Calix POV
She collapses into my arms like a dying star—burning hot and fragile all at once.
Mate.
The word thunders through my crippled wolf for the first time in seven years. Since the wolfsbane torture destroyed my ability to shift fully, I thought I'd never feel the mate bond again.
But this girl—this broken, half-shifted, pregnant girl—just ignited something I thought was dead.
"Back away," I command the rogues without looking at them. They scramble to obey, disappearing into the darkness.
The girl in my arms whimpers. Her shift is stuck halfway, tearing her apart from the inside. Silver-white fur patches her skin. Claws extend from human fingers. Her face is caught between woman and wolf—beautiful and monstrous at once.
She's dying.
I know what this is. I've seen it once before, years ago. A forced shift triggered by wolfsbane antidote after years of poisoning. The body tries to shift but doesn't remember how. Gets stuck. Tears itself apart.
She has minutes. Maybe less.
"Stay with me," I order, adjusting her weight in my arms. She's lighter than she should be. Malnourished. Starved.
Her eyes flutter open—storm grey shot through with violet. Those eyes focus on me, or try to. The mask makes it hard for her to see me clearly.
"Let me... die," she whispers. "Rather die... than be sold..."
Sold? What has she been through?
"No one's selling you." I start climbing out of the ravine, her body cradled against my chest. "You're under my protection now."
"Don't... want... protection..." Each word costs her. "Want... peace..."
Something in my chest cracks. This girl has been hurt so badly she'd rather die than accept help.
I know that feeling. Lived it for years after my exile.
"Too bad," I tell her. "I don't accept rejection well."
I mean it as dark humor, but she flinches like I've struck her. The word 'rejection' hits her like a physical blow.
Interesting. And heartbreaking.
We reach the top of the ravine. My territory begins a quarter mile east. If I can get her to Vesper, my healer, there's a chance. A small one.
The girl's body convulses. Bones crack and reform wrong. She screams—the sound half-human, half-wolf howl.
"Stop fighting it," I command, using Alpha tone. Sometimes a dominant voice can guide a stuck shift. "Let the shift complete or reverse. Don't stay trapped in between."
"Can't!" Tears stream down her half-shifted face. "Don't know... how..."
Because she's never shifted before. Her wolf was suppressed her entire life. She has no muscle memory, no instinct to guide her.
I make a split-second decision.
"Then follow my lead." I let my own partial shift emerge—the only shift I can manage anymore. My bones crack. Pain flares through my damaged wolf. But I push through it, letting fangs extend, claws emerge, my body settling into the half-form I've learned to live with.
The girl's eyes lock onto mine. Her breathing slows slightly.
"Watch," I tell her. "Feel what I'm doing. Mirror it."
I guide the shift backward, forcing my body back toward human. It's agonizing with my damaged wolf, but I've had seven years of practice.
The girl's eyes stay fixed on me. Her breathing matches mine. Slowly—painfully slowly—her body begins to follow.
Fur recedes. Bones slide back into human configuration. Claws retract.
Within minutes, she's fully human again. Unconscious, but human. And alive.
I gather her closer, relief flooding through me. The mate bond purrs with satisfaction.
Then I smell it.
Blood. Fresh. Coming from between her legs.
No.
I run. Faster than I've moved in years. Trees blur past. My damaged wolf screams in protest but I don't care.
The fortress appears ahead—carved into cliff face, hidden from outsiders. Guards snap to attention when they see me.
"Vesper!" I roar. "Now!"
My healer appears within seconds, her copper hair wild. She takes one look at the girl in my arms and her eyes widen.
"Bleeding?" she asks sharply.
"Yes."
"How far along?"
"I don't know. Three months maybe?"
Vesper's jaw tightens. "Bring her. Quickly."
We rush to the healing ward. I lay the girl on a bed. She's so pale. Too pale. The blood is soaking through her jeans now.
"Out," Vesper commands.
"She's my—"
"I don't care what she is. Out. Now."
