LOGINKiera’s POVI stood alone in my chambers… the Luna’s chambers that had been cleaned and prepared for me weeks ago but that I’d never actually used. Everything was quiet, and peaceful. The kind of peace that felt wrong after so much chaos.The artifact pulsed against my skin, warm and insistent. Since absorbing Lucien’s dark magic and completing the trials, it had changed. Become more demanding, and present.I could feel it now, constantly. Not just the physical weight of it around my neck, but the awareness it brought. Threats brewing in distant territories. Pack tensions simmering on borders I’d never visited. Rogues gathering in neutral zones. Dangers everywhere, all the time, filtering through my consciousness like static I couldn’t turn off.The Guardian bond, the witch had called it. The price of wielding creation’s power.I’d accepted that price willingly. Would accept it again. But I hadn’t truly understood what it meant until now… this constant, exhausting vigilance that never
Darius’s POV My hands shook as I unfolded the note.Sarah’s handwriting was messy, uneven, written in haste or desperation, I couldn’t tell which. The words sprawled across the page in jagged lines that hurt to look at.‘Darius,’By the time you read this, I’ll be gone. I can’t face dawn knowing what’s coming. Can’t stand in front of the pack and accept their judgment when I’ve already judged myself.’I know what I did was wrong. Drugging you, working with Lucien, all of it. But you need to understand, I did it because I loved you. Loved you so much it turned into something sick. Something I couldn’t control.You were never supposed to be mine. I see that now. You belonged to Kiera from the start, and I was just the woman standing between you. Marcus deserved better than me as a mother. Margaret deserves better too. I look at her and feel nothing but resentment that she exists, that she’s proof of my failure. What kind of person feels that way about their own child?But here’s the t
Kiera’s POV Sarah’s words echoed in my head long after the nurses wheeled Margaret’s incubator out of her room.‘She should have died.’I stood in the hallway, frozen, trying to process what I’d just heard. A mother… minutes after waking from surgery that nearly killed her… looking at her newborn daughter and wishing she’d died instead.Not out of grief. Not out of pain or confusion from medication.Out of coldness.Because Margaret alive meant Sarah had lost her final bargaining chip.Darius appeared beside me, his face ashen. He’d heard it too. We stood there in silence, both trying to comprehend the depth of Sarah’s words.“She never wanted her,” I said quietly. “She never wanted Margaret as a daughter. Just as leverage.”“I know.” Darius’s voice was hollow.“And now that the leverage is gone…”“She’s worthless to Sarah. Less than worthless.” He turned to look at me, and I saw something break in his expression. “What kind of person looks at their own child and sees only a failed i
Darius’s POV “Use my blood,” I said the moment Dr. Charles finished explaining. “Whatever she needs, take it from me.” Dr. Charles’s expression didn’t change, but I saw the hesitation in his eyes. That careful pause that meant he was about to deliver news I wouldn’t want to hear. “Alpha Darius, you’ve lost a significant amount of blood over the past few days. The battles… your body is already compromised. Taking more blood now, especially the volume required for an infant transfusion, could be fatal.” “I don’t care.” “I do.” Dr. Charles’s voice was firm. “If you die on that table, your daughter loses her father and gains nothing. We need a donor who’s healthy enough to survive the procedure.” The logic was sound. I hated it, but it was sound. “Then who?” Kiera asked from beside me. “Eli’s too young. Who else has compatible alpha bloodline?” Dr. Charles pulled out a tablet, scrolling through what I assumed were test results. “We’ve been running emergency screens on all pack mem
Kiera’s POV The flatline sound cut through everything else.I watched through the window as Sarah’s monitors showed nothing but straight lines, that terrible continuous beep drowning out all other noise. Medical staff swarmed her bed, someone performing chest compressions while Dr. Charles barked orders.Beside me, Darius had gone completely still.But across the room, in the incubator, something moved.The baby.She was tiny… her skin almost translucent under the warming lights. But her chest was rising and falling, shallow and rapid, fighting for air she didn’t quite know how to process yet.She was alive.Dr. Charles worked on Sarah for what felt like forever. Compressions. Medications. Desperate attempts to restart a heart that had given up. The monitors stayed flat for thirty minutes.Then… a blip.Another.The flatline broke into an irregular rhythm. Weak, but present.“We have a pulse,” someone announced. “Barely there, but it’s holding.”Sarah wasn’t dead. Against every odd,
Darius’s POV I couldn’t go inside.My feet were planted just outside the hospital doors, unable to move forward or back. Through the small window, I could see the medical staff rushing around Sarah’s bed, the blood, and hear the urgent voices calling out instructions I didn’t fully understand.A child was in there. Dying, maybe. Fighting for life inside a woman who’d destroyed any right to my compassion.Hours ago, I’d been ready to watch Lucien die. Had wanted him dead for what he’d done to Eli, to Kiera, to our family. Now I was standing here paralyzed because the woman who’d helped Lucien, who’d drugged me and took advantage of me while I was unconscious… that woman was carrying an innocent baby.A baby I’d never chosen to create.A baby who existed because Sarah had stolen my consent.My hands clenched into fists. The alpha in me wanted to rage, destroy something, and make the world pay for this impossible situation. But the father in me… the part that had held Eli… that part wa







