Chapter 8: The Stolen Breath

"What... what is that?" Vanessa’s voice was a terrified shriek.

Healer Gable’s hands shook so violently she nearly dropped the newborn. "The legends... the ancient bloodline. It’s the silver-crest. It's royal."

"Shut up!" Vanessa snarled, her panic instantly mutating into a feral, manic rage. Before I could even touch a single fold of the coarse blanket, she snatched the crying bundle from the midwife's hands.

"My baby," I gasped. My voice was barely a dry rattle, my hands clawing weakly at the air. "Please... let me hold him. Just once."

Vanessa ignored me entirely, her eyes darting around the damp stone room like a cornered animal. "Take him, Gable. Get him out of the territory. Sell him to the rogues, throw him in a ditch, I don't care! Just make sure he is never, ever found!"

"No! No!" I thrashed against my invisible restraints, but my body was completely hollowed out. The ancient silver fire that had saved my son's life had vanished back into my bloodline, leaving my muscles feeling like wet ash. I couldn't even lift my torso off the mattress.

Gable snatched the bundle back from Vanessa, hiding the glowing silver eyes beneath the dirty cloth. She bolted out of the room, her heavy footsteps clattering down the dark spiral staircase. My baby’s soft, fragile cries faded into the distance, taking my heart, my soul, and my will to live along with them.

Vanessa spun back to me, her face twisting into a psychotic, victorious grin. She reached into Gable’s abandoned leather satchel and pulled out a heavy glass flask. It was filled with pure, thick wolf's blood—a dark crimson fluid Gable had brought to fake a stillbirth.

With a sickening splash, Vanessa poured the cold, metallic blood directly over my chest.

It soaked through my thin, torn nightgown, sticking to my skin. She grabbed my limp hands, dragging my fingers through the pool of blood gathering on the bedsheets, painting my palms and nails in the evidence of a horrific slaughter.

"What... what are you doing?" I choked out, a terrifying, paralyzing dread settling over my chest.

Before she could answer, the heavy oak door was violently thrown open, slamming against the stone wall.

Ethan stood at the threshold. His chest heaved, his nostrils flaring. As the new Alpha, his senses were hyper-attuned, and the overwhelming, copper stench of fresh blood had drifted straight down the tower vents to the Great Hall.

"Vanessa?" Ethan’s voice cracked, his eyes darting across the crimson-soaked room. "What is this? I smelled blood—"

In a split second, Vanessa dropped to her knees. Her hands flew to her face, and she let out a hysterical, blood-curdling sob. "Ethan! Oh, Goddess, Ethan, thank the Moon you're here!" she wailed, her body shaking with perfectly orchestrated terror.

Ethan rushed to her side, lifting her up by her shoulders. "Vanessa, talk to me! What happened?"

"It was Chloe!" Vanessa sobbed, burying her face in his leather jacket while pointing a trembling, blood-stained finger at me. "She... she was pregnant, Ethan! She hid it from everyone! I came up to bring her food, and she was in labor. I tried to help her, I swear I did! But she... she lost her mind!"

Ethan froze, his entire body turning as rigid as stone. "What?"

"The rejection shattered her soul!" Vanessa shrieked. "She hated you for choosing me! As soon as the baby was born, she... she went mad! She grabbed the pup and... and she slaughtered it, Ethan! She tore it apart with her bare hands! I tried to save the baby, but she threw the body out of the window into the deep ravine! There's nothing left!"

No. No, she's lying!

My mind screamed the words, but my lips remained frozen. I forced my broken body to sit up on the blood-soaked mattress. I stared at Ethan, my eyes wide and pleading, begging him to see through the theater. She took him! He's alive! Our son has silver eyes! Please, Ethan, look at me!

I opened my mouth to scream the truth, to shatter her web of lies. I pushed every single ounce of my remaining life force into my throat, desperate to make a sound.

A sharp, agonizing pop echoed inside my neck.

A hot wave of iron flooded my mouth. My vocal cords, shredded by hours of silent labor and ruined by Vanessa's siphoning magic, had literally snapped under the pressure.

Instead of a desperate plea, only a wet, gargling gasp escaped my lips. I coughed violently, spraying dark, thick blood onto my chin and chest.

Ethan slowly turned his head to look at me.

The raw panic in his eyes died, replaced by an icy, paralyzing horror. He looked at my hands, dripping with fresh crimson. He looked at my nightgown, soaked in wolf's blood. He looked at the empty, blood-smeared sheets where a child should have been. And finally, he looked at me—coughing up blood, silent, looking like a feral beast caught in the aftermath of a horrific crime.

"You..." Ethan’s voice was a whisper, but it carried the weight of a death sentence. The raw, agonizing betrayal in his eyes turned into a cold, bottomless revulsion. "You monster."

I didn't do it! my mind shrieked, but only bloody bubbles popped on my lips. I shook my head frantically, reaching out a trembling, bloody hand toward him.

Ethan recoiled as if my touch were literal poison. He stepped back, wrapping his arm protectively around Vanessa, who smirked at me from behind his shoulder.

"I loved you, Chloe," Ethan whispered, his voice cracking with a pain that quickly hardened into absolute hatred. "I chose my pack, but I never wanted you to suffer. And this is how you repay me? By murdering my child?"

He turned his back on me, his broad shoulders shifting with a final, chilling finality.

"Clean this room," Ethan commanded the guards who had gathered at the door. "Lock her in the dark. I never want to see her face again."

They dragged Vanessa out, her fake sobbing fading down the hallway.

I collapsed back onto the wet sheets, my throat burning with a useless, silent agony. I was bleeding, broken, and utterly loathed by the only man I had ever loved. But as the dark edges of unconsciousness finally claimed me, only one image remained burned into my failing mind.

My baby’s silver eyes.

He was alive. And I would survive this hell, even if I had to crawl through death to find him.