"I can't afford to worry about that. From the very beginning, the one I loved was Hazel Ashford. The only reason I mated Hazel Ashvale was to keep her from ruining Ashford's happiness. I already gave her up once. This time fate handed me a second chance, and I won't let go."
In that moment, I plunged into ice.
So this was the shape of it. From the first breath to the last, every wolf who mattered had loved Hazel Ashford. And Sylvia Nightfang's devotion to her ran deeper even than Sylvia Vale's. Years ago he had mated me only to clear the path for her. Now, to stay beside her, he had let the world believe he was dead, stolen his own brother's scent-name, and worn another wolf's life like a second skin.
I couldn't stand. I couldn't breathe. I stumbled out into the rain and the sound that tore from my throat was not entirely human. My wolf had come alive again only to howl, and the rain swallowed the noise but could not wash away the taste of it.
I cried until something inside my chest felt physically torn. I cried until my voice broke and kept crying after that. The rain drove through my clothes and plastered my hair flat against my skull, and I did not move, and I did not care.
When dawn came I was soaked through, shaking, ruined. I walked into the Pack Infirmary on legs that barely held me.
"Healer. I need the procedure."
"Miss Ashvale, are you certain?"
Her careful tone cut through me like a blade. If I had not been driven to the very edge of despair, what mother would willingly let go of her own pup? Since the news of "Sylvia Nightfang's" death, the entire Nightfang bloodline had been swallowed by grief. No one had been watching me closely enough to notice my body's changes, and I had told no one about the life growing inside me.
He didn't know. While he walked the halls of the Keep wearing Sylvia Vale's scent-name, standing guard over Hazel Ashford's happiness, his pup had already taken root beneath my heart.
But if he was determined to chase the one he truly loved, then this child did not need to know his name either.
"I'm certain. Please proceed."