Chapter 3

I awoke to the smell of antiseptic and the cold, sterile bite of the air. A thin, scratchy blanket was pulled up to my chin, and a persistent, rhythmic beeping echoed in the quiet room. The infirmary. The Veridia pack infirmary. My body was a foreign country, a landscape of agony I could barely navigate. Every breath was a fresh wave of fire in my ribs, and a dull, heavy throbbing pulsed from my leg, my back, my very bones.

*He pushed me.* The thought was a cold, hard stone in the pit of my stomach. *He threw me away.*

Dr. Evans, our pack's elderly healer, entered the room, his face etched with lines of worry. His kind, watery blue eyes held a deep well of pity that made my skin crawl. He moved with a quiet efficiency, checking the monitors beside my bed. The rhythmic beeping quickened as my heart rate spiked with anxiety.

"How... how bad is it?" I whispered, my voice a dry, rasping sound.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. He pulled a stool to my bedside, his expression grim. "Clara... the impact was severe. Multiple fractures. Internal bruising. But that's not the worst of it."

I braced myself, my hands clenching the thin blanket.

"The chandelier was old, enchanted with focusing crystals," he explained, his voice gentle. "When it shattered, it released a burst of chaotic magical energy. Shards of the crystal are embedded in your back, near your spine. They're... interfering with your connection."

My blood ran cold. "My connection? To my wolf?"

He nodded slowly, his gaze unwavering. "The shrapnel has permanently damaged the primary nerve channels that link you to your wolf spirit. She's still there, but the link is... frayed. Muted. It might be a struggle for you to shift from now on. The pain could be immense. You may be crippled for life, Clara."

A strangled sob escaped my lips. My wolf. She was my strength, my companion, the other half of my soul. To have that connection severed, to be trapped in my own body... it was a fate worse than death. The tears I had held back for so long finally came, hot and silent, tracking paths through the grime on my cheeks.

"Has... has Mark been here?" I asked, the question tasting like ash in my mouth. I needed to know. A part of me, a deeply wounded, foolish part, still hoped he would walk through that door, his face full of remorse.

Dr. Evans's expression tightened. He couldn't meet my eyes. "He's been with Isabella. She was... in shock."

*In shock.* The words were a bitter mockery. Isabella, who was shielded by my mate's body, who walked away without a scratch, was in shock. And I, broken and possibly crippled because of his actions, had been left alone in this cold, white room. The last, flickering ember of hope inside me died, leaving nothing but cold, hard certainty.

He didn't love me. He never would.

***

He finally appeared two days later. The door to my room swung open, and he stood there, silhouetted against the hallway light. He wasn't wearing the tailored suit from the gala, but a simple black shirt and jeans that did nothing to diminish the aura of power and command that clung to him. His face was a mask of cold indifference, his stormy eyes holding not a shred of remorse or concern.

He looked at me, lying broken in the bed, and his lip curled in a faint sneer.

"You're awake," he stated. It wasn't a question.

I stared at him, my heart a block of ice in my chest. "You pushed me."

"I saved Isabella," he corrected, his voice flat and hard. "And in the process, you managed to make a spectacle of yourself and traumatize her. You embarrassed our pack, Clara. Lying there, looking so weak in front of all those Alphas."

The sheer audacity of his words, the complete inversion of blame, left me breathless. He was accusing *me*. He was angry at *me* for being the victim of his own brutal choice. The pain from my injuries was nothing compared to the agony of his cruelty.

"I could have died," I whispered, the words trembling with a rage I was too weak to fully express.

"Perhaps that would have been for the best," he said, his voice chillingly calm. "This... this bond between us. It has become a weakness. A chain. Your neediness, your sentimentality... it's a drain on my power, a distraction I can no longer afford."

He took a step closer to the bed, his presence filling the room, suffocating me. He looked down at me not as his mate, but as a problem to be solved, an error to be erased.

"I am invoking the ancient rite of severance," he declared, the words formal, ritualistic, and utterly final.

My world stopped. The beeping of the monitor seemed to fade into the distance. The rite of severance. It was a brutal, archaic ritual, used only in the most extreme cases of betrayal. A forced rejection. The magical tearing of a bond blessed by the Moon Goddess herself.

"No," I breathed, shaking my head, the movement sending daggers of pain through my skull. "Mark, you can't."

His eyes were like chips of ice. "I, Mark, Alpha of the Veridia pack, reject you, Clara, as my mate. The bond is broken."

The moment the words left his lips, a pain unlike anything I had ever known ripped through me. It was not physical. It was a spiritual evisceration. It felt as if my very soul was being torn in two. A scream was ripped from my throat, raw and animalistic. The silver thread of our bond, which had connected us for five years, snapped. The backlash was catastrophic. It felt like my heart was exploding, my magic spiraling out of control, my life force draining away into the void where he had once been.

The world began to gray at the edges. The beeping of the monitor beside me became a single, high-pitched, continuous tone.

***

The last thing I saw was the door bursting open. Dr. Evans rushed in, his face a mask of panic. He glanced at the flatlining monitor, then at Mark's cold, unmoving form.

"What did you do?" he yelled, his voice cracking with disbelief as he began frantically running diagnostics on the medical tablet, his hands flying over the screen.

Mark didn't answer. He just watched me die, his expression unreadable.

Dr. Evans stared at the monitor, his eyes wide, his face draining of all color. He looked from the glowing screen to Mark's unforgiving glare, then back to my broken form on the bed. A look of pure, unadulterated shock and horror dawned on his face.

"Alpha..." the healer stammered, his voice trembling, barely a whisper. "The rejection... the backlash... it's not just her you're harming."

He took a shaky breath, his eyes locking with Mark's.

"By the Moon Goddess, she's carrying your heir."