Chapter 3

But my mother was unmoved.

She looked down at Leo as he knelt in the blood. Her voice was cold and harsh, her disgust plain. "Leo, get up this instant! You have the purest Alpha blood in your veins. How dare you kneel to anyone like some lowly stray dog?!"

Her words went through my chest like a poisoned crossbow bolt.

Leo was noble. Leo couldn't kneel.

Yet years ago, when Leo was caught sneaking into the forbidden grounds, she'd forced me to kneel in the middle of the pack square. I was just a little girl. In front of the whole pack, I'd had to press my forehead to the ground and beg the Elder Council for forgiveness in his place.

Leo was the heir, so his dignity came before everything. My life was disposable. She could throw it away whenever she liked.

My father was shaking with rage. He roared at her, "Diana! How long are you going to keep making a scene?! That's your own daughter! She's dying!"

"I'm making a scene?!" My mother shrieked like someone had stepped on her tail. Tears sprang to her eyes, and her face twisted with malice. "This is all your fault, you cold, unromantic bastard!"

My father froze. What did he have to do with any of this?!

As the wolves stared in shock, my mother finally screamed out what was really bothering her. "Last week was our 20th anniversary as mates! I reminded you two weeks in advance, and you still forgot all about it! You couldn't even make one heartfelt vow!

"Aren't you supposed to have such a great memory?! Well, now I'm going to show you exactly how much you'll pay for being so careless and taking your mate for granted!"

My father trembled with rage. "Diana! Will you listen to reason?! How many anniversaries do you expect me to remember every year?! Our bonding anniversary, the anniversary of our first hunt, even the night we first walked beneath the moonlight! That week, I was at the border fighting feral packs. I went seven days and nights without sleep, and I nearly died out there! Afterward, I gave you every coin of the territory's earnings to make it up to you. Why do you have to use our daughter's life to punish me?!"

Being challenged in front of everyone sent my mother into a rage. "How dare you yell at me?! When you do something wrong, you pay for it for the rest of your life! Just because I took your gold doesn't mean I've forgiven you!"

My father's mouth hung open, but nothing came out. He would probably never understand how forgetting an anniversary while defending our territory could cost him his daughter.

Suddenly I felt so tired. The burning pain inside me slowly faded, and then I couldn't feel anything at all.

I knew my time had come.

My hand slipped from Leo's coat and fell limp. Trembling with terror, he frantically slapped my cheeks. "Evelyn? Evelyn! Open your eyes! Don't go to sleep!"

After Julian vouched for us and my father showed the Alpha mark, the patrolmen finally lifted me into their patrol wagon to rush me to the temple.

With the warning horn blaring, the wagon charged through the stone gates of the Healers' Temple.

I thought reaching the temple meant I had a chance. But I had underestimated my mother's insane need for control.