Chapter 3

I was just about to step out of the ritual markings when my body suddenly jerked backward.

Something invisible clamped around my ankle, its icy force dragging me deeper into the darkness.

Our son burst into terrified sobs and stretched both arms toward me, but he couldn’t reach.

“Daddy! Save Mommy!”

Magnus froze.

He started to move—until Willa grabbed his sleeve.

“Magnus, Elowen has Alpha blood. How could she possibly be unable to get out?”

“She’s doing this on purpose. She’s just trying to make you soften toward her.”

Magnus stopped.

His expression suddenly cleared, as if everything had clicked into place.

“Right. I almost fell for it again.”

Then he called out to me, sounding irritated, as though I were nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum.

“Elowen, stop this and come out already. Jasper still hasn’t regained consciousness. We already have enough to deal with. Don’t make things harder.”

Icy air burned its way down my throat.

Pain tore through my lungs with every breath.

I tried to speak, but no sound came out.

The invisible force dragged me back into the blood array.

Spirit fire crawled up my calves, across my abdomen, and over my chest.

As the flames climbed higher, I looked up and saw Magnus pull Willa into his arms.

He murmured softly to her as he wiped away her tears.

Whatever was left of my heart went completely cold.

No matter how much I did for him, no matter how much I sacrificed, Magnus would never spare me even a fraction of the tenderness he gave Willa.

His heart had always belonged to her.

To become his mate, I had defied my Alpha father and given up my right to inherit the Alpha position of our pack.

I willingly stepped behind him, managing pack affairs, taking care of his daily life, and even giving birth to his Alpha heir.

And none of it could compete with a single tear from Willa.

Something inside me finally broke.

I stopped struggling.

I stopped begging.

I let the spirit fire close around me.

I let the forest swallow me whole.

“Mommy!”

My son’s scream tore through the flames and pulled me back from the darkness.

My ears rang.

My chest clenched.

I couldn’t die.

I couldn’t leave him alone with Magnus.

I had to take the gamble.

Holding my breath, I stopped fighting the force pulling me and let it drag me toward the center of the array.

There, at the heart of the blood array, lay a blood-soaked spirit bone.

Without hesitating, I pressed my wrist against it.

My Alpha blood surged beneath my skin.

The next second, blood sprayed across the stone.

The pain was so intense that my entire body nearly went numb.

But the grip around my ankle vanished.

This was the oldest law of the blood array.

If the Moon Goddess chose to keep you, there was only one way to survive.

You had to surrender what was most precious to you.

For anyone who entered the array, nothing was more valuable than bloodline and aura.

If sacrificing my bloodline was the price of staying alive, so be it.

I dragged myself forward, my knuckles scraping raw against the stone.

My palms were slick with cold blood, its metallic scent sharp in the air.

Somehow, I forced myself back to my feet and stumbled out of the forest.

Pain tore through every inch of me.

My vision blurred.

I had lost too much blood.

Then darkness took me.

When I woke again, I was in Magnus’s house.

Only my son was there.

A rough strip of cloth had been tied brutally tight around the wrist where I had sacrificed my blood.

The coarse fibers dug into my skin.

One glance was enough to tell me no Pack Doctor had treated the wound.

My son’s eyes were swollen and red, tears still slipping down his cheeks.

His little voice had gone hoarse.

“I went to get the Pack Doctor, but Daddy got there first. He said Uncle Jasper still hadn’t woken up, so there weren’t any Pack Doctors left to treat Mommy.”

His voice broke halfway through.

Then he started coughing so hard it sounded as though he might cough up blood.

“The Pack Doctor was scared to disobey Daddy, so he secretly gave me a bottle of medicine. He told me to put it on Mommy’s wound and tie the cloth really tight so the bleeding would stop for a while...”