Chapter 003

Lucas’s POV 

"What!" I gasped, staggering back. The sound ripped out of me before I could catch it. 

Something inside me shifted. My wolf collapsed into the back of my mind, claws scrabbling, then silent. I hit the floor. My knees took the impact. My palms slapped tile. The cold bit through the fabric of my pants. 

"What is going on? Did the experiment fail?" I demanded, clutching my chest. The hollow under my ribs felt wrong, carved out. I stared at Sienna on the table. Her blood dripped into the flask. Steady. Red. Each drop hit with a soft, final tick. 

I looked at the flask, then at Morrigan. My voice came out rougher than I intended. "Answer me. Why is it red?" 

"The extraction is standard, Alpha," Morrigan said, her voice smooth as silk. Her hand tremored, sliding a second vial, humming with gold light, beneath the velvet of her tray. Her fingers lingered on it, protective. One for the Council. One for the cure. The words weren’t spoken. They lived in the way she curled her palm around the glass. 

I turned to Ivy and gripped her arm. The fabric of her sleeve bunched under my fingers. Her mouth opened, closed. She looked at Sienna, then at the floor. 

"I... I do not know," she stammered. She wilted under my grip, her shoulders caving. 

"Morrigan, answer me. Is she dead?" 

I released Ivy. She fell, gasping, one hand catching the edge of a cart. Metal rattled. I marched toward Sienna’s still form. Every instinct I had was screaming. Protect. Claim. Undo. I leaned down, brushed a stray lock of hair from her face. It was damp. I pressed my ear to her chest and held my breath. 

Silence. Her scent was vanishing, that familiar pull becoming a ghost in the clinical air. The orange and cedar that was always her had thinned to antiseptic and fear. 

"Sienna?" I whispered. The name felt too small for the room. 

The bond snapped. 

I crumbled. The force was absolute. It wasn’t pain. It was absence. Like a limb gone in one cut. But something remained, a thread, thin and burning, carrying my regret like a disease. It pulsed against my ribs, sick and hot. I let out a fierce, guttural roar. The sound bounced off sterile walls and came back wrong. 

I looked at Sienna’s body. Then at Ivy’s mouth. One was a problem. One was a solution. The thought made my stomach turn. 

I pulled Ivy to me, not desire, self punishment. Her mouth tasted of ash. I shoved her away, disgusted by my own need to feel anything. My hands shook when they left her. 

"Get the guard," I barked, my voice trembling. The words echoed. “Wipe every phone in this facility. If a single frame of this reaches the Council, I’ll have heads.” 

"Alpha, please," Morrigan choked out, trembling. Her composure cracked at the edges. “Her pulse is thready. She’ll survive if we move her before the elders ask questions.” 

"Move her?" I grabbed Ivy by the wrist. The bones felt small. “Have you gone mad? She’s a corpse in every way that matters.” 

"Lucas," Ivy said, tears pooling. They didn’t fall. They sat there, glassy. “I thought I was your Luna.” 

"I never asked for this, Ivy," I spat, pointing at Sienna's pale frame. Her chest didn’t move. “She was supposed to survive. The heir was supposed to be strong. Not... this.” Morrigan said extraction. Not death. She promised— 

"Mom," Ivy hissed through the mindlink, eyes on the body. Her lips didn’t move. “If she’s not dead, it’s the curse.” 

"I know what to do," Morrigan projected back. Her voice in my head was calm. Too calm. “Lucas is still yours.” 

Morrigan looked up, all gentle concern. The mask was back in place. “Alpha Lucas, the blood is extracted. She needs treatment now. Once she wakes, we take her inside and handle the Council.” 

"Since it is done, it stays a secret," I snapped. My jaw ached from clenching. 

I lifted my mate’s limp body from the bed, my hands shaking with every step. She weighed nothing. Less than nothing. The bond thread burned hotter with each breath I took. 

"You’re empty now," Ivy whispered as we left. Her voice was barely there. “Let’s see how long the Millennium Wolf lasts without a pack.” 

Three days later 

Sienna’s POV 

Sunlight clawed at my eyelids. It hurt. Too bright, too direct. 

The scent was wrong, clinical, sharp, and cold. Antiseptic and plastic. Footsteps paced in the hallway. Measured. Waiting. I forced my eyes open. High end equipment blinked. Sterile walls boxed me in. No windows. 

"The pack house doctor." I gasped. My throat was raw. 

I was still here. Still in the territory of the ones who carved me open. The needle. The extraction. The dead look in Lucas’s eyes. It all came back in pieces, sharp edged. 

I tried to stand. The floor tilted. I caught myself on the bedframe, gasping. The metal was cold enough to sting. The silver in my veins felt like ice, not fire. Not power. Winter. I was alive. That was all I knew. The rest was a blank. 

The door creaked open. 

"You are awake. Thank the Goddess," the doctor said. His relief sounded real. That made it worse. 

I recognized him. Dr. Noah. Beta to my father. "Reassigned" here as punishment after my father died. His hair was grayer than I remembered. His hands were steady. Too steady. 

"Stay still, Sienna," he urged. He set a tray down. Didn’t touch me yet. “Your body is still recovering from the bond severing. The threads are frayed, barely holding.” He hesitated. His eyes flicked to mine and widened. “And your eyes... Goddess, Sienna.” 

"I know," I spat, swinging my legs off the bed. The hospital gown stuck to my skin. “Here to finish his work? Or did they send you because I didn't die quietly enough?” 

Noah flinched. “I served your father—” He stopped. Picked up gauze. Bandaged my wrist with careful fingers. “Twenty years. And I—” His hands shook. “I couldn't stop them that night... but I won't let them touch you again. Not while I’m breathing.” 

"Words are cheap, Noah." 

"Peace," he said, his voice catching. He wouldn’t meet my eyes now. “Sienna... your eyes... they have changed. They are silver. Almost glowing.” 

My heart skipped. Silver? I let out a dry, hollow laugh. It scraped on the way out. 

"Here," he whispered, handing me clothes and dark glasses. The fabric was soft. Too normal. “Go to the mirror. If Lucas sees this... he won't let you leave this room alive.” 

I stumbled into the bathroom and locked the door. The click was loud. Final. I pulled at the hospital gown, glancing at the mark on my shoulder. Lucas’s mark was already a graying scar, fading into nothing. The edges were flaking. Yet a thread of the bond, thin, burning, and unwanted, carried a faint pulse of his cloying regret. It felt like a slimy touch. I wanted to scrape my own skin off just to be free of it. 

I looked up. The woman in the mirror had silver eyes. Not grey. Not blue. Silver, like metal held to light. I looked again. The hospital lights, I thought. Trick of the fluorescents. But the hair— 

I reached up, touching the strands falling over my shoulders. They were the color of a winter moon. Cold. Bright. Not mine. 

"My hair," I whispered. "It's silver." 

Awe flickered, then the horror rushed back in. I looked like my mother. The pictures I wasn’t supposed to have. The ones my father kept hidden. I looked like what they killed. Is this how my life ends? As a freak? As a warning? I looked at the ceiling, at the water stain in the corner, wondering if the Moon Goddess was finally done with me, or if she was just getting started.