Chapter 1

My Alpha husband took my wolf to save the child he never told me he had.

I woke on the blood-moon stone with silver dust on my palms and an emptiness beneath my ribs where my wolf had always answered first.

Across the healing chamber, a newborn cried.

The woman holding him looked exhausted, terrified, and far too familiar with my husband. Caelan stood beside her with one hand on the baby's blanket.

The child smelled like him.

"Rhea," Caelan said, moving toward me. "The baby was dying. I had no time."

I tried to shift.

Nothing happened.

The effort tore through my body anyway. My knees hit the stone.

One of the healers crouched beside me. "Your wolf is in recovery. The transfer was severe."

"I didn't agree to a transfer," I said.

Caelan's face changed.

Not into surprise. Into calculation.

The baby quieted when the woman pressed him against her chest. For one terrible second, relief moved through me. He was alive.

Then I saw the fresh claw-mark on the rite book beside the stone.

My name was written underneath it.

Someone had made my body say yes.

The healer reached for my wrist, but I pulled away. My wolf had always risen when I was afraid. She had guarded the first child I ever helped deliver and walked beside me through every night a patient said they could not survive one more hour. Now there was only silence under my skin.

Talia looked at the book, then at Caelan. "You said she knew."

He did not answer her either.

Around us, the blood-moon candles burned lower. Three healers stood with their eyes fixed on the floor, each of them realizing the consent they had trusted might have been a costume he wore over my name.

I pressed my palm against the cold stone.

"Seal this room," I said. "No one leaves with the book."