After My Mate Killed Our Unborn Pup

The enforcers didn’t carry me across the border. They dragged me by my coat sleeves, my heels gouging two dark ruts through the autumn grass, and dumped me face-first into the freezing mud.

The heavy iron border gates slammed shut behind me. The latch clicked into place.

I lay there in the dirt, gasping for air. The agony in my lower belly was a deep, tearing void. The warm blood kept soaking through my skirt, chilling rapidly against the frozen ground. My pup was gone. Ten years of devotion, scrubbed out like dirt on a kitchen tile, paid back with a shattered bond and a dead child.

I curled my fingers into the mud and squeezed my eyes shut, waiting for the cold to take me.

Then my ribs caught fire.

It wasn't the dull ache of an ordinary shift. It was a detonation. Blinding, silver-white light ripped through my skin, searing through my veins like molten glass. My bones didn’t just crack—they expanded, lengthening with violent, terrifying speed.

The mud beneath me vaporized into steam.

I rose on four massive paws, my head clearing the lower branches of the pine trees. My fur shimmered like polished steel under the grey sky. I was huge—twice the size of Bryson’s Alpha wolf, wider across the shoulders than an iron stove, radiating pure, ancient heat.

A primal howl tore out of my throat.

The sound cracked the air like thunder. A visible shockwave blasted outward, flattening the tall grass for fifty yards and rattling the iron border gates until the hinges screamed. Miles away, birds exploded from the canopy in panicked clouds. Every wolf within five territories must have felt that rumble in their marrow.

Deep in my skull, behind the red haze of pain and power, an ancient voice spoke. It was calm, fierce, and entirely certain.

*Hello, Alessia. I am Seraphine. I have been waiting.*

Tears pricked my eyes as the massive wolf retreated, pulling the power back under my skin. My human body collapsed back into the mud, shivering violently, the exhaustion hitting me like a stone wall.

I couldn't stay awake. My eyelids drifted shut.

I don't know how many hours passed before the heavy thud of tactical boots woke me.

"Over here!" a rough voice shouted through the mist.

Hands touched my shoulders—gentle, cautious hands, nothing like Bryson’s thugs.

"Moon Goddess above," someone whispered in raw disbelief. "Smell that? White nightshade. Frozen silver. It’s her. Call the King. It’s the Princess."

A thick wool cloak was wrapped around my trembling shoulders. Strong arms lifted me from the dirt. I drifted in and out of the dark as black SUVs sped over mountain roads, surrounded by a royal vanguard that cleared every checkpoint without stopping.

***

When the heavy oak doors opened, the smell of beeswax, cold marble, and ancient stone rushed over me.

Thornveil. The seat of the Lycan Court.

I could barely put weight on my boots. Two royal guards supported me under my arms, guiding me across the vast expanse of the great hall. High above, vaulted arches disappeared into shadow. Warriors lined the walls in absolute silence, heads bowed low.

At the far end of the hall stood King Alaric.

He was a mountain of a man, broad-shouldered and crowned with silver-streaked hair, wearing the dark formal tunic of the sovereign. But as we drew closer, his rigid posture began to fracture.

Ten feet away, my scent reached him.

Alaric stopped. His chest heaved once, twice, his inner wolf surging so violently against his skin that the air in the hall grew heavy and suffocating. His eyes widened, locking onto my face—the dark hair, the sharp jawline, the undeniable royal blood humming beneath my battered skin.

A choked, ragged sound tore from his chest.

Right there, in the center of the hall, before his Beta, his trackers, and fifty armored guards, the Lycan King broke. Tears spilled over his weathered cheeks, bright and unrestrained. He took two stumbling steps forward, dropped to one knee on the cold stone, and reached for my trembling hands with shaking fingers.

"Twenty years," he whispered, his voice cracking with a father's agony. "Twenty years, my girl. I thought you were dead."

I looked down at him.

I knew he was my father. I could feel the ancestral pull in my blood, the echo of his power humming in Seraphine’s chest. But I felt numb. There was no joy inside me, no sudden rush of warmth. Ten years of scrap-eating in Ironholt, followed by the bloody loss of my child on a flagstone floor, had burned out whatever tears I had left.

"I am here," I said quietly. My voice sounded hollow, scraping against my dry throat.

Alaric wiped his face, though his eyes remained red and fierce. He stood, pulling himself up to his full, terrifying height. The grieving father vanished beneath the steel of a sovereign who had just found his missing piece.

He turned toward the hall, his voice echoing off the high stone arches like a crack of thunder.

"Hear me!" Alaric roared. "Alessia Lawson has returned to her blood. By royal decree, her birthright is restored in full! She is Alessia Lawson, Lycan Princess of Thornveil, and sole heir to the Lawson ancestral territories!"

The warriors dropped to both knees, the clash of armor ringing through the chamber like a battle cry.

Alaric looked back at me, his gaze softening with painful tenderness. "Whatever you need, Alessia. Whatever you want. Name it, and it is yours."

I rubbed the raw, bleeding skin on the side of my neck where Bryson’s mate mark had been torn away. The pain was still sharp, but the anger was cold, clean, and focused.

"Ironholt," I said, my voice cutting through the silent room. "Every healing herb route I set up. Every alliance I brokered under false names. Every border ward I maintained. Cut them all."

Alaric didn't hesitate. "Consider them dead."

"Effective immediately," I added. "Let Bryson Hunt see what his pack looks like without my ghost holding it together."

Without waiting for a dismissal, I turned and walked away toward the royal wing, leaving a faint trail of dried mud behind me, never looking back.