Chapter 2

I woke to a blade cutting into my shoulder.

The royal healer was digging silver fragments out of the wound one by one. Every piece came free with a fresh rush of blood.

I bit down on a folded strip of leather and swallowed my screams.

“Stay awake, Mrs. Mercer,” the healer warned. Sweat ran down his temples. “If you shift, the silver will spread faster. Keep your wolf down.”

My wolf was already weakening.

So was the tiny heartbeat inside me.

Kaelan stood beside the operating table while another healer stitched the cut across his abdomen. He did not look at his own injury once.

“Pull through,” he told me. “You saved the Crown and every pack in this Alliance. Whatever you ask for after this, you will have it.”

I managed a faint smile.

The Hawthorne Pack. My father’s name. The fortune Lucas had slowly taken from us while pretending to love me.

There was plenty I wanted back.

But right then, all I wanted was the heartbeat beneath the healer’s hand to grow stronger.

It did not.

The doors burst open.

The royal aide Kaelan had sent to find Lucas stumbled inside. Cold sweat covered his face.

“Where is Commander Mercer?” Kaelan demanded.

The aide dropped to one knee. “My King, he refused to return.”

The room froze.

“Give me his exact words.”

The aide lowered his head. “Commander Mercer said Mrs. Mercer has threatened her pregnancy before whenever she wanted his attention. He said no pregnant wolf would be reckless enough to come near a security operation.”

My fingers tightened around the leather between my teeth.

Lucas knew exactly why I was there.

He had ordered me to deliver revised security maps because he was supposedly too busy to return home. Those maps had been my work. Like every plan that had built his career, Lucas only needed to put his name on them.

The aide continued reluctantly. “He also said Miss Vale was frightened by a rogue sighting and needed the elite unit more than Mrs. Mercer needed another audience for her performance.”

The baby’s heartbeat stumbled.

I heard it.

So did every wolf in the room.

The healer swore and reached for another syringe.

“Her stress is accelerating the silver poisoning!”

Kaelan ripped the black royal insignia from his coat and threw it at the aide.

“Take my seal back to Lucas. Tell him I am ordering him to report here immediately. If he refuses again, arrest him for desertion and treason.”

The aide ran.

The healer injected a dark liquid into my arm. Cold spread through my veins, briefly dulling the fire of the silver.

“This will slow the poison,” he said, “but it cannot reverse the damage already done.”

I searched his face.

“My baby?”

He did not answer.

“Tell me.”

The healer pressed his hand to my stomach. The room became so quiet that I could hear the blood dripping from the operating table.

The tiny heartbeat fluttered once.

Then stopped.

My wolf let out a long, broken howl inside my mind.

I stared at the ceiling.

No tears came at first.

The baby I had carried for eight months was gone.

Lucas had killed our child in my last life with wolfsbane and rogues.

This time, his selfishness had killed the same child before it ever took its first breath.

The healer leaned close. “We have to remove the baby now, Evelyn. If the silver remains inside your womb, it will kill you too.”

I turned my face away as the tears finally came.

“Do it.”

The scent-suppression system activated around the surgical ward. It flooded the air with bitter herbs strong enough to numb a werewolf’s nose and keep injured wolves from losing control around so much blood.

As darkness pulled me under, I heard Kaelan’s voice.

“Where is her mate?”

The aide had returned alone.

“Commander Mercer still refuses to come. He sent Miss Vale’s assistant in his place.”