4

I woke up on a bed in the pack's medical wing.

White ceiling, the scent of antiseptic, the steady beep of a heart monitor.

"You're awake." Ethan was sitting in a chair beside the bed, but his expression was anything but concerned.

"My baby…" I instinctively reached for my stomach.

"Is still there," he said coldly. "But the doctor said you need complete bed rest."

I breathed a sigh of relief, but a cold dread quickly followed. "Why don't you seem worried at all?"

"Worried?" He let out a cold, humorless laugh. "Sophia, you attacked Tessa. You almost crippled her. Your instability is what I'm worried about."

"I didn't attack anyone!"

"We have proof." He pulled out his phone and played a security video. "The pack's cameras caught everything."

The video showed me standing in the room as a silver light flared around me, and then Tessa falling to the ground.

But that light… I never summoned it.

"This is fake!"

"Fake?" He scoffed. "Sophia, your energy should be focused on apologizing to Tessa, not making up excuses."

Just then, the pack doctor, Dr. Wade, rushed in.

"Alpha, we have an urgent situation," he said, his face grim. "It's about Sophia's father."

My heart sank. "What about my father?"

Dr. Wade glanced at Ethan, hesitant.

"Speak," Ethan commanded.

"Elder Marcus of the Silver Moon pack was attacked by rogues last night," Dr. Wade said quietly. "He's in critical condition. In the ICU at the city hospital."

"What?" I tried to sit up. "Why would rogues attack my father?"

Ethan and Dr. Wade exchanged a look.

"It may be because…" Dr. Wade paused. "Because the Silver Moon pack is no longer under the protection of the Blackwood pack."

"No longer protected?" My voice was a whisper. "Since when?"

"Since last night," Ethan stated, his voice devoid of any emotion. "After your unprovoked attack on Tessa, I dissolved our alliance."

My world crumbled.

"I have to go see him." I struggled to get out of bed.

"You're not leaving," Ethan said, pushing me back down by my shoulder. "You're in no condition to travel."

"That's my father!"

"I know," he said, his face a cold mask. "But we have more important matters to attend to."

The door opened and Tessa walked in.

She was wearing a white hospital gown, a bandage wrapped dramatically around her neck.

"Ethan, there's something wrong with my wolf," she said weakly. "Dr. Wade says it's because of the shock from the Silver Wolf power yesterday."

Dr. Wade nodded grimly. "Her Golden Wolf bloodline is fragile. A shock like that can cause instability. If we don't treat it, the damage could be permanent."

"How do we treat it?" Ethan asked, his voice tight with concern.

"There is an ancient ritual," Dr. Wade said, hesitating. "A Bloodline Transfer. It would allow us to transfer wolf essence from another to stabilize hers."

"What does it require?"

"A donor with powerful wolf essence." Dr. Wade's eyes landed on me. "Preferably… a pregnant she-wolf. The pup in the womb possesses the purest form of wolf essence."

My blood froze in my veins.

"You want to take my baby's wolf essence?"

"We'd only be borrowing it," Tessa said, walking to my bedside. "Don't be selfish, Sophia."

"Selfish?" I looked at Ethan, desperate. "You can't be considering this."

"If it will save Tessa, it's a risk worth taking," he said, and his words were a knife in my heart.

"That's our child!"

"The pup is still developing. It will recover," he said, his voice clipped and dismissive. "Tessa's health is the priority. And the ritual must happen on the full moon. Which is tonight."

Tonight.

They had this planned all along.

"I don't agree," I said, wrapping my arms protectively around my stomach. "I will not let you harm my child."

"This isn't a request, Sophia." Ethan's Alpha command filled the room. "It's an order."

"You're insane!"

"Am I?" he sneered. "You're the one who attacked a pack member. This is your penance."

Two pack guards entered and seized my arms.

"No… please don't…"

But no one was listening.

The ritual was held in the pack's sacred chamber that night.

Ancient runes glowed on the floor. Tessa lay on one side of a stone altar; I was forced onto the other. Silver chains bound my wrists and ankles.

As Dr. Wade began chanting in an ancient tongue, moonlight streamed through a skylight, landing directly on my belly.

I could feel my pup squirming inside me, as if it sensed the danger.

"Begin," Ethan ordered, standing beside the altar, his face unreadable.

A powerful force began pulling something from my core. The pup's kicks grew weaker and weaker.

"Stop! Please, I'm begging you, stop!" I thrashed against the chains, but they held fast.

"It's almost over," Dr. Wade said, wiping sweat from his brow.

Suddenly, a pain unlike anything I had ever felt ripped through me.

I felt the life inside me flicker and die.

My pup… my baby…

When the transfer was complete, color had returned to Tessa's cheeks. Her wolf felt strong and stable.

My stomach was silent and empty. I couldn't feel a single flutter of life.

"Success," Dr. Wade announced. "The bloodline transfer is complete."

Tessa sat up, her face glowing. "I feel so much better, Ethan. My wolf has never felt this powerful."

I lay on the cold stone, silent tears streaming down my face.

My baby was gone.

Its wolf spirit had been stolen, and its life had gone with it.

"Sophia?" Ethan walked over to me. "Are you okay?"

I looked at him, the man who had just murdered our child.

"Okay?" My voice was a raw, broken whisper. "You're asking me if I'm okay?"

"The pup is a regrettable loss," he said, his tone clinical and detached. "But Tessa's safety was paramount."

I closed my eyes, unable to look at his face any longer.

Just then, my phone, which had been placed on a nearby table, started ringing.

It was the hospital.

"Is this Sophia?" a doctor's grave voice said on the other end. "I'm so sorry… your father passed away a few moments ago. He kept asking for you, but… we ran out of time."

The phone slipped from my numb fingers.

My father was dead.

Dead because his pack's protection was gone. Dead because I couldn't get to him.

I had lost my child, my father, my everything.

As I stumbled from the chamber, a ghost in my own home, their voices drifted from a nearby room through a carelessly open door.

"Ethan, what if she... breaks? After losing the pup?" Tessa's voice was laced with fake concern.

Ethan's reply was the final nail in my coffin. "A pup can be replaced. Your well-being cannot. Nothing else matters."