The bond stretched thin toward the door Theron had walked through. I could still feel him at the far end of it. Moving away. His wolf hadn't even flinched.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking.
But not a single person noticed the blood pooling beneath me.
I lay on the cold stone floor of the Healing Hall, screaming in agony. My wolf thrashed inside me, weak and frantic, clawing at something she couldn't hold on to. No one answered. The corridor stretched empty in both directions, and the sound of my voice came back to me off the walls like something already dead.
"Help... please, save my pup..."
My mother had told me I could keep the child and take her to the Silvercrest ancestral lands. Leave the mate, keep the pup. Those words had been carved into my mind for weeks.
I'd already decided to keep this child.
So why was this happening?
My wolf let out a sound I'd never heard from her before. Low. Broken. Like something tearing at the root. The edges of my vision darkened, and the scent of my own blood filled my nose, sharp and wrong, copper and moonflower twisted together into something that smelled like ending.