My Mate Bought My Cure for Her

The small glass vial felt surprisingly heavy in my palm, its weight far exceeding the few milliliters of clear liquid it contained. Through the private clinic's floor-to-ceiling windows, Seattle's skyline blurred into watercolor streaks as rain traced paths down the glass. The city looked as gray and lifeless as I felt inside.

"Mrs. Wynter, please reconsider," Dr. Chen's voice cracked with desperation behind me. "There has to be another way. We could try experimental treatments, reach out to international contacts—"

I turned from the window, meeting his wide, terrified eyes. The elderly doctor's hands trembled as he reached toward me, but I held up my free hand to stop him.

"You just told me the Frostbite Syndrome has reached my heart," I said, my voice unnaturally calm. "You said the wolf toxin will kill me within weeks. And you also confirmed that there are only three vials of Moonlight Essence left in the world."

Dr. Chen's face crumpled. "But your mate, Killian, he purchased one of those vials just yesterday. Surely he—"

"He bought it for my stepsister Mira." The words tasted like ash in my mouth. "Not for his dying mate."

The silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken truths. Dr. Chen had been our family physician for over a decade. He'd delivered my son Aiden, treated Killian's injuries from pack challenges, and watched our seemingly perfect family grow. He knew exactly what kind of man my mate had become.

I uncapped the vial with steady fingers. The liquid inside shimmered with an otherworldly luminescence—beautiful and deadly. Seventy-two hours. That's all this accelerant would give me. But it would also mask the symptoms of my disease, making my final days appear normal to everyone else.

"Scarlett, don't—" Dr. Chen lunged forward, but I'd already tilted the vial to my lips.

The liquid burned like liquid fire down my throat, and for a moment, my vision went white. When it cleared, Dr. Chen was staring at me in horror, his face pale as parchment.

"Why?" he whispered.

I set the empty vial on his desk with a soft clink. "Because no one would believe I'm actually sick anyway. They all think I'm just another attention-seeking Luna, playing victim to manipulate my Alpha."

The words came out matter-of-factly, but each syllable carved a deeper wound in my chest. I pulled out a legal document I'd prepared before the appointment—a comprehensive non-disclosure agreement.

"Sign this," I said, sliding it across his desk. "You cannot tell anyone about my condition. Not Killian, not my parents, not anyone."

Dr. Chen's hands shook as he read the contract. "Scarlett, this is madness. Your family has a right to know—"

"My family stopped caring about my rights six months ago."

The memory hit me like a physical blow, transporting me back to a time when everything made sense. Six months ago, I was Scarlett Wynter, the self-made CEO of Wynter Rose, a luxury fashion house worth over a hundred million dollars. I'd built that empire from nothing—sketching designs in coffee shops while pregnant with Aiden, sewing samples in our tiny apartment while Killian worked double shifts at the pack security firm.

Back then, Killian would come home exhausted but proud, wrapping his arms around me as I worked late into the night. "My brilliant mate," he'd whisper against my neck. "Building an empire one stitch at a time."

We had everything. A penthouse overlooking Elliott Bay, a son who was the light of both our worlds, and a love that felt unbreakable. Killian was the Alpha heir to the Silver Moon Pack, and I was his chosen Luna—not assigned by politics or bloodlines, but selected by genuine love and respect.

Then Mira came home.

My mother's stepdaughter from her first marriage, the child who'd been sent to foster care when she was eight because my mother "wasn't ready to be a stepmother." Twenty-two years old, doe-eyed, and helpless in the most appealing way possible.

"She's been through so much," my mother had pleaded when she announced Mira would be moving into the family estate. "We owe her this chance, Scarlett. You of all people should understand what it's like to need family support."

But I hadn't needed support—I'd earned everything I had. Mira, however, needed everything. She needed clothes, so I shared my wardrobe. She needed job connections, so I introduced her to my network. She needed comfort after her "traumatic" foster care experience, so I opened my home and my heart.

Slowly, insidiously, she began replacing me in my own life.

"Scarlett's always so busy with work," she'd say with a delicate sigh when my parents invited us for dinner. "I wish I could be as driven, but I just value family time more."

"Mira's right," Killian started saying. "You're becoming too focused on business. Aiden needs his mother present, not just financially providing."

When had my ambition become a character flaw? When had my success become evidence of my failures as a mother and mate?

The transformation was gradual but devastating. My parents began praising Mira's "gentle nature" while criticizing my "intensity." Killian started comparing us, always finding me lacking in warmth, in softness, in traditional feminine virtues that apparently mattered more than the empire I'd built for our family.

Even Aiden, my precious six-year-old son, began preferring "Aunt Mira" who had time for tea parties and bedtime stories while Mommy was always "working on important stuff."

Dr. Chen's signature scratching across the paper pulled me back to the present. His eyes were filled with tears as he looked up at me.

"I pray you find peace, Scarlett," he said quietly.

I tucked the signed agreement into my purse and headed for the door. "I already have. It just took dying to find it."

The Seattle cold hit me like a slap as I stepped outside, but strangely, I felt warmer than I had in months. My phone buzzed insistently—seventeen unread messages, all from Mira.

*"Hey! Can you send me the design files for the spring collection? I have some ideas! 💕"*

*"Also, do you have the contact info for that photographer you used last month?"*

*"Scarlett? Are you ignoring me? That's not very sisterly! 😢"*

I scrolled through message after message, each one a small demand disguised as sweet sisterly bonding. The spring collection she wanted represented two years of my creative work. The photographer contact was an exclusive relationship I'd cultivated for five years.

But what did any of that matter now?

I slipped the phone back into my purse without responding and flagged down a taxi. As I settled into the worn leather seat, a strange sense of liberation washed over me. For the first time in months, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

I was going to give everyone exactly what they wanted.

The taxi pulled away from the curb just as my phone buzzed again. This time it was Killian: *"Mira wants to wear that blue dress you designed to tonight's charity gala. Come home and help her alter it to fit."*

I stared at the message, a bitter smile playing at my lips. The blue dress—my masterpiece, designed for my thirtieth birthday party that never happened because Killian had decided we needed to "scale back" our celebrations to be more "considerate" of Mira's feelings about not having fancy parties growing up.

The dress had hung in my closet for months, unworn and forgotten, like so many other pieces of my life.

I typed back: *"Of course. On my way home now."*

As the taxi merged into traffic, I leaned back against the seat and closed my eyes. Seventy-two hours. Three days to be the perfect daughter, the perfect mate, the perfect sister.

Three days to give them everything they'd ever wanted from me.

And then I'd finally be free.