Chapter 2

Maya came into my room the next morning with one hand braced against the wall.

Her face was as white as the snow outside, and her stomach was as flat as mine. Purple bruises marked the backs of her hands where the transfusion lines had been placed. We had fought each other from age seven to twenty-seven, but I had never seen her move so slowly.

She lowered herself into the chair beside my bed and studied me with reddened eyes. "You'd better not die. I haven't beaten you enough yet."

The insult sounded comfortingly familiar. My gaze fell to her stomach, and my throat closed.

"Where's your pup?"

Maya went quiet. After a few seconds, she pulled her mouth into a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Gone with yours."

The medical staff told me she had collapsed outside the emergency room after getting me inside. Carrying my weight, exhausting her wolf, and bleeding for miles had triggered premature labor. Her pup was born without a heartbeat.

I had needed an emergency transfusion. Maya had woken from surgery, confirmed our blood types matched, and insisted they take hers.

"Are you insane?" I whispered. "You had just lost your baby."

"Don't flatter yourself." She looked away. "I couldn't let you die before me. How would we decide whether that counted as a win?"

We had competed over everything.

At eight, she shoved me face-first into the mud during training, and I bit out a patch of fur from her wolf's shoulder. At fifteen, we argued in our instructor's office for three hours over half a point on the academy rankings. At our coming-of-age trial, she beat me in hand-to-hand combat, while I won wilderness rescue.

Then we married brothers.

We never stopped insulting each other's babies.

In the back of my closet, however, I had hidden a pair of tiny red training wraps for her pup. When the nurses sorted through Maya's coat, they found a red-leaf bracelet meant for mine. The engraving read: FOR ELENA'S ALMOST-CUTE LITTLE SECOND PLACE.

We had planned for the pups to grow up together. They would train together, attend their first Moon Goddess Festival together, and continue the rivalry we had started.

Instead, they died on the same night.

Maya's phone rang. Kane's name flashed across the screen.

She stared for a moment before answering. She didn't get the chance to speak.

"Did you use Elena's phone to curse out my brother?" Kane shouted loudly enough for me to hear every word. "What the hell is wrong with you? Adrian is a healer. He treats whoever needs him most, not whoever you and Elena decide he should choose because you're jealous."

Maya's fingers began to tremble. "I lost the pup."

The line went silent for one beat.

Then Kane laughed.

"You completed a twenty-mile patrol last week while eight months pregnant. You can throw three grown warriors over your shoulder, and now you're telling me five miles made you lose our pup?"

Kane wasn't a healer. He was simply too used to Maya being indestructible. He had watched her split her lip and keep fighting, break a rib and joke about it, limp home from patrol and demand a rematch the next morning. Somewhere along the way, he had started treating every plea for help as another performance.

"I checked the road after your call," he continued. "There was no active emergency alert. The way you and Elena are acting over Vera is embarrassing."

Maya closed her eyes. "Did you cancel the ambulance clearance?"

"The lockdown wasn't a game."

"Kane. Did you cancel it?"

"Yes," he snapped. "Vera's cabin may have been targeted by rogues. Her safety affected the entire pack."

Maya gave a soft laugh that made my skin go cold. "Good to know. Let's dissolve the mate contract."

His temper ignited at once. "Here we go again. You don't throw around leaving every time you're mad."

"Then let's do it. Whoever regrets it is the weakest Omega in the pack."

The call ended.

Maya stared at the blank screen for a long time. I didn't hug her. She would have hated that. I only pushed the chair closer to her side of the bed.

"Sit back. You just had surgery."

"Worry about yourself." Tears dropped onto her hand even as she glared at me. "You needed twelve stitches. You look more likely to fall apart than I do."

Vera, Adrian, and Kane had grown up together. They had been close since childhood, and there had even been a time when people joked that she would become one of their mates.

Five years ago, she left Silver Ridge in search of "freedom."

Vera returned six months ago. The brothers insisted their feelings were long gone, yet both of them appeared whenever she had the slightest problem.

When her car broke down, Kane collected her himself. When she couldn't sleep, Adrian changed her medication in the middle of the night. When she claimed she smelled a stranger near her cabin, both Alpha heirs left their mates and guarded her house until morning.

When we were actually dying, they wouldn't believe a single phone call.

"Let's leave them," I said.

Maya wiped her face with the back of her hand and gave me a hard look

"Unbelievable. We finally agree on something."