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홈 / This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark / Chapter 4

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Chapter 4

작가: Hyacinth
Adrian sat in his office reviewing pack reports.

Beside the files lay a nursery catalog, several oak samples, and a new nameplate.

[ROWAN BLACKWOOD]

He ran his thumb over the letters.

A Council representative noticed the catalog.

“When are you holding the marking ceremony?”

Another wolf frowned. “Didn’t Serena ask Alpha Adrian to release her?”

“She was angry because he saved Ivy first,” someone replied. “Everyone knows she has wanted to become Luna for eight years.”

Adrian leaned back, a faint smile on his lips.

“She’ll calm down. The pack will be informed once I choose a date.”

To him, the matter was settled.

Serena would move into the pack house, accept his mark, and give birth to the Blackwood heir. Her request to leave was merely an attempt to make him chase her.

The office door flew open.

A healer rushed inside with an emergency authorization form.

“Alpha, Serena was taken to the regional infirmary. She’s hemorrhaging, and the pup’s wolf pulse is failing. They need your permission to release the Alpha plasma stored in the pack blood bank.”

Adrian’s hand tightened around the nameplate.

“I told everyone not to mention her until she apologizes.”

“This isn’t about your argument. Ordinary blood isn’t stabilizing her. Please sign this.”

Adrian took the form.

Then he tore it in half.

The office fell silent.

“You expect me to believe this?”

“Alpha, it came directly from the regional infirmary.”

Adrian laughed coldly.

“Serena has loved me since she was fifteen. She would never risk the pup she conceived to keep me.”

He dropped the torn form onto the desk.

“Now she’s involving healers in her performance?”

“She was poisoned with wolfsbane,” the healer said. “If the plasma is delayed, both of them could die.”

Adrian rose, his Alpha presence silencing the room.

He had already chosen Rowan’s name, cradle, and nursery. He wanted this child, which made him certain I could not truly be losing him.

“Serena wants Rowan more than anything. She’ll keep him alive.”

The healer grabbed his arm.

“Your signature could save them.”

Adrian shook her off.

“I said no.”

Then he left.

Adrian switched his phone to Do Not Disturb and spent the evening with Ivy at the eastern lodge.

After ten, he checked his phone.

More than a hundred missed calls appeared.

Most were from the regional infirmary and Helena. The chief healer had also called repeatedly.

Adrian frowned and called him back.

“Get to the infirmary. Now.”

The call ended.

Adrian’s expression darkened.

He drove to the infirmary with Ivy beside him. She was pale and silent, but he did not notice.

The elevator doors opened.

Someone slapped him across the face.

Alpha power surged around Adrian as he raised his hand. Then he saw who had struck him.

“Mom?”

Helena’s eyes were swollen from crying.

“You monster!” She seized his shirt. “Why didn’t you sign the authorization?”

“Serena was lying—”

“She was poisoned with wolfsbane! They beat her and crushed her abdomen while she was protecting your child!”
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  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 10

    One year after Rowan's death, my life had become ordinary. At the archive, I organized records of wolves who had left old packs to begin again. I understood them better than they knew.Helena came for dinner twice a month. My yellow dishes stayed in the cabinet, and I killed three balcony plants before learning what survived winter.Some nights I still dreamed of Rowan’s pulse and woke with my hand over my stomach. Grief remained, but it no longer made every decision for me.Blackwood Pack changed too. After Adrian surrendered control of the emergency blood reserve, the elders made the change permanent.Healers no longer needed the Alpha’s permission to release compatible blood in an emergency. The rule was not named after Rowan. He was my child, not a warning the pack could display after learning too late.Adrian remained a capable Alpha. Blackwood prospered under his command, but he had learned that being a good Alpha did not make him a good mate.He left the suite beside the empty

