Chapter 4

I swallowed the pain and forced a smile as I pulled my son into my arms.

“Buddy, you did so well. You saved Mommy’s life.”

Only then did he nod. A tiny smile broke through his tears, though his lashes were still trembling.

After I finally coaxed him to sleep, Carys hurried back late that night.

The moment she saw the crude bandage digging into my wrist, her eyes turned red.

“Luna, I’m going to find a Pack Doctor.”

I caught her hand.

“Are the elders back?”

Carys shook her head.

“They went to check on the displaced pack members. They won’t be back until morning. Please, Luna. Let me get your wound treated first. Everything else can wait.”

I nodded, but I couldn’t settle down.

I was tired of waiting.

Eva sensed my agitation and spoke softly inside my mind.

“Let’s sever the Bond with him. I’ll protect our pup.”

I thought we might at least have one quiet night.

I was wrong.

In the middle of the night, the door swung open.

Magnus strode in with Willa.

“Elowen, I need you to go into the forest one more time...”

His voice was low, but the Alpha aura behind it left no room for refusal.

After Jasper woke, he had been delirious, muttering over and over that the spirits in the forest were coming to drag him away.

Magnus panicked and summoned an elder.

After examining Jasper, the elder turned to Magnus.

“If you want to save him, someone will have to enter the Moonlit Forest again. Only by offering something extremely precious to you can Jasper’s wolf spirit be brought back.”

Every eye in the room turned toward me.

Even Magnus, who usually acted as though I didn’t exist, finally looked at me.

For a moment, my mind went strangely blank.

I couldn’t even remember what the man I had once loved was supposed to look like.

Carys shot to her feet.

“Alpha, Luna already sacrificed her bloodline to save Jasper once! You want her to go back in there? That forest will kill her!”

Magnus’s gaze dropped to my wrist.

For the first time, he looked genuinely stunned.

“You really sacrificed your bloodline?” His voice wavered. “I thought our son was exaggerating because he wanted to trick me into coming to see you...”

I looked up at him and slowly smiled.

So that was it.

He hadn’t even believed his own pup.

Not when our son’s hands were still shaking.

Not when my blood was still seeping through the bandage.

The instant Willa saw the guilt on Magnus’s face, she cut in.

“I’ve read some of the old records. Luna clearly cut her own wrist. I never imagined she’d go so far as to sacrifice her bloodline power just to keep Magnus’s attention.”

A single tear clung to her lashes, making her look all the more pitiful.

Magnus leaned closer to examine my wrist.

The guilt in his eyes lasted barely a second before anger swallowed it whole.

He seized me by the throat.

“Elowen, is there anything you won’t do to get what you want?”

“I put up with all your little schemes before because I thought you’d eventually stop. But you’ve only gotten worse!”

My breath caught in my throat.

My chest tightened painfully.

I already knew who held his heart.

Still, hearing those words from him twisted something deep inside me.

Whatever guilt he had felt vanished completely.

He reached down and hauled our sleeping son up, his voice turning ice-cold.

“So you sacrificed your bloodline once. That doesn’t mean you’re going to die. You’re not some ordinary wolf. You have Alpha blood.”

“Go. Now. Or you’ll never see our son again.”

Then he threw his Alpha covenant stone at my feet.

It struck the floor and rolled to a stop beside me.

“The elder said this is the most precious thing I own. Take it to the center of the blood array and exchange it for Jasper’s wolf spirit.”