Chapter 3

Lirael POV

The piercing cold seeped into my bones from the snow, and my vision began to turn gray.

“Save me…” I begged in my heart. “Umbra, let me shift.”

“Are you insane?” Umbra’s voice trembled violently. “Lycanthrope Thistle is already in your blood. If you force a shift, the poison will burn you until living is worse than death!”

“I don’t care.” I clenched my teeth. Snow water and the taste of blood mixed in my mouth. “Aurora is still waiting for me.”

I suddenly released all my strength and forced myself to transform.

“Crack—”

The sound of bones breaking and reforming exploded through the dead-silent snowy night. I lifted my head and let out a shrill wolf howl. The next second, a nearly nine-foot-long gray-silver giant wolf appeared on the mountain road.

Umbra screamed inside my consciousness. The pain of the toxin burning my wolf soul made my limbs convulse violently. I bit down hard with my fangs, kicked off with my hind legs, and ran toward the city dozens of miles away.

Wind and snow scraped across my wounds. Every gust felt like a knife cutting open my flesh again. A trail of blood-red wolf paw prints was left in the snow.

Faster… faster…

My consciousness had already begun to sink. Only the instinct of a mother wolf remained, dragging this broken body forward.

Wolf Clan Medical Center.

When I rushed into the lobby, I could no longer control my body. The bloodstained giant wolf crashed heavily to the floor, slid several feet, and knocked over a row of metal waiting chairs.

Screams exploded all around.

I convulsed twice on the ground and could no longer maintain my wolf form. Amid the agonizing pain of bones twisting and grinding, I was forced back into human form.

Hurried footsteps came from behind the crowd.

Silas Smith pushed through the onlookers. When he saw me in the pool of blood, his breath seemed to stop.

He was Silas, and also the person I had always called Silo.

“Lira!”

His eyes reddened instantly. He knelt beside me and reached out as if to hold me, but froze in midair, as if he did not know where he could touch me.

I could smell the dry, rotten scent of Lycanthrope Thistle on myself. The wounds torn open by those tiny barbs were black and curled, and even the shallowest cut looked horrifying.

With trembling hands, Silo opened the first-aid kit, pulled out a silver-tube injection, and pushed the entire dose of high-concentration antidote into my body.

The medicine worked quickly.

After the wolf poison was suppressed, my sluggish self-healing finally recovered. A wisp of gray-silver light seeped out from my chest, and my wounds scabbed over at a visible speed.

I blinked through my blurred vision and finally saw him clearly.

Silo. The friend who had once crawled back from the edge of life and death with me.

I struggled to sit up.

“Don’t move!” He held me down, his voice tight. “You’re badly hurt.”

I gripped his sleeve tightly. My throat was so dry and hoarse I could barely make a sound. “Take me… to see Aurora.”

Silo looked at me, his chest heaving violently. “Are you crazy? You can’t even stand right now!”

“The doctor said her Lycanthropic Decay relapsed.” I grabbed his wrist and used the last bit of my strength. “Take me to see her.”

He met my gaze, and all his attempts to stop me were swallowed back.

“Okay,” he said softly, bending down to pick me up. “I’ll take you.”

Outside the ICU, I saw Aurora lying on the hospital bed through the glass.

She was so small, covered in tubes. Her nostrils were stuffed with hemostatic cotton, but blood was still seeping out bit by bit, a glaring red.

“Don’t be scared. Her fever has gone down, and the nosebleed has stopped,” Silo comforted me in a low voice. “She’s fine for now. But we still need to get Kael’s source blood as soon as possible.”

Kael’s source blood.

I wanted it more than anyone, but…

I gave a bitter smile, wiped the blood from my face with my sleeve, and pushed the door open.

As if sensing me, Aurora struggled to open her eyes. “Mommy…”

“Mommy’s here. Mommy is right here.” I pressed my face against the bed rail and forced out a smile.

