My Mate Drugged Me Into a Fake Bond

I woke to the smell of antiseptic and the low hum of medical equipment. My body felt distant, like it belonged to someone else. The ceiling tiles above me were white and cold. I tried to move, and pain shot through my abdomen—sharp, deep, wrong.

"Don't." A hand pressed gently on my shoulder. I turned my head. The pack's healer, a middle-aged woman named Dr. Morris, stood beside the bed. Her face was carefully blank. "You need to stay still."

"What happened?" My voice came out rough, barely a whisper.

She hesitated. That hesitation told me everything before she opened her mouth. "You fell down the main staircase in the pack house. You've been unconscious for six hours. We had to... Diana, I'm so sorry. The pup didn't survive."

The words landed like stones. The pup. My pup. The secret I'd been carrying for three weeks, the joy I'd been waiting to share with Cooper at the perfect moment. Gone.

I couldn't breathe. The grief rose up fast and vicious, filling my chest until I thought my ribs would crack. I turned my face away from Dr. Morris and pressed my hand over my mouth to hold the sound in.

"I'll give you a moment," she said quietly, and left.

I lay there and tried to understand. I'd been walking down the stairs. I remembered that much. My foot had slipped. But I'd walked those stairs a thousand times. I knew every step. And then my wolf stirred inside me, sluggish and pained, and pushed a memory forward: the scent. Sharp. Chemical. Deliberate.

Wolfsbane.

Not the faint trace you'd get from a cleaning product. This was concentrated. Oily. Purposeful.

Someone had put it there.

The door opened. Cooper walked in, his face pale and his eyes red-rimmed. He looked shaken in a way I'd never seen before. "Diana." He crossed the room fast and reached for my hand. I pulled it away.

"Don't," I said.

He flinched. "I'm so sorry. God, I'm so sorry. I should have been there. I should have—"

"You didn't know." My voice was flat. I couldn't look at him. If I looked at him, I would break.

"I know, but—" He stopped. His hand hovered in the air between us, uncertain. "Diana, please. Let me—"

The door opened again. Milena Turner swept in, immaculate as always in a cream silk blouse and tailored slacks. Her expression was composed, sympathetic in the way people are sympathetic at funerals for distant acquaintances.

"Diana." She inclined her head. "What a terrible accident. Though I must say, you should have been more careful. The stairs can be treacherous, especially for someone in your condition."

I stared at her. My condition. As if I'd been careless. As if I'd done this to myself.

"A she-wolf of superior bloodline," Milena continued, her tone light and conversational, "would have carried the pup to term regardless. It's a matter of constitution, really. Some lines are simply... stronger."

Something inside me snapped.

I reached for the heavy ceremonial pack trophy on the bedside table—a bronze wolf mid-leap, mounted on a marble base. My father had given it to Cooper three years ago after a successful territorial negotiation. My hands closed around it. I hurled it at Cooper with everything I had left.

He moved. Fast. He stepped between me and his mother, and the trophy smashed into the wall behind him. Glass from the display case shattered. A shard sliced his forearm open. Blood welled up immediately, bright red against his skin.

He didn't call for the warriors. He didn't move. He just stood there, bleeding, his body a shield between me and Milena.

"Diana." His voice cracked. "Please. Don't leave. Don't leave the territory. I'm begging you."

I looked at him. At the blood running down his arm. At the desperation in his eyes. And for one terrible, treacherous moment, I felt something soften.

Maybe he did care. Maybe this was real.

Then Milena made a small, disgusted sound and turned on her heel. "I'll send someone to clean this up," she said, and left.

Cooper stayed. He pressed his hand over the wound and didn't look away from me. "I'll fix this," he said. "I swear to you, I'll fix this."

I said nothing. I turned my face to the wall and closed my eyes.

***

Three days later, I was back in the pack house. The healer had cleared me to leave the medical wing, though she'd told me to rest. I couldn't rest. Resting meant thinking, and thinking meant drowning.

I made tea instead. Loose-leaf, in the ceramic pot my father gave me. I watched the water turn amber and tried to feel normal.

It didn't work.

I made soup. Chicken, vegetables, the kind of thing you bring to people who are sick. Cooper was still in the medical wing—the cut on his arm had gotten infected, probably because he'd refused treatment for two days. I told myself I was just being decent. Just being the person I'd always been.

I carried the container down the hall, past the pack's administrative offices, toward the medical wing. The building was quiet. Most of the pack was out on afternoon patrols.

I was almost at the door when I heard it.

A baby crying.