Chapter 6

Kason POV:

The engine of my SUV roared, matching the turmoil inside my chest. I gripped the steering wheel so hard the leather creaked in protest. Beside me, in the passenger seat, Isabela was curled into a tight ball, her hands clutching her stomach, her face pale and slick with sweat.

The car smelled of her distress-a sour, chaotic scent that clogged my throat. It smelled like sickness. It smelled like guilt. But mostly, to my furious mind, it smelled like betrayal.

"Stop crying," I growled, swerving around a slow-moving sedan. "Tears won't change the fact that you tried to trap me."

"It hurts," she whimpered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the engine. "Kason, please... my wolf... she's fading."

"Your wolf is weak because you carry a rogue's spawn," I snapped, though a flicker of doubt pricked at my conscience. Her scent didn't have the milky sweetness of a normal pregnancy. It was sharp. Acrid. Like something rotting.

I pulled up to the Pack Clinic, screeching to a halt in the emergency bay. I didn't wait for an orderly. I got out, walked around, and yanked the passenger door open.

Isabela fell out, too weak to stand. I caught her before she hit the pavement, scooping her into my arms. She was terrifyingly light. Had she always been this thin?

"Help!" I roared, using my Alpha voice. The sound shattered the quiet night, commanding attention. "I need a doctor! Now!"

Two nurses rushed out with a gurney. I placed Isabela on it, my hands sticky with her cold sweat. As they wheeled her through the double doors, she reached out, his fingers brushing my sleeve.

"Kason..." she whispered, her eyes unfocused. "Don't let them... hurt me."

I stood there as the doors swung shut, cutting off her voice.

I paced the waiting room. The antiseptic smell of the hospital grated on my nerves. I needed to shift. I needed to run. My wolf was pacing inside my mind, agitated, scratching at the walls of my consciousness.

She is hurt, my wolf growled. Our mate is hurt.

She is not our mate, I snapped back mentally. Dalia is our mate. Isabela is just... a responsibility.

I walked toward the water cooler down the hall, needing to cool the fire in my blood. As I passed the nurses' station, voices drifted out from the break room. They were hushed, but my Alpha hearing picked them up clearly.

"Did you see her?" one nurse whispered. "Skin and bones. And the bruises on her arm... they look like finger marks."

"That was Alpha Kason who brought her in," another voice replied, dripping with disdain. "The 'Honorable' Alpha. Treating a pack member like that? It's disgraceful."

"I heard he keeps her in the basement," the first nurse said. "Like a prisoner. No wonder her wolf is fading. A wolf without a pack's love dies. He's killing her slowly."

I froze. My reflection in the hallway window stared back at me-haggard, angry, a monster.

He's killing her.

The words echoed in my head. I wanted to storm in there and silence them with an Alpha Command, but my feet wouldn't move. Shame, cold and heavy, settled in my gut.

The door to the examination room opened. Dr. Evans, the Pack Doctor, stepped out. He was an old wolf, gray-haired and stoic. He had delivered me. He had treated my father. He feared no one, not even an Alpha.

He walked up to me, pulling off his latex gloves with a snap. His expression was thunderous.

"Is it done?" I asked, my voice tight. "Did you remove the... problem?"

Dr. Evans stared at me for a long moment. Then, he stepped closer, invading my personal space in a way that would get any other wolf challenged.

"There is no baby, Alpha," he said, his voice low and dangerous.

My knees nearly buckled. "What?"

"It is acute appendicitis," Dr. Evans hissed. "It has ruptured. Poison is leaking into her body. If you had brought her ten minutes later, she would be dead."

The air left my lungs. Not pregnant. Dying.

"But... the scent," I stammered. "She smelled wrong."

"She smells of decay because her body is shutting down!" Dr. Evans shouted, losing his composure. "And do you know why her healing ability didn't stop it? Because she has no strength left. Her wolf is dormant, Kason. Crushed by stress. Crushed by you."

He poked a finger into my chest. "You are the Alpha. Your job is to protect. Instead, I am going in there to perform emergency surgery on a girl whose spirit is so broken she might not wake up."

He turned on his heel and marched back into the operating room.

I stood alone in the hallway. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.

Not pregnant, my wolf whined, a sound of pure misery. We hurt her.

I slid down the wall, putting my head in my hands. I felt a strange, phantom pain in my chest, as if a thread connecting me to something vital had just been pulled taut, threatening to snap.