She weakly moved her eyes and looked toward the empty doorway behind me. After staring for a long while, tears slowly filled those big amber eyes.

“Mommy… where’s Daddy?”

“Daddy is too busy.” I tried to make my tone light. “Aurora knows Daddy is the Alpha of the clan. When he finishes his work, he’ll definitely come save you.”

Her lips trembled, and tears rolled down all at once.

“Mommy is lying. The other little werewolves all say… I’m a bastard…”

My heart felt as if it had been torn open. Ignoring my wounds, I gently held her in my arms.

“They’re talking nonsense! Aurora is not a bastard. You are Mommy and Daddy’s most precious baby. One day, Daddy will come personally to pick you up and drive away everyone who bullied you…”

Perhaps my embrace made her feel safe. She cried and cried, and finally fell asleep.

Silo pushed the door open, grabbed my wrist without another word, and carried me to the emergency room.

In the emergency room, his eyes were filled with suppressed anger. “Take off your clothes.”

I stood numbly. “Silo, I’m fine. I want to go back and stay with Aurora.”

“Look at yourself!” He cursed for once and directly cut open the bloodstained, ruined coat on my body.

The moment the fabric fell, I saw his eyes turn red again.

Even though the wounds had already scabbed, twenty whip marks still crisscrossed my back. Bite marks and bruises covered my whole body. My lower body was even more wretched, dried fluid and blood scabs still carrying the brutal aura of an Alpha.

Silo gritted his teeth. “Kael is a blind, mad wolf.”

I did not answer. I simply lay quietly on the treatment bed and let him clean and bandage my wounds.

But just as he finished, a girl’s painful cry suddenly came from the hallway.

My whole body stiffened. I pushed Silo away and rushed out. “Aurora!”

The hallway was in chaos. The ICU door was wide open, and the room inside was empty.

“Where is Aurora? Where is my child?” I grabbed a nurse by the shoulder, my vision turning blood-red.

The nurse stammered in fear. “J-just now… Sera came in with two people from the Luthor Wolf Clan. They blocked us outside the door… She carried Aurora away directly. She went to the terrace.”

Sera.

My half-sister.

Cold instantly flooded my limbs. I staggered toward the terrace.

At the edge of the third-floor terrace, Sera stood in the wind and snow. She wore a custom pure-white cashmere coat, her curls lifted by the wind, delicate as a nightmare.

And in her arms, she held Aurora, who was wearing only a thin hospital gown.

“Mommy…” Aurora was being held so tightly by her that she could barely breathe, only able to let out a weak whimper.

“Sera!” My legs were so weak I did not dare take another step forward. “What are you doing? Give Aurora back to me!”

Sera looked at my miserable state and smiled.

“Are you here to fight me for the child?”

As she laughed, she pushed Aurora over the railing. Half of the child’s body was already hanging in the air. If she let go, below was a concrete floor dozens of feet down.

“No! Please don’t!” My knees gave out, and I knelt on the ground, desperately kowtowing. “Sera, if you hate me, kill me. Aurora is innocent!”

“This is Kai’s and my child.” Sera stroked Aurora’s face, her expression crazed. “Lira, you bitch, don’t even think about stopping our family reunion.”

“You’re not crazy at all!” I roared hoarsely. “That video was forged by you, and you tampered with the paternity test too! Sera, if you want Kael, I’ll give him to you! I’ll take Aurora and leave this city. Please give my child back to me!”

A trace of satisfaction flashed in Sera’s eyes.

She bent slightly and leaned close to my ear in the wind and snow, saying in a voice only I could hear, “Lira, I want you to live a life worse than death.”

As soon as she finished speaking, she slowly let go.

“No—!”

My scream tore through the wind and snow.

Aurora lost support and fell straight from the terrace.

“Mommy!”

Her weak cry was instantly swallowed by the wind and snow.

I released the last of my wolf power and lunged toward the railing at an almost insane speed.

My fingertips brushed the corner of her hospital gown.

But I caught nothing.