Iris's POV

The heart monitors beeped fast in the room. I was on my knees, my hands shaking as I clutched the edge of the cold white bed. My eyes were red and swollen, fixed entirely on my three year old baby girl Avery. Her little chest heaved violently as she fought for every single breath.

"Iris, tell the doctor to do something!" Anya, my wolf, panicked inside my mind as she paced back and forth wildly. " Tell him to use magic, take our blood, take our life force, anything...there has to be another way!"

"Please doctor…. do something!" I sobbed, looking up at the head physician with desperate eyes. "There has to be another way, I will pay any amount of money. Millions… Anything. Just find someone with that blood type…Please!"

The doctor looked down at me with pity and shook his head. "Luna Iris, you know the nature of her rare condition. A stranger's blood will trigger a fatal reaction and only her biological father’s blood can save her right now. Without a fresh transfusion from Alpha Kael, her organs will shut down in minutes."

I felt my heart shatter into a thousand pieces. Inside me, Anya collapsed onto her front paws, letting out a gut-wrenching whine that echoed against my ribs.

" No, no, no!" Anya cried, clawing at my chest as if trying to reach our daughter directly. " Avery, listen to Mommy and Anya.Please stay with us, do not give up just hold on a little longer sweet pup."

I turned back to my daughter, reaching out to gently touch her pale, sweat slicked cheek. I stroked her soft hair, trying to keep my own voice from cracking completely.

"Please stay with me baby," I whispered, my tears falling onto Avery's tiny hospital gown. "Mommy is right here. Hold on a little bit longer, I promise everything will be okay, daddy is coming. Just stay with me do not leave me Avery."

Avery let out a weak, raspy sigh as her small eyes struggled to stay open as she looked at me.

I snapped my head around to look at my maid, Chloe, who was standing near the wall with a phone pressed hard against her ear.

"How far with the phone call Chloe?" I cried out. "Is he answering…tell me he is picking up!"

Chloe looked terrified, her knuckles white around the phone. "He is not picking up Luna. It just goes straight to voicemail over and over."

"Keep calling!" I screamed, my voice cracking with pure panic. "Do not stop….send messages…call again and again."

I had already sent two pack guards to the pack house an hour ago to drag Kael to the hospital. Just as I was about to break down completely, the door to the room pushed open. One of the guards walked in looking nervously at the floor.

"Where is he?" I demanded, getting to my feet. "Where is Alpha Kael...did you bring him?"

"Luna... Alpha Kael is not at the pack house," the guard murmured, unable to look me in the eye. "We searched the entire estate and one knows where he went."

"Where can he be?!" I screamed, holding my head in my hands. "He knew Avery’s appointment was today and he knew she needed the transfusion this afternoon… He promised he would be at the hospital.”

The guard remained silent, lowering his head even further.

Chloe suddenly gasped from the corner of the room. Her whole body froze completely. "Luna... the line. He picked up."

I did not waste a single second, I ran across the room and snatched the phone out of Chloe’s hand. I pressed it tightly against my ear, relief washing over me for a brief second.

"Kael," I sobbed into the receiver. "Kael, please… You need to come to the central hospital right now , Avery is dying. She needs your blood right now or we are going to lose her.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for two seconds. Then, I heard it.

It was not Kael’s voice, it was the loud , filthy sound of a woman moaning directly into the microphone. Heavy, ragged breathing echoed through the speaker and was accompanied by the slapping sound of bare skin.

"Oh, Alpha... yes!" The woman's voice screamed through the phone, full of dirty pleasure. "You are the best..deeper, Kael, oh god!"

I felt the world instantly stop spinning. Blood rushed to my ears as the disgust and shock paralyzed my entire body.

"He is with another female while our pup dies?!" Anya roared, her rage rattling through my soul.

Before I could even yell into the phone, the call abruptly clicked off.

The line went completely dead.

He was not stuck in an emergency meeting or delayed by pack business. While his three year old daughter was gasping for air on a hospital bed, he was out in a hotel, inside one of his many mistresses.

A loud, awful beep suddenly rang through the hospital room.

"Luna… Look!" Chloe shrieked.

I whipped my head around only to see Avery’s small body started convulsing violently on the bed. Her little arms shook, her back arched and her throat made horrible choking sounds.

"Doctor! Doctor, help her please!" I screamed dropping the phone to the floor. I threw my body over my daughter, trying to hold her still. "Please…she is choking. Do something and save my baby.”

Anya screamed inside my mind, thrashing desperately against my inner walls.

The doctors and nurses rushed around the bed, pulling out needles and emergency machines, but the monitors were already flashing red lines.

