Chapter 1

Three years after losing her daughter, Elara lost another pup. A speeding car had run over her belly. Surgery took a full day and night, her screams tearing through the operating room, the Pack Healer issuing three critical notices. Her Mate Damon Sterling rushed in, snow still melting on the shoulders of his black coat, and pulled her against him like she was something he had almost lost.

She didn't cry. She only asked, "Where is my pup?"

"The pup has gone to the Moon Goddess," Damon said, holding her tighter. "Come out now. I'm here."

"I was nine months along. The pup was already formed." She wouldn't let it go. "Where is the body? I want to see him."

Damon sighed, the way he might sigh at a stubborn child. "Sweetheart. You shouldn't see. It'll scare you."

Something inside her broke. Her eyes went red. "You took him for another blood match, didn't you? You killed him. The way you killed Nora!"

His face darkened. Three years ago, their daughter Nora had disappeared. Elara had reported it to the Pack Enforcers, posted notices, searched every corner of Sterling Pack lands, and found nothing. Damon had held her then too, warm breath on her neck. "It's my fault. Sterling Pack has too many enemies. They took it out on Nora."

"Let's have another daughter. It'll be like Nora coming back to us."

She had cried all night, and finally accepted it. She wanted another pup, something to press against the wound. But every pregnancy ended around the seventh or eighth month. Always an accident. A fall from a balcony. A stranger shoving her in a crowd. A heavy planter dropped from above. Again and again she writhed on the Healer's table. Again and again she watched her pups die in front of her.

She had blamed her own luck. Until the night after her last loss, when she saw Nora crawl up from the Dungeons beneath the manor. The round-cheeked little girl was bones now. Her arms were covered in wounds. Her face was terrifyingly white. A long smear of blood marked the path she had dragged herself along.

"Daddy keeps taking my blood. He says only mine can save Aunt Serena's pup."

"But Mommy, it hurts. It hurts so much." The child who no longer looked like a child pulled herself to Elara's feet and clutched at the hem of her dress. Her eyes were huge in her thin face. "Daddy says—you have to have more pups—so their hearts can save Aunt Serena's son. Mommy—run. Run."

She coughed up blood and her head fell sideways. She stopped breathing.

Elara picked her up, shaking, trying to run. Damon stopped her at the door. He crushed a cigarette out under his thumb. His eyes rested on her. His voice was the voice you use on a child. "Elara. Come here."

"No! I'm taking Nora to the Healer! Can't you see she's dying?"

"You're sick," Damon said. "There is no Nora here."

"She's in my arms. Look at her!"

He looked vaguely tired. He spoke to the Pack guards. "The Luna is hallucinating again. Take her to the Asylum."

"No. She still has a chance—"

The child in her arms stopped breathing entirely. Elara went still. She looked down at Nora's bloodless face, and she fainted.

When she woke, she went to the Alpha Council. She accused Damon of torturing their daughter. They told her Nora had died three years ago in the moat river, and the body had only recently been recovered. Damon said the shock had broken her mind. He sent her to the Pack Asylum.

She spent a month there that wasn't fit for any living thing. Shock. Beatings. Bloodletting treatments. After a month, they let her out. Because she was pregnant again.

Damon kissed her eyelids, full of tenderness. "Elara, don't fight anymore. Let's raise this one properly."

She didn't know what was real anymore. Maybe she really had gone mad. So she went quiet. She ate, she rested, she imagined another daughter, a girl as sweet as Nora.

Until the car came straight at her on the highway, without slowing. Before everything went black, she saw the driver's face. Julian Ashford. Her brother, the one who had carried her on his shoulders all through her pup years. Damon's best friend. And Serena Voss's most loyal admirer.

She thought of Serena's pup, who looked exactly like Damon as a pup. She thought of Julian and Damon with their heads bent together in quiet corners. She wasn't insane. Her own brother and her Mate had worked together to kill Nora. To kill every pup she had ever carried.

She lunged at Damon. She would have torn a piece of flesh out of him if she could. His face didn't change. "Elara. Don't get lost in your fantasies again. Or do you need another stay at the Asylum?"

Everything in her stopped. She backed out of his arms, shaking. Her voice came out wrecked. "No.