The Traitor’s Daughter

“Nothing,” I said, pulling my arm out of his grip. “I’m tired. It’s been a long day.”

Zion didn’t move. His eyes searched my face, sharp and suspicious. “You went white as a sheet.”

“Brides faint. It’s practically tradition.” I picked the pen up off the silk before he could argue, and this time nothing happened. It was just a pen. I signed my name at the bottom of the page in clean, steady letters.

Kira of Silver Lake.

There. Done.

I held the agreement out to him. “Now make the call.”

He took it slowly, still watching me. Then he pulled out his phone and turned away, his voice dropping into the clipped tone of an Alpha giving orders. Healers. Transport. Tonight.

I was already on my feet, grabbing a long wool coat from the wardrobe and throwing it on over my wedding gown.

Zion lowered the phone. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To get my mother.”

“My people will handle it.”

“Your people don’t know her.” I buttoned the coat with shaking fingers. “And Dark Moon won’t let her go without a fight. Not to Silver Lake.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said something short into the phone and hung up.

“There’s a car downstairs,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

*****

The Dark Moon infirmary smelled like bleach and wolfsbane.

It was past one in the morning, and the halls were nearly empty. My heels clicked on the tile, loud as gunshots, and the night nurse at the front desk looked up and froze.

Her lip curled. “Well. Look who it is.”

I kept walking.

“Back so soon?” she called after me. “Did Silver Lake already send you home?”

Another nurse leaned out of a doorway, smirking. I heard the whispers follow me down the hall.

Traitor’s daughter.

Spy’s brat.

Ran straight to Silver Lake, just like her mother.

In my last life, those words made me shrink. I used to walk these halls with my head down and my shoulders hunched, apologizing for taking up space.

Tonight, I didn’t even slow down.

Room 114 was at the very end of the hall, the farthest from the nurses’ station. Of course it was.

I pushed open the door, and my breath caught.

Mom.

She lay small and still beneath a thin blanket, an IV taped to the back of one hand. Her skin was the color of old ash. The dark hair she used to braid every morning had gone dull and brittle against the pillow, and her cheekbones looked sharp enough to cut.

She looked like she’d been dying for months.

Because she had.

I crossed the room and took her hand. Her fingers were cold.

Wolves heal fast. A broken bone knits in days. A knife wound closes in hours. Even silver poisoning, as long as the silver is gone, should burn out of a wolf’s blood in a week or two.

It had been four months.

Something was still poisoning her. And no one here cared enough to find out why.

“I’m here, Mom,” I whispered. “I’m getting you out.”

“The hell you are.”

I turned.

My stepbrother filled the doorway, broad shoulders blocking the light from the hall. Dakota. Hati’s son and heir, the future Alpha of Dark Moon. His dark hair was mussed as if he’d been dragged out of bed, but his eyes were wide awake and full of the same contempt he’d always had for me.

“A nurse called me,” he said. “Said the traitor’s daughter was sneaking around in the middle of the night.” His gaze dropped to Mom, then rose back to me. “Let me guess. Your new husband wants his spy back.”

“She’s not a spy.”

“She was caught with letters to Silver Lake. Detailing our patrol routes.” He stepped into the room. “And now her daughter marries Silver Lake’s Alpha and comes to smuggle her out at midnight. You really think anyone’s going to believe that’s a coincidence?”

“I think she’s dying,” I said evenly. “And I think no one in this pack has lifted a finger to stop it.”

His jaw tightened. “She’s not leaving this building.”

“She is.”

He took another step, and his aura slammed into me. Not as heavy as Zion’s, but meaner. It wanted me on my knees.

My legs trembled. I locked them.

“Enough.”

The voice came from the hall. Quiet, deep, and tired.

Hati stood behind his son. The Alpha of Dark Moon. My mother’s husband. Gray had crept into his beard since the wedding, and there were shadows under his eyes I didn’t remember seeing before.

He didn’t look at me. He looked past Dakota, past me, at the woman in the bed.

And for one moment, something moved across his face. Grief. Guilt. Doubt.

Then it was gone.

“Let them go, Dakota.”

Dakota whirled. “Father, she’s…”

“I said let them go.”

Footsteps pounded down the hall behind them. Six warriors in Silver Lake black, moving fast, with two healers pushing a gurney between them. The lead warrior stopped in the doorway and bowed his head to me.

“Luna. Alpha Zion’s orders. We’re to escort you and your mother home safely.”

Six warriors. Two healers. An escort.

I’d asked for a transfer. Not this.

I didn’t have time to wonder what it meant.

The healers moved Mom onto the gurney with careful hands. As they lifted her, her eyelids fluttered. Her fingers found mine and gripped with a strength I didn’t know she had left.

“Kira,” she breathed. Her eyes were cloudy and unfocused. “The letters... weren’t mine. Lu…”

Her hand went slack. Her eyes slid shut.

“Mom?” I leaned over her. “Mom, who? Lu who?”

Nothing. She was under again.

My heart was pounding. Lu.

“Leaving so soon, sister?”

The voice was sweet as honey, soft and warm and pleased.

I knew that voice. I’d heard it laugh while my life fell apart.

Slowly, I turned toward the door.

Jessi.