Felicity’s POV
It all happened too fast.
One moment I was running through the borderlands, and the next, fangs and claws tore into my flesh. Their growls drowned out my screams as I stumbled, blood spilling down my arms, my side, my legs.
I tried to fight. Goddess knows I tried. My wolf clawed at the surface, but my body was too slow, too weak against so many of them. Their claws raked me open again and again, and with each slash, my strength bled out of me, pooling into the dirt.
I knew then. I was going to die.
The world blurred. The taste of iron filled my mouth. My knees buckled. My wolf howled inside me, fading. This is it…
And then everything went dark.
When my eyes opened again, I was surrounded not by wolves but by white walls, bright lights, and the faint antiseptic sting of a hospital. My body ached, stitched and bandaged, but somehow still alive.
I blinked, disoriented. “Where…?”
“You’re awake,” a soft voice said. A nurse stepped closer, her expression grave. “You lost a lot of blood. But you’re stable now. You’re lucky… another Alpha brought you here. He must have saved you from the border.”
Her words barely sank in before she added, hesitantly, “Miss… I’m sorry. You were one month pregnant. But… the baby didn’t survive.”
My breath caught. The room tilted, spinning. Pregnant? I hadn’t known. I hadn’t felt it. The words hit harder than claws, cutting straight through me.
“No,” I whispered, clutching the sheets. “No, no, no…”
Tears blurred my vision as a sob tore free. A baby. My baby. Gone before I even knew it existed. My heart felt like it had been carved out of my chest. I hadn’t just lost blood that night—I had lost a piece of myself.
The nurse placed a hand on my arm. “Rest. Your body needs to heal.”
But how could I heal when my soul was shattered?
Hours passed, or maybe it was days—I couldn’t tell.
All I knew was the scent. It lingered faintly on my skin, clinging to me like a brand. The scent of the Alpha who had carried me here. Strong, dark, grounding. Not Cyrus. Someone else.
Who was he? Why had he saved me?
I reached for my phone with trembling fingers. If anyone should know I was alive, it was Cyrus. My husband. My alpha.
I called him. Once. Twice. Five times. No answer.
My heart pounded harder with each ring that ended in silence.
Desperate, I opened my social media, hoping to message him. Instead, the first thing that greeted me stole the breath from my lungs.
A post. Public. It was Dianna.
And beside her, smiling with an ease I had never once seen directed at me, was Cyrus. They stood together on a yacht, the sea glittering behind them. His arm was around her waist, his lips curved in affection.
The caption beneath the photo cut through me like a blade.
Planning our wedding ceremony soon.
The phone slipped from my fingers. My chest constricted until I couldn’t breathe. While I had bled out at the border, losing the baby I hadn’t even known I carried, he had been with her. Smiling. Planning. Celebrating.
I curled into myself, the tears coming too hard, too fast. I thought betrayal couldn’t hurt more than it already had. I was wrong.
The door slammed open.
Cyrus stormed in, his face dark with fury. “Why didn’t you try harder to contact me when you were in danger?”
I flinched at the sharpness in his voice. My lips parted, but no words came. Because what could I say? That I had tried? That I had bled and screamed until my voice was gone? That I had called him again and again, but he hadn’t been there?
My silence seemed to enrage him further. He loomed over me, arms crossed. “Do you realize how reckless you were? Going to the border like that? Do you even think before you act?”
Hopelessness swallowed me whole. Even now, after everything, he wasn’t worried about me—only about my mistake. Only about my failure.
“It’s my fault, then,” I whispered, staring at the blanket. “Even bleeding out was my fault.”
He didn’t deny it. Instead, he sighed, pulling a container from the bag in his hand. “I brought you food.”
He set it on the table and opened the lid. Carrot soup.
Of course.
Carrot. Always carrot. Always her.
My hands shook as he lifted the spoon toward me. My stomach twisted. I couldn’t do it—not this time.
But before the first spoonful reached my lips, the door burst open again. Beta Noel rushed in, his face pale.
“Alpha Cyrus! It’s Lady Dianna. She fainted!”
Cyrus dropped the spoon at once. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t glance back at me, didn’t even ask if I needed anything else. He just turned and walked out with Noel, his strides long and urgent.
I was left alone again. Abandoned.
Numbness seeped into me, heavier than the pain. What was left of me to even break anymore?
But then… That scent.
The same one I had noticed before, rich and commanding, with an undertone of wild pine and storm. My wolf stirred faintly inside me, recognizing it, pulling me toward it.
And there he was.
A man leaned casually against the doorframe, arms folded, his gaze fixed on me. He was an Alpha, no doubt about it. His presence filled the room, powerful and suffocating in a way Cyrus never had been. His long, dark hair fell past his shoulders, framing a face too sharp and handsome to belong to any ordinary man.
But his eyes—Goddess, his eyes—held a heat that made my pulse trip.
“Do you want me to help you run away from your mutt of an Alpha?” he asked, his voice low and smooth, curling through the air like smoke.
My breath hitched. My wolf pressed forward, ears pricked, her attention utterly captured by him.
And for the first time in years, I felt something stir in my chest besides pain.
Hope.
