So she laced the pastries I loved most with Hollowbane, and I never suspected a thing.
"Seraphina, my stomach hurts so badly. I just swallowed it, there's still time. Please, go find a healer."
She didn't move. My voice cracked raw with panic. "I won't mate with you, alright? I won't. I don't want to live like this, worse than death. Once I'm better, I'll leave. I'll go far away. I won't stand in your way, I swear."
No matter how I begged until my throat gave out, Seraphina didn't flinch.
She held out her arm. "Bite down on me. It won't hurt as much."
I shoved her arm away. "Go find a healer. I'm begging you, Seraphina."
"Fenris, stop talking nonsense. No pack healer is going to treat someone of your station."
"The poison's already taken hold. It's too late. Just be good. Even if you can never sire pups again, my pup will still call you father."
I gripped her hand so hard my knuckles went white. "Seraphina, listen to me. I am the Alpha Heir. The Supreme Alpha's own son. Go find a healer to save me. Now."
But she thought I was lying. She wrenched her hand free, anger flashing across her face.
"You've really disappointed me. There's a limit to how far a lie should go. This is the pack stronghold's territory, not some borderland den of yours. One wrong word here can cost you your head."
She turned on her heel, the night-blooming jasmine of her scent already retreating, already cold.
"It's only barrenness. It won't kill you. Look after yourself."
I watched her walk away, and the last shred of hope inside me died.
Deep in my chest, my wolf let out a sound that wasn't quite a howl. Low, airless, like something crawling into a place it wouldn't come back from.
I curled into the corner. The feeling below my waist began to fade, replaced by a pain so sharp I could barely breathe. The Hollowbane was working its way through my blood, burning from the inside. I could feel it reaching for something deeper than organs, deeper than bone. It was reaching for my bloodline itself, the thread that connected me to every Ashvale who had ever lived, and it was cauterizing the end.
I would probably never sire pups again. And the one pup I had prayed for day and night turned out to belong to someone else.
I drifted in and out of consciousness through the night. Below my waist, everything had gone numb long ago. My wolf had gone quiet. Not sleeping. Not resting. Just quiet, in the way a wounded animal goes quiet when it stops believing help is coming.
The door burst open with a single kick. Caspian Stormfang strode in with a handful of guards behind him. The smell hit me before I could focus my eyes: polished steel and northern pine and the sharp musk of territorial marking, aggressive and deliberate, filling the small room like a claim.
He glanced at me, drenched in blood, then settled himself at the table and poured a cup of tea as though he had all the time in the world.
"Don't blame me. After all, the pup in Seraphina's belly is mine. Can't very well have him calling another wolf father, can we?"
I braced myself against the wall, barely upright. "So you'd rob me of ever siring pups again?"
Caspian let out a short laugh. "Now that's unfair. Seraphina was the one who laced the food. Seraphina was the one who decided you wouldn't keep the ability. I merely... mentioned the idea."
I stared at him, nails digging into my palms until I felt skin break.
He rose and walked over to me. "Though, you should count yourself lucky the pup isn't yours. Imagine it growing up and calling me 'Father.' How would you stomach that?"
"Bring the tonic over. Make him drink it. Help build up his strength."
The guards pried my jaw open and forced the liquid down my throat. I recognized the taste. Severance Root. Bitter as wolfsbane, but worse. Wolfsbane killed the body. This killed everything else.
I thrashed, tried to spit it out, but they held me fast, fingers clamped around my face. The root hit my stomach and I felt it immediately, a wrongness spreading outward, reaching for the place where my wolf lived. Not pain. Silence. A silence that was growing, swallowing the low hum that had been there since the day I was born, the presence that had breathed when I breathed and howled when I howled and had never, not once in my entire life, left me alone.
Caspian crouched in front of me and patted my cheek, slow and deliberate, every touch a humiliation. "Can't have you coveting Seraphina down the line. Can't have you producing more heirs and stirring up trouble."
"My mating ceremony's in two days. Still need to go try on my Blood Circlet. If you'll excuse me."
As he stood, the moonstone pendant at his waist swung into view. He made no effort to hide it.
It was Seraphina's. She had told me it was the only thing her mother left her. And she had given it to Caspian Stormfang.
He paused at the door, as if just remembering. "Oh, right. Seraphina transferred the deed to this den into my name. I hear you're fond of the pastoral life. Just remember, you're living under my roof now. Mind my rules."
My whole body went rigid. When Seraphina burned down the countryside den, she had told me this estate was bought for me. That I could fill it with moonberry bushes and silver-leaf fruit trees and herb gardens.
From the very beginning, she had never intended to give me anything.
"Caspian Stormfang."
I called after him, my voice scraped hollow.
"Has the young Pack Alpha Heir ever laid eyes on the Alpha Heir of the Crescent Dominion?"