"We are losing her pulse!”

"Charge to fifty!"

"She is in cardiac arrest!"

"No… Avery my baby, stay with Mommy," I wailed, grabbing her tiny limp hand. "Look at me baby, open your eyes…goddess, take me instead. Take me instead.”

The monitors gave one final, long, terrifying sound.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

The lines went totally flat, and the medical staff all stopped moving. The doctor lowered his head and stepped back, looking at the floor.

"Time of death," the doctor said quietly. "Four forty two PM."

"No..." I whispered.

Anya bowed her head and let out a long, agonizing howl inside my head, a sound so full of pain that it shattered whatever was left of my soul.

“No, no, no, no, no please don't joke like this,” I pulled Avery’s lifeless body up into my arms, hugging her tightly against my chest. I rocked back and forth on the hospital bed, sobbing so hard I could barely catch my breath.

Avery's body was starting to get cold, her little fingers were slowly hardening in my palms.

"Wake up, please wake up," I sobbed into Avery’s hair. "Please wake up for Mommy. Do not leave me alone in this dark place.”

" No Iris she isnt dead... Our little pup is still alive. please wake up for us, "Anya whimpered softly, curling up into a small, broken ball inside my mind.

But there was no answer, my sweet baby girl was gone forever.

I spent hours in that room until they finally had to take Avery away. When I walked out of the hospital, I felt completely empty inside. My soul was dead, I felt like a hollow shell walking through the cold night air. Anya stayed completely quiet within me, lying in the dark corner of my mind, bleeding from the same invisible wound.

I went back to the pack house, just stepping foot inside it made my skin crawl with anger and rage.

I sat on the edge of the sofa in the living room, staring blankly at the wall as my tears silently tracked down my pale face.

For five years, I had been married to Kael. Five long, miserable years. When we first got married, he treated me like a princess.

But after I gave birth to Avery, everything became a living nightmare. He stopped hiding his true colors completely. He verbally abused me every single day, humiliating me in front of the pack members was a daily thing and worst of brought other women into our territory and slept with them without a care in the world.

I was not some weak, poor girl with no background. I came from a very powerful, highly respected royal pack. My bloodline was ancient and strong. I could have left Kael on day one and ruined him.

I endured every single drop of abuse, every insult and every public embarrassment for one reason only.

My sweet Avery.

The moment I found out my daughter had a chronic blood disease that required constant transfusions from Kael, I gave up my pride and swallowed my dignity to play the perfect, quiet Luna. I obeyed his every order and stayed silent while he cheated. I took all the pain just to keep my daughter alive.

Now, my reason for staying was gone.

My heart bled for my lost baby, but deep down, a dark realization settled in my mind. My daughter’s death had given me ultimate freedom. There was nothing tying me to this monster anymore.

Anya slowly stood up inside my mind, uncurling herself. Her dark golden eyes flashed with lethal, icy hatred. *The chain is broken, Iris,* she snarled softly, her voice sharp and dangerous. *We bore everything for our pup. Now there is no reason to hold back. No more taking his abuse. No more.*

The front door of the pack house suddenly swung open.

Kael walked in, adjusting his suit jacket, looking totally relaxed and completely calm, like he had just come back from a pleasant stroll in the park. He did not look guilty at all. He smelled like cheap perfume and alcohol.

Anya bared her teeth, a vicious growl vibrating through my chest as his sickening scent filled the hallway.

He glanced over at me sitting in the dark living room and scoffed, rolling his eyes.

"Why are you sitting in the dark like a ghost?" Kael grunted, walking toward the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water. "Where is the kid? Did you bring her back from the hospital yet…I do not have time for your dramatic moods today Iris."

I stood up slowly and even though my legs were shaking, my voice was cold and dead.

"Avery could not make it," I said, staring directly into his eyes. "Avery is dead, Kael."

Kael paused for a second with the glass of water near his lips. He blinked, looking at me and then he shrugged his shoulders and took a sip of his water.

"Well," Kael said with a sigh, putting the glass down on the counter. "At least that is one of our big problems sorted out."

I froze. My mind went blank.

"Rip his throat out,"Anya roared in my mind, " Kill him...Kill him right now."

"Excuse me?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

"I said, at least that is taken care of," Kael said casually, waving his hand in the air like it was nothing. "We do not have to waste any more money on those expensive hospital trips every month. And I do not have to sit in a clinic for hours giving my blood all the time. It was getting really annoying."

I felt my entire world drop into an abyss of pure rage. My claws twitched beneath my fingernails as Anya pushed against my skin, desperate to tear him to shreds.

"Your own daughter is dead, and you say that is a good thing?"