Chapter 3

On the day of the surgery, the nurses wheeled me toward the transplant chamber.

The corridor was long and cold. When I looked up, I saw Lucien outside the healing chamber next door.

Sylvie lay on her moving bed, holding his hand. Lucien bent to listen to her, then pulled the blanket higher over her.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly. “I’m here. When you recover, I’ll take you south to see the moonlily fields.”

Our beds passed each other in the corridor.

This time, Lucien looked at me too.

His gaze paused for a moment, then he said, “Go through with the transplant and recover well. When you come out, your place as Luna will still be yours.”

I looked at him and said nothing.

The doors of the transplant chamber closed in front of me. The lights overhead flared white.

A healer at my side said, “Relax. Sleep, and it will be over soon.”

Cold medicine entered my vein.

Just before my vision began to blur, the curtain at my side shifted.

Sylvie stepped close enough that I could smell the herbs on her sleeves. Her voice was soft, almost playful.

“You’ve been wondering, haven’t you? Why you’re already dying, and Lucien still hasn’t felt a thing through the mate-link.”

I tried to move, but my limbs were already turning heavy.

She smiled and bent lower. “That calming draught I had the healer send you? You really did take it every night. There was severing grass in it, just enough to dull the link little by little. Not only Lucien. Even the family bond with your parents would have weakened.”

Her fingers brushed the edge of my blanket, light as frost.

“So even if you die today, none of them will believe it at first. They’ll only think you’re pretending again.”

I stared at her, my heart turning cold.

Sylvie’s smile deepened. “Don’t look at me like that, Elara. When you’re gone, I’ll live very well in your place.”

Then she straightened and walked away before the healers turned back.

Before I lost consciousness, my mind drifted back to our marking ceremony.

Lucien had held my hand in front of the pack, his palm warm and steady around mine. When the elder asked if he accepted me as his mate and Luna, he looked at me for a long time before answering.

“I do.”

Then he lowered his head and pressed his mark against my shoulder.

The pain had lasted only a second.

What stayed was the way he held me afterward, as if I were something precious. As if he was afraid I might disappear.

“Elara,” he had whispered against my hair, “from this day on, you are mine to protect.”

We had loved each other once.

So deeply that I had believed nothing in this world could tear us apart.

So why had we become this?

Then voices crashed back around me.

“Her pressure is dropping.”

“Her wolf is failing.”

“Prepare the shock array.”

Healers rushed around my body, but I felt myself growing lighter and lighter, as if something inside me had already broken loose.

I saw the pulse-light on the monitor flare, dim, and finally flatten into a cold, straight line.

The lead surgeon removed his mask. “Record the time of death. Eleven twenty-three.”

A young nurse covered her mouth. “She’s still so young…”

An older healer said quietly, “Her soul-wolf was too far gone. She was never going to survive the transplant.”

Then the doors burst open.

Dr. Rowan strode in. The moment he saw me on the table, his face changed.

“Who approved this?” he demanded. “I said clearly she was not fit to undergo transplant.”

The surgeon answered helplessly, “The order came from Lucien. We couldn’t refuse.”

Dr. Rowan turned and went straight to the healing chamber next door.

Its lights had just gone dark too. Sylvie’s operation had been a success.

Lucien stood outside looking relieved. Rowan seized him by the collar.

“Are you satisfied now? She’s dead.”

Lucien’s expression changed for a second, then hardened again. He pulled Rowan’s hand away and straightened his collar.

“What nonsense is this? What is she trying now, another act?”

His voice was cold.

“If Elara were truly dying, I would have felt it through the mate-link. Tell her to stop this. Sylvie’s surgery was successful, and I have no time for more scenes.”

He paused, then added, “If she’s upset, I’ll deal with her later. But she will not use this to make trouble for Sylvie.”

Rowan stared at him. “She won’t wake up.”

Then he gave a short, humorless laugh. “I don’t believe you.”

That was when Maeve arrived.

She crossed the corridor and slapped him hard across the face.

The sound cracked through the silence.

Lucien turned back slowly, a red mark rising on his cheek. “You dare?”

Maeve laughed through tears. “Dare? Lucien, I could kill you.”

“You put her on that table with your own hands. Elara is dead. She is truly dead. Are you satisfied now?”

She threw a stack of papers into his chest.

They scattered across the floor.

At the top lay the diagnosis he had crushed beneath his boot.

Final Stage Wolf Collapse

Estimated survival time: less than forty-eight hours