Chapter 3

The bond led me there even when my mind didn’t want to believe it.

I followed it like a compass needle—through dawn traffic, past human storefronts, to the clinic that pretended it only treated human women.

The sign said OB-GYN.

The security guard at the front desk didn’t look at me twice. Wolves knew wolves. We hid in plain sight.

My palm pressed lightly to my lower abdomen as I stepped into the hallway. The scar tissue from the last surgery pulled when I breathed.

Walter’s presence was close. Familiar. A warm heat at the back of my skull.

Janet’s scent was there too—sweet panic, artificial innocence.

I slowed near the exit and heard their voices outside.

“You don’t have to be scared,” Walter said, low and intimate.

Janet sniffed. “I just… I didn’t plan this, Walter. I swear I didn’t.”

A pause. Then Walter’s voice, heavier.

“It was an accident,” he said. “But it’s still my child. I’ll take responsibility.”

My fingers went numb.

Janet’s breath hitched. “What about Melissa?”

Walter’s answer came without hesitation. “I’ll handle her.”

I stepped closer to the glass doors.

They were on the sidewalk, Walter’s hand at Janet’s waist, holding her steady like she mattered. Like she was fragile and worth care.

Then Janet leaned in and Walter let her.

They hugged, bodies pressed together, and for a second I saw it clearly: the space she occupied was the space that used to be mine.

Walter turned his head—and saw me.

His arms dropped from Janet as if burned.

“Melissa,” he said, and his eyes widened with something that looked like fear.

I lifted the folder in my hand. “I came to get your signature.”

Janet’s gaze darted between us. She looked small on purpose. “I—maybe I should go—”

“Stay,” Walter said automatically, then caught himself. “No—Melissa, listen—”

I laughed once, sharp. “You’re going to tell me it’s not what it looks like?”

Walter stepped toward me, palms out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”

Find out.

As if the betrayal was a scheduling issue.

Tears blurred my vision, hot and humiliating. I blinked them back. “You said it’s your child.”

Walter’s jaw clenched. “I can’t abandon it.”

“So you’ll abandon me,” I said simply.

His face flickered, guilty for a fraction of a second. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“It is,” I replied.

I drew in a shaky breath and forced my voice steady. “Then we let the Elder Council decide whether it should be allowed. Whether you’re fit to—”

Walter’s eyes went wild.

“You’re cruel,” he snapped. “How can you even say that? You’d hurt her? You’d hurt the baby?”

“Hurt her?” My laugh broke into something uglier. “You mean the woman you’re holding outside a maternity clinic while your wife is still bleeding from your last mistake?”

Janet’s lips trembled. “Melissa… please… I never wanted to—”

I turned my head and let my gaze rake over her. “You never wanted to, but you did. Congratulations.”

Janet made a sobbing sound and turned as if to leave—dramatic, wounded. Her foot twisted on the curb.

“Oh!” she cried, stumbling.

Walter lunged, catching her.

And then he shoved me.

It wasn’t a gentle push. It was an Alpha’s strength, impatient and furious.

My back hit the edge of the clinic’s stone planter. Pain shot through my pelvis like lightning.

I gasped, folding instinctively, and the world tilted.

“Don’t you dare,” Walter hissed at me, eyes blazing. “If anything happens to her, I’ll make you pay a hundredfold.”

Blood warmth slid down my thighs.

My hands trembled as I reached inward—toward the bond, the only thing that had ever made him pause.

Walter. My mind screamed his name. Help me. I’m bleeding. Please—

He felt it.

I know he did, because his eyes flicked—just once—to my face, to my mouth forming his name.

And then, in pure rage, he cut me off.

The bond snapped like a rope under strain.

Not a dulling this time.

A severing.

A final, absolute silence.

Walter’s expression hardened, empty of me. “You did this,” he spat, already turning away.

He swept Janet into his arms and strode back through the clinic doors, carrying her like a prize.

I sank to my knees on the sidewalk.

The bond was gone.

And with it, the last illusion that I could still reach him.

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