I force myself to leave. To pace the hallway outside while Vesper works. My wolf claws at my insides, demanding we go back. Protect our mate. Make sure she lives.
An hour passes. The longest hour of my life.
Finally, Vesper emerges. Her expression is grim.
"The pup?" I ask, though I already know.
"Gone. The forced shift was too much trauma." Vesper wipes blood from her hands. "But the girl will live. Barely."
Something twists in my gut. I didn't even know this girl an hour ago, but the thought of her losing a pup—
"There's more," Vesper continues quietly. "I ran preliminary tests while treating her. Calix, she has wolfsbane in her system. Years worth of buildup."
My hands clench. "Someone poisoned her."
"Deliberately suppressed her wolf from emerging. Probably since childhood." Vesper's eyes harden. "And there's something else. Her bloodline markers—I need to run more tests, but I think she's—"
The door to the healing ward crashes open.
The girl stumbles out, wild-eyed and frantic. Her hand clutches her stomach. Her face is streaked with tears.
"My baby," she gasps. "Where's my baby?"
Vesper moves toward her. "I'm sorry. The trauma was too much—"
"No!" The girl's scream shatters something in my chest. "No, no, no! Not my baby! Please, not my baby!"
She collapses. I catch her before she hits the floor.
"He didn't want you," she sobs into my chest, not even realizing who's holding her. "But I did. I wanted you so much. Please come back. Please..."
My arms tighten around her while she breaks apart.
This stranger. This mate I just met.
Crying for a pup fathered by someone else. A pup she lost because of me—because I forced her shift to save her life.
"I'm sorry," I whisper into her hair. Meaningless words that can't fix anything.
She pulls back suddenly, her storm-grey eyes meeting mine. Seeing me—really seeing me—for the first time.
"You," she breathes. "The mate bond... you felt it too."
"Yes."
Her hand comes up. For a moment, I think she'll touch my mask. Instead, she slaps me across the face hard enough to make my jaw crack.
"I reject you," she says, voice hollow and dead. "I reject this bond. I reject everything."
The mate bond shreds between us like torn fabric.
Pain explodes through my chest—worse than the wolfsbane torture, worse than exile, worse than anything I've ever felt.
She just rejected me.
My second-chance mate just rejected me after knowing me for two hours.
The girl's eyes roll back. She faints.
I catch her again, cradling her unconscious body while the rejection burns through my veins like acid.
Vesper stares at me in horror. "Calix—"
"Save her," I grit out through the pain. "I don't care what it costs. Save her."
"But she rejected—"
"I said save her!"
Vesper takes the girl from my arms carefully. Carries her back into the healing ward.
I stand alone in the hallway, hand pressed over my heart where the mate bond used to be.
A voice speaks from the shadows. Kieran, my Beta, emerges looking grim.
"That's her," he says quietly. "The girl from the intel reports. Sable Thorne."
The name punches through me.
Thorne.
"Corvin Hale's exiled mate," Kieran continues. "The one he publicly rejected and framed for theft."
Corvin. My former Beta. The wolf who betrayed me seven years ago and sent me into exile.
His discarded mate just became mine.
And she just rejected me.
The irony would be funny if it didn't hurt so much.
"There's more," Kieran says. "I've been investigating her bloodline like you asked. Calix, she's not just any wolf. The Thorne family—"
"—carries Nightborn blood," I finish. Because I already knew. The moment I saw her half-shift, I recognized it.
Just like mine.
"She's like you," Kieran whispers.
"No." I stare at the closed healing ward door. "She's stronger than me. She survived years of poison and still her wolf emerged."
"What are you going to do?"
Good question.
My rejected mate is pregnant with my enemy's pup—no, was pregnant. The pup is gone now. She's broken and bleeding and she hates me.
And she's the key to destroying everyone who destroyed us both.
"I'm going to save her," I say. "Then I'm going to give her a choice."
"What choice?"
I smile behind my mask. It's not a kind smile.
"Revenge."