Chapter 2

I couldn't feel my legs as they carried me into the pack hospital. Emma's limp body weighed heavy in my arms, her blood soaking through my clothes, still warm against my skin. The healer's urgent voice faded to a distant echo as they took her from me, placing her small form on the cold metal slab.

"Luna Sarah, please, let us help you," someone said, but their words barely registered.

My knees finally gave way. I collapsed onto the sterile floor of the healer ward, my fingers still reaching for my daughter. The Luna aura that usually shimmered around me had dimmed to a dull gray, flickering like a dying light. I could feel Lyra, my wolf, retreating deep within me, curling into herself with a grief too profound for howls.

Pack members moved around the edges of the room, their eyes averted in awkward sympathy. I heard their whispers, saw their sidelong glances.

"The Alpha's daughter..."

"Rogue attack..."

"Where was he?"

Where was he indeed. My mate. My Alpha. The father who couldn't be bothered to save his own child.

I crawled to Emma's side, my hand trembling as I brushed a dark curl from her forehead. Her skin was cooling rapidly, the rosy flush of life already fading from her cheeks. The ceremonial dress I had so carefully placed on her this morning was now torn and stained beyond recognition, the white fabric a canvas of tragedy.

"I'm so sorry, baby," I whispered, pressing my forehead to hers. "Mommy's so sorry."

Time lost all meaning as I sat beside her, unable to leave, unwilling to accept. Anya Petrova, our pack healer, gently cleaned Emma's wounds, her experienced hands moving with reverence as she prepared my daughter's body. Her eyes, when they met mine, held a deep compassion tinged with something harder—anger, perhaps, or judgment.

"Luna," she said softly, "you should change, rest—"

"No." The word scraped from my throat. "I stay with her."

Hours passed in a haze of numbing pain. Pack members came and went, offering condolences that washed over me like distant rain. I barely registered their presence until the hospital doors swung open with force, and the scent of pine and authority filled the room.

James had finally arrived.

I turned slowly from my vigil, my gaze traveling from his polished boots up to his face—a face that showed irritation rather than grief. And beside him, her hand possessively on his arm, stood Rebecca, her ankle wrapped in a neat bandage.

A bandage. For a twisted ankle. While our daughter lay dead.

"Sarah," James acknowledged me with a curt nod, his eyes barely skimming over Emma's still form. "The pack needs death certificates filed immediately. The Council must be notified of the rogue incursion."

He strode to the healer's desk, Rebecca limping dramatically beside him. I watched in disbelief as he signed the papers Anya silently presented, his pen scratching across the surface with businesslike efficiency.

"Such a tragedy," Rebecca murmured, her voice a practiced performance of sympathy that didn't reach her eyes. "Poor little thing."

Something inside me hardened, crystallizing from liquid grief into something sharp and dangerous. I rose from Emma's side, my movements stiff but deliberate.

"Anya," I said, my voice stronger than I expected, "prepare Emma for the ceremonial farewell. Full pack honors."

James's head snapped up. "That's not necessary. A simple—"

"Full. Pack. Honors." Each word fell like a stone. "As befits the daughter of an Alpha. Her name will be entered in the ritual register, as tradition demands."

I moved to the doorway, positioning myself so James would have to look at me—at the blood of his child still staining my clothes—as he finished his paperwork.

"The ceremonial preparation will begin at sunset," I continued, staring directly at him. "You, as Alpha, will be required to acknowledge her lineage before the pack elders. Her name will be recorded in your presence."

James's jaw clenched, a muscle twitching beneath his skin. He knew what I was doing—forcing him to face what he had done, what he had failed to do. For once, he would not be able to pretend Emma didn't exist.

As I stood in that doorway, covered in my daughter's blood, watching the man who should have protected her avoid my gaze, I felt something fundamental shift within me. The mate bond that had been a hollow shell for years now felt like a noose, and I was finally ready to cut it.