Chapter 2

SARA’S POV

Pain!  

It was all I really knew. How dared I think I could ever be happy?  

I ran, trying to outrun the pain. My heart felt like it would burst. I would give my right arm to be able to shift at that moment, to let my wolf run loose and mask the pain tearing at me. But I had foolishly sacrificed my wolf eight years ago when I channeled my essence to a mate who didn’t want me.  

I snatched angrily at my tears. How dared I cry? Crying was for girls who had people that cared. I had nothing. I had no wolf, no family, no friends, and no mate. I was no one, and I had just realized I deserved only pain.  

“Sara! Sara, please wait!” I heard Claudia call out from behind me, but I only ran faster. I was afraid that if I turned to look at her, I would fall apart right there on the road. And then, who would pick up the broken pieces of me?  

“Sara!”  

She must have shifted because I heard the pounding of wolf paws on the cobblestones. Then she was beside me, her gray and black wolf coat taunting me with the reminder that I could never shift. I had bled my wolf essence away before I was even old enough to form a proper wolf connection.  

Claudia shifted back, quickly wrapping the coat she had been carrying in her mouth around herself. “Sara, listen! Whatever you think, it’s not like that—”  

“Then how is it?” I asked, finally whipping around to face her. “Because how I think it is that while I was grieving the death of my parents, my best friend was shacking up with my mate! And then, the so-called best friend had the guts to look me in the eye, hug me, and say she missed me!” I screamed, breathless, but thankfully, my eyes stayed dry.  

“Because I fucking missed you, Sara!” Claudia screamed back. “We both did—Tristan and I. We lost people in the war too, maybe not close family, but we were grieving as well. After you left for eight years, we thought you were never coming back.”  

“So why didn’t you tell me today when you came by my clinic? You must have thought I was such a fool, joking with you about a mate you had taken from me!”  

Claudia wiped tears from her eyes. “Because I didn’t know how to tell you! And I didn’t know Tristan was going to reject you. He said he invited you back to the pack so he could settle things with you once and for all—that the position of pack healer was a consolation prize.”  

I winced, trying hard not to start shaking. So even my job didn’t really belong to me. Nothing did.  

“Sara, please listen—you’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” Claudia said, swiping at her tears.  

I shook my head. “Best friends don’t steal each other’s mates.”  

Muscle memory had led me back to my clinic. Now, I threw open the door, my hands trembling as I turned the key.  

Once inside, I began packing the few belongings I had. I needed to leave. I didn’t belong here.  

“You’re doing it again,” Claudia fired, anger finally overtaking her tears. “Running! It’s all you ever know how to do.”  

I ignored her and continued packing. Making one final effort to reach me, she launched herself toward me.  

I stared in horror as she upset my tray of surgical knives, and they all fell, piercing her foot.  

“Claudia!” I screamed, staring as blood poured from her leg. It was already evening, and the full moon was out. The easiest way to get wolfbane poisoning was by cutting oneself deeply on a full moon.  

Acting on autopilot, I brought her over to my table, laid her down, and started grinding herbs to stop the blood flow.  

Her eyes widened with fear. “Sara—am I going to get wolfbane poisoning?”  

I shook my head. I couldn’t let that happen. If her wound got infected with wolfbane, she could be dead in ten minutes.  

I ground the herbs furiously. The full moon, which was our strength, was also our secret curse. Anyone with a life-threatening wound could be infected by wolfbane on a full moon. Claudia’s severed arteries qualified as life-threatening.  

I started applying the herbs to her foot, trying to stop the bleeding when she began convulsing, her skin turning deathly pale.  

She snatched my hand off her leg, clutching it to her chest. “Sara, it’s too late. I’m not going to make it.”  

I shook my hand free from hers and continued working on the wound. She couldn’t die—I just couldn’t let the only other family I had die.  

Claudia shook her head, swinging her leg violently off the table. “Listen to me, Sara. I don’t want my last minutes on Earth spent staring at your maniacal face as you try to heal me. My wound has already caught wolfbane. I’m going to die. I just…I just want you to forgive me before I die. You’ll always be my best friend.”  

“No! You’re not dying, Claudia!” I screamed. “Don’t you dare die on me!”  

She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Raising her hand, she made a final attempt to reach for me. Then it dropped, lifeless, beside her as her eyes stared out into the vacancy of death.  

An inhuman scream tore from my throat. I kept screaming until my throat felt raw, until I tasted blood in my mouth. Yet my eyes remained dry. My pain was too deep for tears.  

From the corner of my eye, I saw Tristan in the doorway. Then he rushed inside, scooping Claudia’s body into his arms.  

His anguished growl echoed my pain. I looked up at him, willing myself to speak, to offer some kind of explanation. But his next words shocked me to the core.  

“How could

you, Sara? How could you kill your own best friend out of jealousy?”