Chapter 4

The doctor looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

“You're refusing anesthesia,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a child. “But The gland we should clean that too—”

“No.” I swallowed hard. “Leave it.”

He blinked. “Why—”

Because I needed proof. Because I needed something that wouldn't heal over and pretend it never happened.

I didn't say any of that.

“Just leave it.”I whispered, 'Please...'"

He finally nodded.

Then,metal scraped. Tweezers pinched.I'd bitten my tongue, but I didn't scream.

Once, when a shard dragged against something deep, my eyes burned.

A tear slipped down my temple.

Only one.

The room tilted. My fever rose like a tide.

And then I was gone.

---

When I woke again, a nurse sat by the door, watching my monitors.

“You're… you're a werewolf, aren't you?” she asked, voice low. Curiosity and fear braided together. “Your gland is damaged. It's… destroyed. What are you going to do?”

I turned my head a fraction. The motion pulled at the raw puncture behind my ear, and stars flickered behind my eyes.

“It's okay,” I said.

The words were so calm they surprised me.

“I'm leaving soon.”

The nurse's expression softened into something like pity. “Where would you go?”

“Somewhere I can breathe,” I whispered.

She exhaled, defeated, and pushed herself up. “Rest.Good rest.”

She opened the door—

—and a familiar voice cut through the hallway like steel.

“Who's leaving?”

Kade.

He stepped into the room in a coat that cost more than the hospital wing, hair still perfect. He looked too whole for a man who'd thrown me into glass.

His eyes narrowed. “What did you mean by leaving?”

I stared back, blank. “I asked the nurse to leave.”

Kade didn't believe me. I could see it in the way his gaze sharpened, scanning my face for cracks.

But my face didn't crack.

After a moment, he stepped closer and lowered his voice, like he was doing me a favor.

“Last night was chaotic,” he said. “I didn't notice you.”

I waited for the apology.

It didn't come.

He continued, “You should've stayed out of the way.”

My throat tightened. I kept my expression smooth.

Kade's jaw worked. “I'll come by every day while you're here.”

I won't respond. Once he makes up his mind about something, saying anything more would be in vain.

“Do whatever you want,” I said quietly.

He watched me for another beat, then nodded as if he'd won something.

And he left.

---

He did come back.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Always “daily,” like he'd promised—

And every time, Seraphina's scent clung to him like silk.

Rose and wild honey.

It crawled over my skin. It sat in my lungs. It made the dying bond inside my chest flare, not with longing—with a slow, corrosive burn.

Like acid eating through a chain.

On the fourth day, I woke from a jagged sleep with my neck on fire.

The puncture wound throbbed, and the bond—what was left of it—heated under my breastbone, sizzling. The fever made everything sharper. The pain made everything honest.

And then the scent hit me.

Stronger than it had any right to be inside a human hospital.

My body moved first.

I swung my legs over the bed, ignoring the dizziness, and followed that scent into the corridor. Past the nurses' station. Down the stairs.

Each step pulled at the stitches in my knee. Each breath scraped my throat.

The smell led me to the stairwell landing.

I turned the corner—

—and there they were.

Kade had Seraphina pinned against the wall, one hand braced beside her head, the other tangled in her hair. His mouth was on hers, hard, claiming. His voice was a low, rough sound against her lips, a possessive growl that belonged to wolves, not men.

Seraphina's eyes slid open.

She looked straight at me.

And smiled.

Kade broke the kiss just long enough to murmur, intimate and indulgent, “Little Rose.”

My fingers went numb.

Something hot inside my chest stopped burning.

It extinguished.

And memory slammed into me.

A rose garden behind the old house. Red blooms lined like a promise. Kade showing it to me, voice almost gentle.

“What is this?” I'd asked, stupidly hopeful.

“A gift,” he'd said. “For the one I love.”

I had been so warm then. So foolish.

I had forgotten to ask the only question that mattered.

Who?Who's your lover?

Now I knew.

I can't even remember how I managed to leave the hospital and get to the rose garden.

I just remembered when I arrived, afternoon light spilled over the garden like it was blessing it.

My hands didn't shake when I lit a torch.

Then—petals curling, blackening, collapsing into ember. The flame ran from bush to bush.

Smoke rose, thick and bitter.

Heat pressed against my face.

My lungs didn't hurt from holding back.My eyes, something stayed dry and empty.

At this moment, Seraphina's presence brushed the edge of my mind like a fingernail.

Her voice slid into the bond, sweet and poisonous.

You were outside the stairwell, weren't you?

A soft laugh.

I don't understand how you can be that pathetic. If I found out my Alpha never loved me, I'd be too ashamed to stay.

The taunt sharpened.

Leave, Moira. Be smart. Be gone.

I stared into the fire until my vision wavered.

Then I answered, calm as ash.

“As you wish.”

After the fire, Kade vanished.

No footsteps in the hall. No shadow at my door. No pine-and-smoke filling the air like he could overwrite what he’d done simply by existing near me.

I expected the emptiness to hurt.

It didn’t.

It was almost… clean. Like a wound that had finally stopped bleeding and turned into scar tissue. I woke, I ate what the nurses forced on me, I stared at the ceiling and felt nothing bloom when the bond twitched. Nothing hopeful. Nothing pleading.

Maybe this was what letting go felt like.

The day I was discharged, I didn’t go back to the old house.

I headed straight for the punishment hall.

One last walk. One last procedure. One last door I needed to close.

I turned a corner—

—and the world snapped black.