The bond stretched thin toward the door Theron had walked through. I could still feel him at the far end of it. Moving away. His wolf hadn't even flinched.

My hands wouldn't stop shaking.

But not a single person noticed the blood pooling beneath me.

I lay on the cold stone floor of the Healing Hall, screaming in agony. My wolf thrashed inside me, weak and frantic, clawing at something she couldn't hold on to. No one answered. The corridor stretched empty in both directions, and the sound of my voice came back to me off the walls like something already dead.

"Help... please, save my pup..."

My mother had told me I could keep the child and take her to the Silvercrest ancestral lands. Leave the mate, keep the pup. Those words had been carved into my mind for weeks.

I'd already decided to keep this child.

So why was this happening?

My wolf let out a sound I'd never heard from her before. Low. Broken. Like something tearing at the root. The edges of my vision darkened, and the scent of my own blood filled my nose, sharp and wrong, copper and moonflower twisted together into something that smelled like ending.

As consciousness slipped away, I saw a healer's apprentice passing by the open door. She froze, then rushed in.

"What happened? Someone help! Miss, don't be scared. Why are you here alone? Where's your mate? Do you remember his contact sigil? I'll reach him for you!"

"I... don't have a mate..."

Then everything went black.

My pup was gone.

Four moon cycles along. Just barely formed.

The healer said it would have been a girl.

I stayed in the Healing Hall for three days. My wolf did not speak to me once during that time. She lay curled at the very bottom of my consciousness, utterly still, and I could not tell if she was grieving or if something in her had simply stopped.

In those three days, Theron didn't reach out to me once.

But I saw his announcement on the spirit network.

Blessed with a pup.

Four words. Accompanied by a captured image of a woman and child sleeping, taken from behind. The woman's hair fanned across a pillow. The pup was swaddled in Ironmaw colors.

The comments were flooded with congratulations. Pack members, allied Alphas, wolves I'd personally brokered alliances with on Theron's behalf, all falling over themselves to celebrate.

I stared at that image. The tears came anyway.