The healer didn’t make me sit down first.
That was how I knew the news was going to be bad—when even the gentlest hands forgot kindness for a moment, when the room smelled too sharply of crushed sage and iron, and when the silver basin beside the cot had already been set out as if my body might fail right there.
Master Vaelorian stood across from me with a scroll in one hand and a strip of moonstone in the other. The moonstone had been dipped into my blood. It should’ve glowed warm—steady, living.
Instead, it flickered like a dying ember.
“Eirlys,” he said softly, “your moon-blood isn’t holding.”
I stared at the flicker, waiting for my mind to catch up. “That’s… that just means we adjust the dosage. We try another draught.”
His gaze dropped—not to the scroll, not to my wrist, but to my eyes, the way healers look at wolves they can’t save.
“We’ve adjusted everything we can.” He exhaled. “Your blood isn’t feeding your wolf anymore. Your healing is slowing. Your strength will keep bleeding out with every full moon.”
My throat tightened. “So what do we do?”
“There is only one cure left,” he said. “A blood-binding ritual. A transfer. You need a matching strain—same resonance, same moonline.”
My fingers went cold. “A match.”
He nodded once.
I waited, breath shallow, because I already knew what came next. There weren’t many wolves with blood like mine. The Vale line was old—too old, too thin, too rare.
“You have…” I swallowed. “How long?”
He didn’t hesitate. That was worse than pity.
“One lunar cycle,” he said. “Maybe less, if the next moon hits you hard.”
The room tipped. Not enough for me to fall—just enough for me to feel how close the edge really was.
A month.
A month to watch my body betray me. A month to become a burden. A month to be mourned while I still breathed.
I forced my hands to stop shaking by curling them into fists. “Then tell me the match.”
He paused, like he didn’t want to say the name out loud. “The only confirmed match is… Vaelis.”
My chest went tight.
Of course it was her.
Vaelis—the woman everyone in the pack whispered about as my “twin,” because she wore my face like a familiar lie and carried a scent so close to my own that even elders had squinted at us under moonlight and murmured about shared blood. She’d arrived years ago with a smile too polished and a story too convenient. She’d stayed because no one wanted to challenge the idea that fate sometimes made duplicates.
And because my mate—my Alpha—had never told her to leave.
“She’s the only one?” I asked, though the answer was already a blade in my ribs.
Master Vaelorian’s expression hardened. “The only one who will test compatible. The only one who can give you enough to survive the binding.”
My lungs wouldn’t fill properly.
I left the healer’s lodge in a daze, the cold night air biting at my cheeks, the sky stretched wide and cruel above the pines. The pack lands were quiet—too quiet for a territory that belonged to Blackthorn wolves. Somewhere in the dark, sentries paced. Somewhere, distant howls braided into the wind.
Somewhere, Kaelrion Blackthorn existed as if my world hadn’t just cracked.
I pulled my cloak tighter and forced myself to walk, because collapsing in the snow would not change anything. Wolves didn’t die dramatically. They died slowly, with pride gnawed down to bone.
My phone was heavy in my palm. Modern glass, old problems.
I pressed call.
Kaelrion.
It rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then the line cut.
I stared at the screen until it dimmed, then called again, because denial is a kind of faith.
Straight to silence.
My heartbeat turned ugly—too fast, too loud—like it was trying to run ahead of the truth.
I made it halfway down the lodge steps before my screen lit up with a notification. Not from him.
From her.
Vaelis’s profile slid onto my display like a taunt.
A new post on MoonGram.
My thumb hovered, then tapped before I could stop myself.
There she was—bathed in warm lamplight, hair curled perfectly over one shoulder, mouth curved into something soft enough to fool strangers. Her hand was tangled with a man’s fingers.
I knew those fingers.
I knew that scar across the knuckle. I’d traced it in bed when he’d come home bloodied from a border skirmish, when he’d grunted that it was nothing and then let me kiss it anyway.
Kaelrion’s hand.
My vision tunneled, sharp at the center and blurred at the edges.
The caption was worse.
The Alpha I’ve loved in silence is finally mine. Even if it’s only for a month, I’ll treasure every night.
My thumb slipped.
I liked it.
I didn’t even realize I was crying until a tear hit the screen and smeared her perfect face.
Less than a minute later, my phone began to vibrate like it was panicking with me.
Kaelrion.
Kaelrion.
Kaelrion.
I answered on the third call because my hands wouldn’t stop shaking and because some part of me still believed he’d say, This isn’t real.
“Eirlys—don’t hang up,” he said immediately, voice rough and urgent. “Please. Just listen.”
I didn’t speak. If I opened my mouth, I was afraid I’d howl.
“I know what you saw,” he continued. “It’s not what you think.”
My throat burned. “Then tell me what it is.”
A beat of silence. A breath. The sound of him choosing words the way men choose weapons.
“Vaelis agreed to give you her blood,” he said. “For the binding. She’ll do it. But only if I… if I give her one lunar month. Publicly.”
My spine went rigid. “Publicly.”
