three months, so you'll need one eventually."

Color rose into her cheeks. "Now you're teasing me too."

A Blackwood guard entered the cafe. He nodded to me before addressing her.

"Miss Ashford, Alpha Adrian asked when you would return to the pack house."

Ivy sighed, although her smile made it clear she was pleased. "I'm only having coffee with Wren. Tell him I'll be back soon."

After the guard left, she looked toward the door. "Adrian can be ridiculously possessive."

I managed a small smile. Claiming I had an afternoon class, I arranged to meet her at the clinic two days later and left.

Adrian's SUV was parked outside the school gates.

The driver's door opened. He climbed out and came toward me with long, swift strides. Before I could speak, he seized my wrist and dragged me toward the side of the academic building.

"Adrian, let go."

His grip did not loosen. Alpha pressure settled over me. My wolf lowered herself instinctively, and breathing became difficult.

Only when we reached a blind spot between security cameras did he release me. The motion was so abrupt that I lost my balance and fell hard onto the concrete. Pain burned across my knee and elbow.

Adrian stood over me, his golden eyes cold.

"This is my last warning, Wren. Stay away from Ivy."

I pushed myself upright. "I haven't hurt her."

"You would never hurt her directly." He gave a humorless laugh. "You pretend to care. Then you make her believe she owes you. Last night, you took her to my room. Today, you invited her to some wolf-core screening. Do you imagine that if you change tactics, I'll become grateful?"

Even saving Ivy's life was suspicious in his eyes.

"The school arranged a free examination. I only asked her to come with me."

"Don't discuss last night with her. Don't say anything that might affect the mate ceremony." His voice hardened with every word. "Ivy has a soft heart. That doesn't mean I can't see what you're doing. Do not exploit her kindness again."

"I'm not." My voice was quiet, but it trembled despite me. "I only asked her to come for a routine examination."

Adrian looked at my face. After a brief silence, he asked, "Are you ill?"

The question escaped too quickly to be calculated.

I stared at him, then shook my head. "No. It's only a screening."

His expression shifted slowly, as though he had remembered something, or was trying to decide whether I was hiding an illness. Then he crouched and examined my knee. The denim was torn, and blood had begun to bead along the raw skin.

"Get in the car."

"I have class this afternoon."

"That wasn't a request."

Alpha command entered his voice. My wolf obeyed before my mind could resist.

He drove me to a nearby clinic, bought antiseptic, ointment, and gauze, then crouched in front of a bench in the parking lot to clean my injuries. His movements were not gentle, but they were practiced and precise.

He had always treated my injuries this way. Those small acts of care had once convinced me that I occupied a place in his heart no one else could reach.

After securing the final bandage, he said, "I'll go with both of you on Thursday."

I looked down at my shoes and did not argue. My vision blurred for one humiliating second.

Two days later, Ivy sat in the examination room trembling as the pack healer placed the test results on the desk.

"This is early-stage wolf-spirit failure."

Ivy went white. Adrian immediately took her hand.

"What does that mean?"

"Her wolf is gradually falling asleep," the healer explained, indicating several abnormal readings. "If she loses the connection completely, her human body will begin to fail as well. Once the condition reaches its final stage, there is almost no effective treatment."

Adrian put an arm around Ivy. His fingers shook. "What stage is she in now?"

"Fortunately, you caught it early. Treatment can begin immediately. At this point, her chance of a full recovery is roughly ninety percent."

Ivy began to sob. Adrian pulled her tightly against him. He was the strongest Alpha in the region, a man capable of making decisions while everyone around him panicked. Yet his hands trembled as he held her.

Ivy lifted her face from his chest and reached for me.

"Wren, thank you. If you hadn't insisted, I might never have known until my wolf was completely gone."

I squeezed her hand. "You know now. That's what matters."

Adrian watched me over Ivy's shoulder. For once, there was no suspicion in his eyes. He seemed unsettled, and although the healer continued explaining Ivy's treatment plan, his attention kept returning to me.

When Ivy was taken into the next room for another test, I picked up my bag and prepared to leave.

"Wren."

I stopped and looked back.

Adrian remained beside Ivy's chair. His gaze fell briefly to the bandage on my knee, and I knew he was remembering what had happened only a few hours earlier. He had dragged me behind the academic building, accused me of using Ivy's kindness, and warned me to stay away from her.

Now the healer had just told him that the examination I arranged might have saved her life.

"How did you know something was wrong with her?" he asked.

"I didn't know. I only thought it would be safer for her to get checked before the mate ceremony."

His brow tightened. "You were worried about her?"

"Of course. Ivy is my friend."

Adrian fell silent.

In my previous life, I would have studied his expression and waited for him to admit that he had misunderstood me. Even a reluctant thank-you would have been enough to keep me hopeful for days.

Now I no longer wanted one.

"You should stay with Ivy," I said. "She'll probably be frightened after the next test."

I had already reached the door when Adrian spoke again.

"About what happened at school..."

There was an unfamiliar hesitation in his voice.

I understood what he wanted to say, but I didn't need to hear it.

"It doesn't matter."

His expression changed.

I adjusted the strap of my bag and looked at him calmly. "You don't have to believe me anymore, Adrian. I'm not going to keep trying to prove anything to you."

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then I left.

Walking down the clinic corridor, I remembered how desperately I had tried to make him believe me in my previous life. After Ivy died, Adrian convinced himself that the night we spent together had been part of my plan, that I had deliberately allowed Ivy to see us so I could take her place.

No matter how many times I denied it, he never changed his mind.

He severed our mate bond, expelled me from Blackwood, and used his position to make certain no neighboring pack would shelter or employ me. Even at the end, alone in that abandoned refuge near the western border, some part of me had still wished he would learn the truth.

I had died wanting to be believed by someone who had already decided what kind of person I was.

I would not make that mistake again.

This time, Ivy would live.

By bringing Ivy to the clinic, I had not only saved her life. I had saved the future she and Adrian had lost in my previous life.

I had returned Adrian to Ivy that first night.

Now I had made certain she would live long enough to stay beside him.

The realization still left an ache beneath my ribs, but it was different from before. I no longer wanted what belonged to them badly enough to destroy myself for it.

Adrian would marry the woman he had always loved, and the tragedy that destroyed all three of us would never happen.

Whether he finally understood me no longer mattered.

All that remained was for me to leave.