Chapter1
The heart monitor beside my bed was slowing down. So was I.
Oliver stood over me, tall and broad-shouldered, a grown man now. I had rocked him through every nightmare.
I’d held his hand on his first day of pack school and cried at his first shift. Every meal, every scraped knee, every sleepless night for thirty years had been his.
He reached for my oxygen tube.
“Oliver.” My voice was barely a breath. “Sweetheart, please.”
He didn’t even blink. He tore it out.
Air vanished. My chest locked. I clawed at the sheets, and he watched me struggle the way someone watches rain.
“Without you, I could’ve been with Mom and Dad years ago!” His face twisted with a hatred I had never seen. “You ruined everything, you old hag!”
Mom and Dad.
Vanessa stepped out from behind him, smiling like she had waited her whole life for this.
“Poor Mara.” She leaned down until her perfume choked what little air I had left. “He was never yours. Nathan and I switched the babies the day they were born. You raised my son.”
No. No, no, no.
“And your real son?” Her smile widened. “He never got to see his wolf wake. We made sure of that.”
Something inside me shattered. Not my lungs. Something deeper.
I had a son. A son I never held, never named, never got to save. He had died alone while I sang lullabies to the boy who was killing me.
“Don’t worry about Nathan,” she whispered. “He’s waiting downstairs. He always chose me.”
The mate bond ripped apart in my chest, and the pain was worse than dying.
Tears burned down my face. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move. All I could do was make a promise with the last beat of my heart.
Moon Goddess, give me one more chance, and I will make them pay for every second of this.
Then the world went dark.
The harsh lights of the pack hospital burned my eyes when I woke. The smell of antiseptic flooded my sensitive nose, followed by a sharp ache behind my temples.
"Mara, see? He has your nose."
Nathan, my mate, sat at my bedside, grinning down at the bassinet. I stared at him. Then I remembered everything.
The Moon Goddess had given me a second chance. I was back on the day my son was born.
I turned toward the bassinet. The pup in it waved his little arms and cried until his face went red. On his right pinkie toe was a red birthmark. I knew that mark. This wasn't my pup. This was Oliver, the boy who had turned on me in my last life. Nathan and Vanessa had already stolen my son and left their own pup in his place.
I'd believed Oliver was mine and spent my whole life raising him. When I grew too sick to leave my bed, he pulled out my oxygen tube with his own hands. Only as I lay dying did I learn what Nathan and Vanessa had done. They'd planned to pass off her pup as my Alpha heir, hand him my son's place in my father's pack, and get rid of my real son before his wolf could awaken.
Stealing my son wasn't enough for them. They wanted my father's pack to go to their pup one day.
I looked at Nathan, and the Alpha in me wanted to rip out his throat. A pup cried in the next room, and the smile dropped from his face. He turned toward the wall at once. Vanessa, the she-wolf he'd never stopped wanting, was staying there. I knew exactly whose cry that was. It was my son's. He was alive. I still had time to protect him.
Vanessa and I had both had uncomplicated deliveries, so the nurses stopped checking on us after midnight. A little after three, once Nathan had fallen asleep in the chair, I eased myself out of bed. I picked up the baby and slipped into the next room. Minutes later, I carried my own son back.
As soon as I held him, my wolf finally quieted. My boy was home.
I looked down at him for a long time. Earlier, the birthmark had confirmed which baby was in my room. Holding my own child now, I no longer had to guess. Nathan slept close by, unaware that their plan had already failed.
It wasn't long before Vanessa's shouting came through the wall.
"Will you quit crying?"
"All you do is scream! I can't stand it!"
I stroked my son's cheek. He was tucked against me, quiet and warm. This time, I would keep him safe, whatever it took. Vanessa liked hurting children so much? Now she could raise her own. I wanted to see her face when she found out the pure-blood heir she thought she'd taken was an ordinary pup.
