Three hours later, they wheeled me out. My face was white as bone. I pressed one hand against the wall and lowered myself onto a bench in the corridor. A low, dull ache pulsed through my lower abdomen, and somewhere deeper than that, my wolf lay curled on her side, silent again, but a different silence now. The silence of something missing.
Then a commotion broke out ahead.
A familiar figure swept past carrying someone in his arms. I caught a flash of dark hair, the sharp edge of a jaw I had once traced with my fingertips. He disappeared around the corner, and moments later came rushing back. His gaze snagged on me and stopped.
"Hurry. Come with me."
He threw the words over his shoulder and seized my wrist. I was running before I understood what was happening. My body screamed with every stride. The ache in my abdomen deepened, rolling through me in waves, and my face drained of whatever color it had left. He did not notice.
He didn't stop until we reached the blood transfusion chamber.
"Her blood type matches Ashford's. Draw hers."
I opened my mouth to refuse. He pushed me into the chair, barking at the healer to hurry. From start to finish he offered no explanation. The needle slid into my arm and he turned away without looking back, his expression tight with worry as he strode toward the room where Hazel Ashford lay.
The healers murmured as they worked.
"What happened? The young Alpha seems frantic."
"What else? His mate had a ruptured ovarian cyst, massive bleeding. They just brought her in."
"Three years mated and he still acts like this. She must be the center of his whole world."
Each word drove into me like a fang.
So that was it. Their intimacy had caused the hemorrhage. The infirmary's blood stores ran short, and he saw me in the corridor and dragged me in without a second thought.
While he had been tangled up with the one he loved, I had been losing our pup.
If he had spared me even a single moment of attention, he would have seen. The pallor. The trembling. The faint scent of blood that was not Ashford's. But he hadn't. His world had never held room for anyone but Hazel Ashford.
I smiled. The tears came anyway, sliding down my cheeks faster than I could stop them.
Sylvia Nightfang. Since you love her that much, then I will set you free. From this day forward, you and I are strangers. Mountains between us, rivers between us, and nothing left to bridge.