"Then let the royal wet nurses take him. I have my own child to worry about!" The words ripped from my throat before I could stop them.
Ethan froze. The heavy anger radiating from his body vanished, replaced by a chilling stillness. "What did you just say?"
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the plastic stick, and slammed it onto the mahogany dresser. "I'm pregnant. We are having a pup."
He didn't look at the test. His eyes dropped to my flat stomach. A muscle in his jaw twitched once, then smoothed out.
Before he could speak, the infant on the bed let out a terrible, gurgling shriek. Orion’s tiny limbs went completely rigid. His skin flushed an angry, bruised purple.
"Thorne!" Ethan bellowed toward the open hallway.
An older wolf with a graying beard rushed into our bedroom, clutching a heavy medical bag. The royal physician shoved past me and placed a glowing palm over the infant's chest.
"Alpha," Thorne muttered, his tone grim. "His bloodline is collapsing. The congenital defect is tearing his organs apart. His heart is failing."
"Fix him," Ethan ordered.
"I cannot." Thorne pulled a silver syringe from his bag, injecting a clear fluid into the baby’s arm. "This will only buy him an hour. The only thing that can stabilize a fractured royal bloodline is a direct infusion of origin power."
Ethan frowned. "Then take my blood."
"Your Alpha blood is too aggressive. It would burn through his veins," Thorne explained. He hesitated, cutting his eyes toward me. "He requires a pure, nurturing source. Specifically, the enriched origin blood of a pregnant Luna."
Silence slammed into the room.
Ethan slowly turned his head. His gaze locked onto me.
"No," I whispered. I took a step back, my spine hitting the cold wall.
"Serena," Ethan started.
"Are you insane?" I pointed at the doctor. "Tell him, Thorne! Tell him what drawing that much origin power will do to a first-trimester pregnancy!"
Thorne lowered his head, refusing to meet my eyes. "It is extremely taxing. The Luna's body would prioritize the injured infant. The unborn pup... might be starved of life force."
"Might?" I shouted. "It will kill my baby!"
"Your pup is strong," Ethan argued. He closed the distance between us, his massive frame blocking out the light from the hallway. "Our bloodline is ancient. It will survive the strain."
"My baby is barely a cluster of cells!" I shoved his chest, but he didn't budge an inch. "I will not drain my child's life force to fix her broken mistake."
Ethan caught my wrists. His fingers clamped down like iron cuffs. "Do not call him a mistake. Orion is dying right now."
"And you want to murder your own flesh and blood to save him?"
"I am asking you to save an innocent life."
"You aren't asking!" I yanked my hands free. "You're demanding a sacrifice. I won't do it. I am the Luna of this pack, and I forbid anyone from touching my veins."
Ethan’s expression hardened into something unrecognizable. The man who had courted me, who had promised to protect me, vanished entirely. Only a ruthless Alpha remained.
"You will do this, Serena."
"Or what?" I challenged, lifting my chin. "Will you hold me down? Will you let Thorne carve into my arm while I scream?"
"I won't have to touch you." Ethan stepped back, adjusting the cuffs of his ruined black suit. "Tomorrow night is the Grand Assembly. Every Alpha, Elder, and pack member in the territory will gather in the square."
A cold dread pooled in my stomach. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"If you do not voluntarily offer your origin blood to Orion tonight," Ethan stated, his voice flat and devoid of emotion, "I will drag you onto the main stage tomorrow."
"You wouldn't."
"I will invoke the Rite of Rejection in front of the entire kingdom."
The room spun. My knees buckled slightly, but I forced myself to stay standing.
"You would reject your own mate?" My voice cracked.
"I will sever our bond," Ethan continued, his words striking like physical blows. "I will strip your title. I will erase your name from the pack registry. You will be cast out as a rogue, bearing a fatherless bastard."
"He is your child!" I screamed. Tears blurred my vision, hot and furious. "You would throw your own pup into exile? You would let the whole pack spit on us?"
"Ivy entrusted her son to me. I swore on her dying breath that he would live." Ethan didn't flinch. He didn't blink. "I will not fail her."
"But you will fail me."
"You have a choice." He gestured toward the bed, where the tiny infant lay gasping for air. "Give up your origin power. Nourish the boy. Keep your place by my side."
"A place by your side," I repeated bitterly. "As a hollow shell. Mourning the baby you forced me to kill."
"The choice is yours." Ethan turned his back to me. He walked over to the bed and placed a hand on Orion's fragile head. "Thorne will prepare the extraction tools. You have until midnight to decide."
"Ethan, please." The anger broke, leaving only sheer panic. "Don't do this. Don't make me choose between my baby and my life here."
He didn't answer. He didn't even look over his shoulder.
Thorne quietly opened his leather bag again, pulling out a length of clear tubing and a thick, hollow needle. The metallic clink echoed in the silent room.
I stared at the needle. Then I stared at the broad back of my husband.
The clock on the wall ticked. Eleven-fifteen.
Forty-five minutes.
I pressed a hand over my stomach. My wolf whimpered in the back of my mind, curling tightly around the tiny spark of life growing inside me. If I stayed, my baby would die to feed Ivy's legacy. If I refused, I would be publicly humiliated, stripped of my soul's other half, and hunted as a rogue.
Thorne set the needle on a silver tray. "Whenever you are ready, Luna."
