Chapter 1

At the end of my final treatment, the healer drew the needle from my arm. A bead of blood clung to its tip.

A young healer hurried over and pressed gauze to the puncture wound.

"Don't move."

I only gave her a calm smile.

"How much time do I have left?"

The healer was silent for a long moment before prescribing a few pain-relieving herbs.

As I headed back toward the treatment room, I heard the younger healer ask in a hushed voice, "Her wolf soul has already begun to disappear. Is there truly nothing we can do?"

"At most, one week."

One week.

So that was all the time I had left.

The healer let out a bitter laugh.

"You know, her father died in this very room. The same disease."

My steps faltered.

"She has been receiving treatment for a year and has never stopped of her own accord. Not even once."

"Other patients have their mates stay with them at night. When the pain leaves her curled up and shaking on the bed, she has no one but the healer on duty."

"Her mate has never come. One night, she called him, and another woman answered."

The healer's voice dropped even lower.

"Perhaps it was fate."

I tightened my grip on the treatment papers until my nails dug into my palm.

Perhaps it was.

Just as it had been fate when my father held my hand after his diagnosis, smiling even through the pain.

"Don't be afraid, Elara. Your father can handle this."

In the end, his wolf soul vanished while I held him, and he breathed his last in my arms.

Just as it had been fate on the night of our mating ceremony, when the silver poison entered my body and I asked Adrian for three hundred thousand dollars to save my wolf soul.

I could still remember the shock and hurt in his eyes.

"Am I nothing but an open wallet to you, Elara?"

"My parents, my friends, even Selene told me you were an outsider who came here to con me. I refused to believe any of them."

"My father broke three of my ribs. Even as they carried me into the pack clinic, I was still shouting that I would make you my mate!"

His voice was hoarse, his eyes burning red.

I had never imagined he would react that way. Tears flooded my eyes.

"That's not true, Adrian. There was silver in the ceremonial wine. The healer said I needed a witch to purge it--"

"Today was our mating ceremony."

He cut me off, tore away his ceremonial tie, and flung it to the floor.

"Are you sure this is the moment you want to show me who you really are?"

"Adrian, I swear I'll find a way to pay you back. No--I won't borrow it. I'll find the money myself. Please don't be angry."

He flung a card at me. It struck my collarbone and dropped to the floor.

"There's more than three hundred thousand on it. Isn't that what you married me for?"

"Don't tell me about silver or a dying wolf soul again. Take the money and stop pretending."

Then he wrenched open the door and stormed into the night.

That was our mating night.

I waited in the living room until four in the morning.

Selene was the one who brought him home.

Adrian was too drunk to stand, half his weight draped over her shoulders. Beneath the entryway light, the red mark on his neck looked painfully like a kiss.

Selene gave me an apologetic, innocent smile.

"Adrian took all his anger out on me, Elara. You can sleep without worrying now."

The ceremony had bound us as mates, but because of the silver poison, we had never completed the final marking.

For the next three years, Adrian could not feel my pain, and I had no mind-link through which I could prove the truth to him.