Kael looked at her with helpless affection, brushing the loose dark hair from her forehead.
"Whatever you want. Anything you want. What are you craving?"
The tenderness in his eyes—I had never seen it once in five years of our mating bond.
She whispered something against his ear, her breath warm on his neck. He scooped her up by the waist.
They headed down the passage together.
A sharp pain tore through my abdomen. I clutched my belly, slid down the stone wall, and crumpled to the floor.
I activated the bond-link to reach Kael. Heavy breathing filled the connection.
"Selene, you're awake? Something came up with pack business at the central den. Rest at the healer-den—I'll come for you when you're done."
"Kael, my belly hurts. Can you skip the den and stay with me? Please?"
"Don't be difficult, Selene. It's almost the Midwinter Council gathering. I can't let anything affect my standing with the Elders. Be good."
The she-wolf's voice, low and urgent: "Hurry up, hurry up. My paws are cold. End the link."
The connection went dead.
The pain ebbed.
I pulled myself upright and walked to the healer's receiving chamber.
I requested another audience with Healer Frostvein.
"Selene, you want a termination?"
Healer Elena Frostvein stared at me, disbelief etched across her weathered face.
"Do you understand what you're saying? You're seven moons along. Your womb's condition is fragile—after a termination, you may never carry another pup again."
I met her worried gaze and nodded.
"I've made up my mind. I want the termination. Please schedule the ritual for tomorrow."
She opened her mouth to argue. I pulled up the mark-thread I'd seen that morning and handed her my communication stone.
Her jaw dropped. She stared at the glowing runes, speechless.
"That's impossible. Absolutely impossible. This mark-thread has to be lies. Selene—this is a life. A pup of your blood."
Healer Frostvein was my pack-sister Lyra's den-neighbor. I trusted her completely.
Before I had pleaded with Kael to undergo the bloodline rite alongside me, it never crossed my mind that something could go wrong within the healer-den.
But the moment I caught sight of that she-wolf in the shadowed corridor, her lips grazing against his ear, her body pressed close enough to mingle their scents—
My trust shattered like ice beneath a heavy paw.