My Mate Ordered Me to Poison Our Unborn Pup

Two days after the banquet, the pack house had already forgotten I existed.

Giuliana moved through the halls like she had been born to them. She oriented herself toward every pocket of influence with the smooth, unconscious ease of a plant leaning toward the sun. When the pack elders spoke, she was sitting near them, nodding with wide, attentive eyes. When the lead warriors entered from patrol, she offered sweet, sympathetic smiles and cups of hot tea.

She wasn't loud about taking over. She was just seamless.

I was walking down the hallway outside the healer's quarters, carrying a small vial of dried mint, when I ran into her.

Giuliana stopped. Her dark hair was loose over her shoulders, framing a face that looked delicate, almost frail. She didn't look at me with hate. There was no spite in her hazel eyes, no smug sneer. Instead, she looked at me with the mild, casual gaze of someone noticing a piece of old furniture that was about to be hauled to the curb.

To her, I wasn't even a threat. I was just an obstacle that had already solved itself.

"Everly," she said, her voice soft and breathless, like she was always slightly short of air. "Dillon mentioned the guest suites need fresh bedding for the council visit next week. Do you know where the ceremonial linens are kept?"

My jaw tightened. For three years, I had washed, pressed, and stored those linens with cedar leaves to keep the moths away.

"The third oak cupboard behind the main laundry," I said. My voice was completely flat.

"Thank you," she murmured with a little dip of her head.

She brushed past me without waiting for another word, her cloying lily scent trailing in the air like sticky syrup. The sheer casualness of it cut deeper than any insult Dillon had ever thrown at me. She didn't care who I was. She didn't care what I had built here.

Deep inside my ribs, my wolf snarled.

It wasn't a whimper of pain. It was a single, vicious sound. Sharp. Sudden. Final.

It was the sound of a wolf deciding she was done.

***

Later that afternoon, I returned from a quiet follow-up visit with Maren at the clinic. The white moss extract was working; the sharp cramps in my belly had faded to a dull, manageable ache.

I pushed open the door to my cold room in the lower wing.

My eyes went straight to the small corner table I had set up as a nursery shelf. It was the only spot in the room that caught a patch of afternoon sunlight. For three years, I had kept my mother’s moonstone pendant there, resting in a shallow wooden dish.

The dish was empty.

My breath hitched. I crossed the room in two strides, my hands frantically sweeping across the bare wood.

Nothing.

"No," I whispered.

I tore through the room. I ripped the thin mattress back, threw open the nightstand drawers, and checked under the duffel bags. My hands were shaking, my movements becoming faster, wilder, the calm healer facade fracturing into sheer terror.

That pendant was the only thing I had left of my mother. It carried an ancient protective blessing, a cool, humming lunar ward meant to shelter my unborn pup's fragile aura.

I burst into the corridor, scanning the dusty floorboards. I checked the common washroom, the lower landing, the stairs. But as I reached the second floor, the frantic fog in my mind suddenly cleared, replaced by a cold, dreadful certainty.

I knew where it was.

I walked up the carpeted stairs to the Alpha wing. The heavy double doors to Dillon’s master bedroom were cracked open an inch.

I pushed the door wider.

Giuliana was sitting on the velvet stool in front of the ornate vanity mirror. Her throat was tilted back, her lips parted in a soft, pleased smile.

Dillon stood behind her. His broad, calloused hands were resting on her bare shoulders, his fingers working the delicate silver clasp of a necklace.

The milky-white stone rested right in the hollow of her throat. It caught the amber light of the setting sun, flashing with a soft, pale blue glow.

My mother’s moonstone. Hanging against a stranger's skin.

Dillon caught my reflection in the mirror. He didn't flinch. He didn't drop his hands. He finished fastening the clasp, then smoothed Giuliana's hair back with casual tenderness.

"You should knock, Everly," Dillon said. His voice was completely dismissive, like a master addressing an intrusive maid.

"That's my mother's," I said. My voice didn't sound like mine. It was hollow, scraped raw.

Dillon turned slightly, looking at me with cold indifference. "Giuliana saw it when we were packing up your things from the old room. She admired the glow. I thought it suited her better than sitting in the dark of the lower wing."

"It's my mother's blessing," I whispered, my eyes locked on the stone pulsing against Giuliana's pulse point. "It protects the pup."

Giuliana reached up, her small fingers curling possessively around the stone. She looked at Dillon with wide, worried eyes. "Oh... Dillon, if it's important, I can take it off. I didn't know—"

"Keep it," Dillon interrupted, his tone hard and final. He gave me a sharp, warning glare. "You're being dramatic, Everly. The pup doesn't need trinkets. It needs you to keep quiet and stay out of the way. Now go back to your room."

I stared at him. Then I looked at the moonstone.

Inside me, something broke. But there was no explosion. There was no fire.

My wolf didn't snarl this time. She didn't whimper. She didn't pace.

She simply went silent.

It was a terrifying, suffocating quiet. The warm, humming presence that had lived behind my ribs since I was fifteen years old vanished into thin air. The invisible cord between my soul and my wolf severed completely, leaving behind an empty, freezing chasm.

For the first time in my entire life, I was completely alone in my own skin.

I didn't scream. I didn't beg. I didn't shed a single tear.

I turned around and walked out.

I walked down the grand staircase, past the portraits of Ironvale Alphas, and stepped into the quiet great hall. The afternoon sun was bleeding away, casting long, dark shadows across the hearth.

I reached up to my collarbone.

My fingers found the leather cord tied around my neck. Attached to it was Dillon’s courtship fang—a sharp, polished wolf tooth he had carved and handed to me three years ago when he told me I was his destiny.

I slipped the loop over my head.

I walked over to the massive stone mantle above the cold fireplace. With steady, unhurried fingers, I laid the fang down on the grey slate.

It hit the stone with a small, sharp *click*.

In the dead silence of the hall, the sound was as loud as a gunshot.

I stood there, my fingers resting on the rough edge of the mantle for three slow seconds. One. Two. Three.

I pulled my hand back. I didn't go back to the lower wing. I didn't grab my bags. I didn't need the clothes Dillon had bought, or the sheets, or the memories. The gold bars were already inside the heavy coat on my back. The white moss was in my pocket.

I turned my back on the mantle, walked to the heavy oak front doors of the pack house, and pushed them open into the biting winter air.