Chapter 1

“Sign it.”

Lucien tossed the organ-transfer consent onto my bed. The edge of the paper scraped the back of my hand, cold enough to make my fingers twitch.

I lowered my eyes to the bold lines of text and felt my throat tighten with the taste of blood. “And if I don’t?”

My voice came out hoarse, worn thin by pain and too many sleepless nights. Lucien loosened the clasp at his collar and tossed it aside, impatience plain on his face.

“Elara, stop making this difficult. This is what you owe Sylvie.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, and the sound pulled a dull ache through my chest.

What I owed Sylvie.

Because five years ago, after that fire, she stole my name and let everyone believe she had been the one to save him.

Lucien stepped to my bedside and looked down at me as though this were already settled. “Give her your kidney, and you remain Luna. I’m not taking that from you.”

He said it like mercy.

I clenched the sheets beneath me until my knuckles turned white. “Lucien, the one who saved you five years ago was me. I was the one who carried you out of that fire.”

“Enough.”

His voice cut across mine. “How many times are you going to repeat the same lie? Sylvie injured her wolf trying to save me. Her healing never recovered, and now her whole body has been dragged down with it. Even now, you still want to steal what belongs to her?”

My fingers stiffened.

Of course he still believed her.

Without thinking, I reached toward my lower back, where an old scar still lay hidden under skin and memory, left there by a collapsing beam that night. Lucien had never seen it. In three years of marriage, he had barely looked long enough to know me at all.

Ever since Sylvie’s old injury began flaring again, nearly all of his time had gone to her. He took her to healers himself, stayed through her worst nights, and steadied her whenever her wolf turned restless. Through the mate-link, I had felt every wave of fear and tenderness from him.

None of it had ever been for me.

My chest tightened until I could barely breathe. I reached beneath my pillow, took out another file, and held it toward him.

“Then look at this first. I can’t go through with the transplant.”

He didn’t even glance at it. With one sweep of his hand, he knocked the file from my fingers. The papers scattered across the floor, and the top page, stamped Final Stage Soul-Wolf Collapse, slid beneath his boot.

“Elara, my patience has limits,” he said quietly. “Don’t force me to use another method.”

A soft cough sounded from the healing chamber next door.

His whole expression changed.

He turned and left without another word.

I watched his back disappear through the doorway and felt my heart sink, slow and heavy, to the bottom of me.

A short while later, he returned, pushing Sylvie in a wheeled chair. She sat wrapped in white fur, her face pale and her lips faint as frost, looking as fragile and blameless as she always knew how to look.

“Elara, I’m sorry.” Tears came the moment she spoke. “If my body weren’t so useless, you wouldn’t have to suffer like this. Lucien is only harsh because he’s frightened for me. Please don’t blame him.”

I had watched her perform this part for three years. It no longer moved me.

“Sylvie, do you really want my kidney that badly?”

She lowered her lashes and let her voice tremble just enough. “The healers said only your match is suitable. I don’t want to die. I still want to stay by Lucien’s side.”

Lucien had already crouched beside her, wiping away her tears with a tenderness I had never once received from him.

“Don’t cry,” he murmured. “Nothing will happen to you.”

Then he rose and looked at me again. “Elara, sign it. I’ll count to three.”

My eyes dropped to the diagnosis paper beneath his boot.

“One.”

I said nothing.

“Two.”

A soft laugh slipped from me.

That was enough.

Enough of all of it.

I pushed myself upright, picked up the pen and the form, and wrote my name across the final line.

Elara.

The ink sank into the page like darkened blood.

“Lucien.”

I held the signed consent out to him. “As you wish.”

He took it from my hand and turned away at once, already calling for the duty healer.

Sylvie’s chair remained where it was.

She looked at me, and the smile slowly rising to her lips made no effort to hide itself.

“Thank you, Elara. But even if you give me your kidney, Lucien will never love anyone but me. And that place beside him, the one you stole, was always meant to come back to me.”

“Get out.”

The room went quiet, but the chair did not move.

I opened my eyes again. Lucien was already gone. Only Sylvie remained.

She brushed away her tears, and the weakness vanished from her face so completely it was almost elegant. Then she leaned over me and smiled.