Chapter 3

I opened my eyes to the stark white ceiling of the hospital.

I sat up, and the pain made me cry out.

The door opened. A nurse walked in, smiling gently.

“Wendy, back again. You’re practically a regular now.”

She held a clipboard with a thick stack of my medical records from the past six months.

Knife wounds, burns, fractured bones—the ink piled high like a mountain on the paper.

“What happened this time?” I groaned.

“An Omega brought you in,” she explained.

How long had I been lying here?

Long enough for the Omega sweepers to come and go, long enough that even a wolf’s natural healing couldn’t mend my cracked ribs in time.

“Wendy… are you…” The nurse’s voice softened, “Are you being abused?”

“I’m fine,” I cut her off quickly. “I’m just clumsy. It was an accident.”

“An accident?” she looked up, and the corridor’s moonstone lights shimmered in her eyes.

“But this time, it’s three fractured ribs, and…”

She hesitated, then added in a whisper, “Wendy, you’re pregnant.”

Tears welled up in my eyes as I placed my hand over my belly.

“That’s his spawn,” Miranda growled in my mind, voice laced with contempt. “He put fate inside you while crying out another woman’s name. You really want to keep that humiliation?”

I trembled as I answered, “I don’t know… but it’s still a life.”

“You want to raise it? Just so John can control you again?” she scoffed.

I still remembered clearly how it happened.

Three months ago—right when Penny sent those sex tapes.

That night, Alpha John staggered into my room, drunk, mistaking me for Penny.

He kept murmuring, “Penny, don’t leave me…” over and over.

I let him hold me. I let him leave chaotic Alpha marks all over me—

Just so I could pretend, for a few hours, that I was wanted.

The next morning, he woke up cold and accused me of seducing him.

“The child is strong,” the nurse said, her voice floating faintly. “But you lost a lot of blood. If you’d arrived thirty minutes later…”

I stopped listening.

All I could see were the videos Penny had sent.

I knew I no longer had the strength to raise this child.

How could I bring a baby into such misery?

“Wendy?”

“I’ve decided to have an abortion,” I told her.

The clipboard fell to the floor with a loud smack.

“Wendy! You’re four months in. Abortions at this stage are extremely risky for werewolves, and—”

“I don’t have a husband,” I stared at the cracks on the ceiling.

“The father… his heart belongs to his fated mate.”

I shrugged. “My mind’s made up. Please give me the necessary forms.”

As I signed, a drop of blood from my fingertip soaked into the rune on the paper, vanishing instantly—

A binding magic. Once signed, there was no turning back.

“You’re finally making decisions for yourself. Finally listening to me—and to yourself.”

I closed my eyes, and for the first time, my heartbeat felt steady.

“Thank you, Miranda.”

“Don’t thank me,” she replied. “We’re symbiotic. As long as you live, I can roar.”

“Tomorrow morning at eight,”

The nurse tucked away the forms, her eyes full of worry.

“May the Moon Goddess protect you.”

My phone buzzed. A string of missed calls lit up the screen.

The last message was sent half an hour ago:

“I’m at the border of Blackthorn. This time, I’ll get you out, Wendy.”

I smiled faintly and sent a short reply.

Then I checked the phone again—

No messages from my mother.

None from Alpha John.

Not even Penny.

As I walked out of the ward, I heard Penny’s laugh echoing down the hallway.

“John, the pup kicked today!”

Turning the corner, I saw Alpha John kneeling, resting his head against Penny’s belly.

The Alpha token on his wrist was pressed gently to her rounded stomach.

“I’m so happy you have a supportive husband through your pregnancy, Penny,” said the pack doctor.

And right before my eyes, Alpha John kissed Penny.

“It’s my honor, Penny. You complete me.”

“My Luna,” he rose and kissed her forehead with a tenderness I had never known.

“When our baby is born, I’ll hold the grandest celebration for you at the Moon Goddess’s altar.”

“Do you still believe that Alpha ever loved you?”

A sharp pain struck my heart.

But I couldn’t help asking: “Then what was I?”

Nausea surged. I rushed into the restroom and gripped the sink, retching.

“Well, if it isn’t Wendy.”

Penny’s voice rang from the doorway.

“Enjoying your little peep show at my checkup?”

“Get out.”

“Still not dead?” She stepped closer.

“When I left you lying in Ronald’s ashes, I thought you’d finally go keep him company.”

“Kill her,” Miranda whispered. “She doesn’t deserve to breathe your brother’s name.”

“You threw away Ronald’s ashes?”

I looked up sharply, catching the blue ceramic shards stuck to her heels—

The remains of his urn.

Penny smirked.

“Not just tossed them—I had an Omega bury them with dog shit.

That useless heart of his should’ve gone to a mutt anyway.”

I yanked her hair backward.

“You venomous bitch! Killing him wasn’t enough, you had to desecrate his ashes?!”

“Help! Wendy’s gone insane!”

Penny screamed, suddenly curling up on the floor, clutching her stomach and writhing.

“My baby… it hurts…”

The bathroom door slammed open.

Alpha John burst in.

“What did you do to her?!”

“She killed Ronald! She destroyed his ashes!—”

SMACK.

The slap was sharp and brutal.

My vision blurred from the sting.

His voice was ice.

“Ronald’s life was always meant to save Penny’s.”

Penny scrambled into his arms,

And behind his back, she pinched his waist.

In a whisper only a bonded Alpha could hear, she said:

“Kill her, John.”

Alpha John’s gaze darkened.

He stepped forward, boot stomping down on the hem of my skirt, pinning me to the cold tile.

Penny stood behind him, smiling cruelly, mouthing the words:

“Die already.”

“Alpha John…” I looked up into his eyes, hoping to see even a flicker of the light I had chased for ten years.

But all I saw was hatred—cold, final.

“She—” I began, desperate—

“Shut up.” he cut me off, raising his hand toward my abdomen.

Behind him, Penny stealthily stabbed his arm with her hairpin,

Making it appear as though I had attacked her.

In that instant, John’s rage exploded.

He didn’t slap me again—

He shoved me.

Hard.

My stomach slammed into the marble sink.

I looked down at the pool of blood,

And heard my own heartbeat slow… fading…

Inside me, the faint flutter of the baby’s movement…

disappeared.

“Help… me…”

I reached out, trying to grab the hem of his trousers—

But caught only air.

“Now do you believe me?” Miranda’s voice roared through me like a midnight storm through a forest.

“He’ll kill you—for her. They all hate you… because you’re still breathing.”

He didn’t look back.

He just walked away, arm wrapped around Penny’s waist.

His voice was full of unfiltered disgust:

“Just die here, you worthless trash.”