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 9

    Ivy’s hearing took place six months after the attack. I returned to Blackwood territory for the first time since Rowan’s burial.Helena met me outside the Council hall. "You don't have to go in," she said. "Your written statement is enough.""I want to hear the decision myself." She nodded and walked beside me.The wolves who had once lowered their heads because I was Adrian's future Luna now watched me with a mixture of guilt and curiosity. I ignored them.Ivy sat before the elders with two guards behind her.When she saw me, tears immediately filled her eyes. "Serena, I didn't mean for the pup to die."The head elder struck the end of his staff against the floor. "You will speak only when questioned." Ivy lowered her head.The evidence was complete: the stolen messages, invitations, wolfsbane, and videos showing the assault and the final kick after I began bleeding.The two wolves who restrained me were confined and expelled. The others lost their positions and any right to future pa

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 8

    I did not return to Blackwood Pack. After leaving the infirmary, I moved into a small house in neutral territory overlooking pine-covered hills. Nothing inside had been selected by Adrian. I chose yellow dishes and arranged the furniture for myself.The formal release of his claim remained locked in the bottom drawer of my desk. The bond ring was gone. I had thrown it from the rooftop, and I never asked anyone to search for it.My body healed slowly. My arm closed after its second stitching, and the bruises faded. Some mornings I woke with my hand over my stomach and remembered only when Rowan’s pulse did not answer.Three days after I left the infirmary, Helena brought a dark wooden box containing Rowan’s nameplate. A faint stain remained where Adrian’s blood had touched it."Adrian said you should decide what happens to it," Helena said.Rowan had never seen the nursery or the full moon, but he had existed. For months, his pulse had beaten beneath my heart."I want it buried with him

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 7

    The release ceremony took place two weeks later in a private Pack Council chamber. I could walk short distances, though my arm remained bandaged and my wolf was still weak.Helena accompanied me to the Council hall. When we reached the chamber, I stopped. "I want to go in alone." Concern crossed her face, but she did not argue. "I'll be right outside." I nodded and entered.Adrian waited in the formal black coat of Blackwood’s Alpha. His control faltered only when he saw the empty curve of my abdomen.The claim had weakened since the miscarriage, leaving only brief, painful pulses beneath my ribs.An elderly woman stood between us. She had overseen the mate claims of Blackwood Pack for more than forty years. "The documents have already been signed," she said. "Today's ceremony will release Adrian Blackwood's claim on Serena Vale."The elder warned that severance would be painful and permanently break the connection between our wolves. We both consented."Yes," I said. Adrian answered a

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 6

    I woke again the following morning with Helena asleep in the chair beside me. My entire body ached. The healers had stitched my arm again where the wound had torn open. Thick bandages covered it from my wrist to my elbow.A dull cramp remained deep in my abdomen. I placed my left hand over the place where Rowan's wolf pulse used to beat. Nothing answered. The grief was not sharp at first. It was too large to feel like pain. It was an emptiness that seemed to fill the entire room.Helena woke when I moved. "Serena?" She stood quickly and reached for the cup beside my bed. "Do you need water? Should I call the healer?""Rowan," I whispered. Her hand stopped. Her face crumpled. "I'm sorry."I closed my eyes. Adrian had chosen the name without asking me. At first, I had resented hearing him use it. It was one more part of my future that he had decided without believing I deserved a choice. Yet at some point, the pup inside me had become Rowan. When I felt his faint wolf pulse beneath my ha

  • This Time, I Won’t Beg for His Mark   Chapter 5

    Adrian froze: “The report said Rowan still had a pulse.”“He did when they tell you.”“Then release the plasma now.”“It’s too late.” Helena’s voice broke. “Serena miscarried. Rowan is dead.”"No," he said.Helena released his shirt. Adrian looked down at the dark wooden nameplate in his palm. [ROWAN BLACKWOOD] His fingers closed around it."The healer said Rowan still had a pulse.""He did." Helena's voice broke. "When the authorization form was brought to you, he was still alive. You tore it apart."Each word struck harder than the slap she had given him. "If you had signed it when they asked, the Alpha plasma might have stabilized him. But you refused. By the time the infirmary received permission to release the emergency reserve, Rowan's pulse was already gone."Adrian turned toward the operating-room doors. "Serena is still alive.""For now."“My blood is compatible. Take whatever Serena still needs.” He rolled up his sleeve as the infirmary’s chief healer stepped into his path."

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