Chapter 4

My hand shot out instinctively to stop her. But before my claws could graze her, Rebecca stumbled backward dramatically, clutching her belly as she landed hard on her rump.

"Ah! Luna Lila, why push me...?"

I froze, rooted to the spot. Then Terrence roughly shoved me aside.

Seeing Rebecca's pale face and hearing her theatrical moans, his golden Alpha eyes blazed with fury. And his hand, heavy with Alpha strength, slapped against my cheek like thunder.

I was flung sideways, crashing to the floor. And my face instantly swelled. I felt the world was tilting violently.

"Lila, if any harm, any shadow of fear that touches Rebecca or my pups because of you, I will demand your life in payment!"

He scooped Rebecca up with frantic urgency and charged out of the den like a wolf possessed.

Left alone in the wreckage, I crawled on my knees. I gathered the shattered fragments of the moonstone pendant. "Forgive me, Mother," I choked out, tears blurring the broken pieces, "I was wrong... so wrong... to love such a wolf..."

Clutching the remnants to my chest, I dragged myself onto the bed. But I was yanked brutally from the edge of unconsciousness.

The moment I opened my eyes, I met Terrence's bloody eyes, burning with uncontrolled Alpha rage.

"Rebecca has followed me without title, without the mark of Luna! he roared. "She bears your burden to carry a pup for you! And you repay her with this? What madness, what venom possesses you?!"

Confusion clouded my pain-fogged mind. Before I could form a word, a crude doll, bristling with sharpened silver needles struck my face and fell into my lap.

I picked it up numbly. Crudely stitched onto its chest was Rebecca's name and a string of numbers, which was her birthdate under the moon.

"Rebecca is in premature labor!" Terrence bellowed, "Fighting for her life! All because of you!"

I stared at the pathetic effigy, a wave of utter exhaustion washing over me.

Such a clumsy, obvious frame-up... and he hadn't even questioned it. He just knew it was me.

However, my silence seemed to scream guilt to him.

Ignoring my weak struggles, he hauled me off the bed. His claws pricked my skin as he manhandled me out of the den, shoved me into his vehicle, and sped toward the pack hospital.

At the doors to the pack emergency room, he delivered a brutal kick to the back of my knees, so I crashed down hard onto the cold floor.

"Kneel!" he commanded, his Alpha aura pressing down like a physical weight. "Kneel and beg the Moon Goddess for forgiveness! You stay here until Rebecca is safe and chooses to pardon you!"

A sharp, cramping pain lanced through my lower abdomen. I thought of the pup in my body, and I tried to grasp the hem of his tunic.

At the end of the corridor ran a middle-aged she-wolf.

A sharp-faced she-wolf was Rebecca's mother. She dragged a Witch wolf in black robes towards us.

"Alpha Terrence! Alpha!" she shrilled. "This is the Witch who foretold my daughter's destiny! He's prepared the curse-breaking draught! Force it down the throat of the one who cast the evil, and my daughter and grandpup will be saved!"

My gaze locked onto the bowl of thick, black liquid the Witch held, and I felt utterly cold.

Trembling violently, I tried to scramble back. But the warriors seized my arms, pinning me effortlessly then.

"Lila, drink the draught. Once Rebecca is safe... I will plead your case. She is merciful and she will forgive you."

Paling further, I shook my head frantically. "I did nothing! I won't drink that !"

He sighed with disappointment, then turned his back on me. "Hold her. Pour it down her throat."

The warriors forced my jaws open. The foul, viscous liquid flooded my mouth, burning like acid. I choked, gagged, and retched violently as they forced me to swallow.

Tears streamed down my face, mixing with the black sludge. "Terrence! You are blind! You... will drown in regret!"

Instead, he looked at me coldly.

"Lila, wrongdoing demands retribution. This is what you owe Rebecca."

I was left aside after the torment. Almost immediately, a tearing, excruciating pain exploded in my abdomen, radiating outwards like shards of glass.

It stole my breath, plunging my vision into darkness. The little strength I had left drained away like water.

I felt warmth, terrifying warmth, soaking through my fur. My wolf was filled with trepidation.

"Terren..." I tried to cry out, but only a whimper escaped.

From inside the emergency room, Rebecca's voice rose in a weak, pitiful wail, "Terrence... I've failed you... Take good care of our pups when I join the Moon Goddess... This life... our bond wasn't meant to be... Promise me... find me in the next..."

Terrence's eyes bled crimson with panic. His voice trembled, "Rebecca! I FORBID YOU TO DIE! I cannot draw breath without you! Do you hear me?!"

Silence followed her plea. He lost all control. With a howl of anguish that shook the corridor, he threw himself against the doors, pounding on them with Alpha's strength.

"Rebecca! Rebecca! Don't you dare leave me! I love you! I swear it! If you live... I will mate to you! I don't want the next life! I want you! now!"

He barked at his Beta, "The Severance Decree! NOW!"

Turning back, his gaze briefly snagged on the pool of crimson blood spreading beneath me. He froze for seconds but soon frowned in disgust.

"Rebecca fights for her life in there. And you have the gall to fake blood to manipulate me? You are truly vile, Lila. Not worthy to lick Rebecca's boots."

Forcing my fingers around a pen, he pressed my hand to the Severance Decree, scratching my name across the line that severed our mate bond.

Then he grabbed my thumb, pressed it into the blood pooling under my body, and slammed it onto the decree next to my name.

"Sever the mate bond now. Rebecca needs me more right now."

As the severance decree was handed to Rebecca, a passing nurse finally noticed the alarming amount of blood. I was swiftly lifted onto a stretcher and taken to another emergency room.

"Vital organs failing rapidly! Moon Goddess, her womb... it's necrotic! The pup... we cannot save it!"

"She is crashing! Defibrillator! NOW!"

In the haze of pain and encroaching darkness, I faintly heard jubilant voices from the corridor outside my ward,

"The mother is conscious! Congratulations, Alpha Terrence! Your daughter and your Luna are both safe!"

My tear splashed onto the cold operating table, and my hand fell limply as well.

My wolf collapsed upon the earth, whispered into the void before my luminous eyes slowly shuttered, fading into the eternal dark.

At the same moment, the relentless, high-pitched whine of the heart monitor flatlined into a single, continuous, mournful tone. The jagged peaks of my life signs smoothed into a straight, unending line.

My wolf was lying there, so weak, whimpering painfully, and then she slowly closed her eyes.