“That’s enough. Hand them over. I’ll take them myself.”
My voice was level—too level. Like the eye of a storm right before it swallows everything.
Trixie stilled. His shoulders squared, nostrils flaring as if scenting something off in my tone.
“Selena, don’t be stupid.” His growl trembled at the edges. “You don’t know what those will do to you.”
The bottle of wolfsbane capsules dangled between my fingers. Then, with a sudden roar, he slapped them from my hand. They hit the floor with a hard clatter, pills scattering like bones.
“You want to die?” His voice cracked, primal and shaking. “Fine. Then die. But not like this. Not in front of me.”
He went quiet after that, panting, fists clenched at his sides like he was holding back from shifting. Trixie wasn’t the kind to shout. Not usually. But his eyes—those cold, glacial things—were flooded with heat.
He tugged off his jacket, tossed it over the chair, and turned from me with a sharp flick of his wrist. “Enough of your theatrics.”
“You’re not dying,” he muttered, voice lowering to a dangerous pitch. “We’ve tested every bloodline theory. Every moon cycle. Still nothing. The Pack down north has a lab. They’re willing to study what’s inside you. If they can extract even a fragment of your regenerative strain… maybe it’ll help the pup growing in Debbie.”
There. He’d said it.
I didn’t flinch. Just rolled up my sleeve, offering my arm like a gift to the gods.
“Take it,” I said softly. “Take all of it if you want. Maybe you’ll finally be rid of me that way.”
Something inside him faltered. But his duty to Debbie—and to the unborn heir she carried—won out.
He called in the Pack healer.
The needle wasn’t silver, but it might as well have been. It burrowed deep, draining not just blood but memory. I watched it fill, red and thick with my DNA. The very thing they wanted. The very thing I hated.
I didn’t tell them the truth.
That I was dying, yes—but not from some disease. I was nearing my hundredth death. The last in a long chain of silent sacrifices that no one remembered, not even the wolf who had once howled my name under moonlight.
Once that final death arrived, I’d be gone—not just from this pack, but from the tether that bound me to this world.
Truly gone.
Trixie’s phone buzzed. Without a glance in my direction, he picked up.
“Tomorrow. I’ll drive her to the lab myself.”
The healer hesitated. “Alpha, she should rest. Her vitals are... thinning.”
“She won’t die.” Trixie’s voice was arctic.
The healer swallowed whatever protest he had. But Trixie didn’t come the next day. Or the one after.
Instead, the shared Pack account pinged with transactions.
Maternity coats. Fur-lined boots. A winter bassinet.
A memory slammed into me like a blow.
We were once on northern patrol—before the mating bond between him and Debbie. A blizzard hit, sudden and brutal. Debbie had tracked him up there, frostbitten and weeping. Trixie wrapped her in his coat. Then—without a word—ripped mine off too and draped it over her.
“She followed me,” he snapped when I opened my mouth. “And you left her out there. You heartless mutt.”
They left me behind that night.
My wolf nearly froze solid before dawn.
I came back only to find them already mated.
I blinked, coming back to the present.
I ordered them custom-matched arctic gloves.
Then I severed my link to the Pack’s joint account.
Later, Trixie sent a single message.
I didn’t reply.
Not long after, I heard heavy footsteps outside my den door. A familiar knock. Authoritative. Impatient.
“Get dressed. We’re leaving.”
I rose silently. My limbs creaked like winter branches.
Debbie stood behind him, belly swollen, smile painted sweet as rot.
“Selena,” she purred. “It must be exhausting, donating so much of yourself for our pup. But if the lab finds nothing... we may need more. Maybe even open you up. Gently, of course.”
“For the child,” she added with a wink.
“I understand,” I said, utterly still.
Trixie’s jaw ticked. “That’s enough, Debbie.”
She laughed like she didn’t hear him. But I saw the flicker in her eyes—the momentary panic.
The three of us rode in silence.
Trixie turned on music. Something soft and old. It didn’t matter.
The silence drowned it out.
