“No… no—don’t you dare—no.”
Trixie dropped. Not like a warrior collapsing in defeat. No, he sank like a man unraveling in real time, hitting the floor with none of the grace expected of an Alpha. His voice—what was left of it—splintered around her name.
He gathered Debbie’s face in both hands, his forehead pressed hard against hers, like he could will her back into her body. Like proximity could reverse poison.
“Debbie. Debbie, look at me,” he whispered. “Stay here. Don’t leave. Don’t—”
She twitched. Just once. Maybe it was recognition. Maybe it was just death flexing her fingers.
And then his head snapped toward me.
Something inside him snapped with it.
The grief burned off his skin in an instant, replaced by something far older. Wilder. What stood in his place now wasn’t a man—it was the core of something feral and barely restrained.
“You,” he said through his teeth. No title. No name. Just that one word, ripped clean of civility. “What the hell did you do?”
I opened my mouth, breath caught mid-throat, but nothing came. What could I even say?
He was already halfway to his feet, shoulders bunched like a storm winding itself tight. His hands trembled, and I didn’t know if it was grief or fury or both—but his wolf was there, just beneath the skin, panting to get out.
“Alpha!”
The sound cracked across the room—Dr. Hemlock, arriving like a scalpel drawn too late. His coat flared behind him, his face pale and slick with urgency as he took in the scene: Debbie convulsing, her mouth foaming, her fingers digging raw lines into the swell of her own belly.
“The fetus is losing oxygen,” Hemlock said, all breath and calculation. “Rapid drop. If we don’t extract immediately, we lose the subject. And her.”
Trixie didn’t turn right away.
He stood motionless, breathing once—twice. Then his jaw shifted. Something silent passed between his teeth.
When he did look at me, it wasn’t hatred. It wasn’t confusion.
It was something emptier. Something final.
He didn’t ask. He didn’t warn.
“Use her.”
Two words. Flat. Dry. Like the clink of a knife on steel.
I didn’t even feel the restraints snap in until I hit the slab. One second I was upright—the next, the cold bit into my wrists and ankles and shoved the breath out of my lungs. Steel bands groaned into place, the hiss of hydraulics sealing me into a position I couldn’t even fight.
My heart slammed against my ribs. “Trixie, don’t—please—listen to me, this isn’t—”
He didn’t look. Not once. Not a flicker.
He just turned his back and knelt beside her again, brushing the hair off Debbie’s clammy forehead like they were alone in the world.
His voice, when it came again, was quiet. Almost gentle.
“She’s the one carrying the pup,” Hemlock said, wiping down silver instruments. His hands didn’t shake. “But Selena is the original. She’s the last clean link to the regenerative line. If we lose her…”
“Take what you need,” Trixie murmured, still stroking Debbie’s cheek with a tenderness that made my skin crawl. “I want that pup breathing.”
Hemlock hesitated. His eyes shifted between us—between me and the man who had once stood in front of bullets for me.
“You mean…” the doctor said, glancing at the monitors. “All of it?”
