The Alpha I Saved Cut Me Open a Hundred Times

For four years, the man I was going to marry had opened me up on the altar ninety-nine times.

Cassian Roarke, Alpha of Blackpine. Six years ago he put half a mate mark on the back of my neck and never finished it.

I healed from anything. As long as my heart was beating, whatever they cut out grew back.

All of it went into Sienna Marsh, our priestess. Five years ago she took silver poisoning, and my flesh was the only thing holding it off. She learned to cut on me too.

The Moon Goddess said there was one offering left.

She spoke inside my head. Someone had stolen the life I was meant to have, and a hundred offerings would buy it back.

In that life, Cassian knows it was me who pulled him out of the mine five years ago. He looks at me the way he used to.

Every offering left me burning with silver sickness for a week. I never once said no.

Tonight was the hundredth.

Vessa, our pack witch, pushed the moonsbane into my arm and shut the stone door behind her.

Moonsbane is the only thing that puts a wolf under. After four years mine barely noticed. It was a full moon, and my blood ran too hot for it to take.

They thought I was already under. Nobody kept their voice down.

"Alpha." Vessa, just outside. "How much longer do we run the voice?"

"Tonight's the last," Cassian said. "After this she won't need it."

"And if she works it out herself?"

"She won't. It's built out of her own memories. The more she picks at it, the more real it sounds."

A pause.

"I know what these four years cost her. But no other wolf in the North can be opened a hundred times. Sienna was green for the first ninety-nine. Tonight she gets it right."

"After this she gets a mating ceremony. Whole pack watching, anything she wants."

Then he added, "It's the heart tonight, not an eye. When she wakes, keep your mouth shut."

Under the sheet, my eyes were open.

There was no Moon Goddess. He had paid Vessa to build me one. Four years of my life had been a road he was laying for Sienna.

I could not feel my own hands.

He didn't know my healing was never mine. There is a second wolf living in my chest.

For four years she closed every cut and never made a sound. That night I felt her pushing at the inside of my ribs.

She understood before I did. Take the heart and she has nowhere left to sit. Once she goes, nothing on me closes again.

I couldn't warn them. Say it out loud and she leaves anyway.

I was going to die on that stone.

I pulled against the cuffs. Silver, wrists and ankles. Silver burns. Every time I moved I left more skin on the metal.

The door opened and Sienna dragged the sheet off me.

"What's all the noise? I haven't picked up the blade."

"Let me up," I said. "I'm not doing it tonight."

The voice came on schedule, same tone as the ninety-nine before.

【The hundredth, child of the moon.】

【Stop tonight and the ninety-nine before it are void. You begin again.】

Any other night that would have ended it. Now I knew who was talking. Vessa, on the other side of that door, saying words she had been paid to say.

Sienna tipped her chin at the door. Two young wolves came in and took the cuffs another notch.

"It isn't up to you. The rite is set for midnight. If we run late I answer to the Elders."

Cassian came in behind them.

"The drug," he said.

Vessa lifted my eyelid. "Her body's known this drug four years, Alpha. And it's a full moon. It won't hold her."

"Then give her more."

"More and her heart stops."

"Cassian," I said. "Don't take my heart."

He stopped.

"You heard us."

It wasn't a question.

He came to the edge of the altar and put the back of his hand against my cheek, the way he used to.

"You're always saying your chest feels tight. That you can't lie flat at night. We take this one out, you grow a clean one. Maybe it stops."

"It will kill me."

The tears came on their own. "You lied to me for four years. I'm not asking you to answer for it. Just let me off this stone tonight."

He didn't say anything. He didn't move his hand either.

"She's good at crying," Sienna said. "Four years, ninety-nine times, and she walked off that altar on her own every time."

She hooked a finger around his and tugged. "Cass. Much longer and Biscuit misses his hour. Fifteen minutes late and he won't eat."

Biscuit was her little white dog.

He took his hand off my face. "His stomach's delicate. Go ahead."

"Wren. Just tonight. I'll make it up to you after."

I was worth less to him than a dog eating on time.

"Sienna, you don't know how to do this. You never rinse the silver in moondew. Do you know how many nights I've spent septic, talking to people who weren't there?"

"Why would I keep track," she said. "You're an offering. You're not pack."

She took the vial out of Vessa's hand and turned it over on the tray. "Fine. No drug."

Vessa stopped moving. "Priestess. Open a chest without moonsbane and the pain alone kills her."

"She won't die. And I want to see what a wolf looks like awake through a heart extraction. I'll need it when I teach."

She turned and softened her voice. "Cass."

He looked at me once and didn't look again. "Do what you want."

The frame came down. Iron across my shoulders and hips, a bar over the bottom of my ribs.

I stopped fighting. Every pull cost me more skin, and I already knew how the night ended.

"Cassian. When I'm dead, put me next to June. There's still room under the juniper."

June was our daughter. She never got born.

The room went still.

"You don't get to say her name." His jaw set and his voice went flat. "You know how we lost her. If you'd behaved yourself that winter she'd be running by now."

"I've never said a word about it in five years. That doesn't mean I forgot."

I stared at him. I couldn't follow.

"Cassian. What are you talking about?"