Sebastian’s fingers bit into the back of Cass’s neck, and she finally, truly understood what he’d been about to do that night in the woods when she was thirteen. Her wolf howled, not in fear, but in fierce satisfaction. This was it. This was what she’d wanted all along.
She pressed his head down harder, her breath catching as his teeth broke the skin of her neck. The door slammed open. A scream ripped through the room, one that Cass recognized as her own, torn from her throat by pain mingled with something else entirely. But then she heard it again, a second scream, this one all too familiar, her twin brother’s voice ringing through the darkness:** “Get off her!
”*
Sebastian jerked above her, a guttural grunt escaping him as he sagged, his weight suddenly crushing. Confused, Cass reached up, and her hand came away wet. Warm. Sticky.
Blood
Her eyes found Ronin’s, his face twisted with horror, a dagger glinting in his hand. Their father’s dagger
The world had shattered, but it didn’t end there. It ended two hours later, in a dark, musty shop that smelled like old dust and desperate prayers, where Cass banged on the magician’s dooras the sun barely painted the sky. She would make a wish.
She would save Sebastian. She would pay any price. But she hadn’t known, when she made it, that the price would be herself. The wolf inside her.
The part of her that was fierce, proud, and free. She hadn’t known she would become human, empty, a shell of thealpha she was meant to be. And she certainly hadn’t known she was carrying Sebastian’s child. The magician had told her what he would take before she could make the wish, breakingtherules, a favor he’d never granted anyone else, just for her.
He told her she was with child. He told her if she made the wish, she would lose her wolf, and that she likely wouldn’t survive giving birth. He told her it wasn’t too late to walk away, that Sebastian’s wound was grave but perhaps, somehow, another way could be found. But Cass looked at the image of Sebastian’s pale face, his labored breathing, the blood blooming beneath his skin, and she closed her eyes.
**“Do it,”** she said. **“Grant my wish. ”**
When she woke in her pack’s headquarters, her brother was screaming her name, her mother was crying, and her father’s face was gray with shock. Their voices sounded muffled, underwater, like the world had been wrapped in cotton.
Cass could smell nothing. She could sense nothing. The bond between her and Ronin, between her and every wolf she’d ever known, had been severed, gaping holes where that warm, humming connection used to be. She felt like she’d lost a limb.
Like she’d lost her whole self. But when she looked at her hands, they were still hers. And in the depths of her chest, beneath the numbness, she felt a flutter, a tiny presence, a heartbeat that was entirely new. She had saved him.
And she had doomed herself. But she would not regret it. She couldn’t. Sebastian came to her a week later, after her twenty-first birthday had come and gone unnoticed.
He burst into her room without knocking, his eyes wild with worry, and she watched his face crumble when he saw her, gaunt, hollow, hugged around her knees bythe window. He dropped beside her, pulling her into his arms, breathing her in like he couldn’t get enough. But she pulled away, because she couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bearhis warmth, his scent, his presence, when she knew what she could never have again.
**“You’re my mate,”** he said, andshe shook her head. **“I’m not. I’m human now. Mating bonds can’t exist with humans.
”** He looked at her like she’d grown a second head. **“So what? ”** he asked. **“Does this bother you?
”** And she wanted to scream, because he still didn’t understand. He still thought they could be together. He still thought love was enough. **“Sebastian, you’re a wolf.
An alpha. I can’t be your mate. You’ll need one if you want to remain leader of your pack. ”** He shrugged like it was nothing.
**“I already told my pack I renounced my title,”** he said, and her heart stuttered. He couldn’t. He couldn’t give up everything for her. **“You can’t let me give it all up,”** she protested, the words choking her.
**“I’m barely giving anything up. You gave your wolf for me. If you think I wouldn’t make a sacrifice infinitely smaller than the one you’ve made, you’re—”** She cut him off. **“I’m pregnant.
”** His eyes widened, caught between shock and something else, something that looked terrifyingly like joy. **“You are? ”** he breathed. **“I may not survive the birth.
I won’t be able to look after our baby. ”** He didn’t even blink. **“Is it mine? ”** he asked, and she groaned, **“Who else’s would it be, you fool?
”** He laughed, pulling her against his chest. **“We’ll be okay,”** he murmured into her hair. **“As long as we’re together, we’ll be okay. ”**
She wanted to believe him.
She wanted to believe it so badly. But shelooked at his face, at the hope shining in his eyes, and she thought of the ring the magician had sent her, a silver band imbued with the very thing she’d lost, a promise that should she everfind the way, she could reclaim her wolf. It sat in a small box on her dresser, untouched, because she knew the cost. The magician was immortal.
She was not. She would die long before he ever did, and the door would remain locked forever. She opened her mouth to tell Sebastian that, to tell him to leave, to tell him to find himself another mate, a proper one, a wolf who could stand beside him as his equal. But then her gaze caught on his, on the love shining undimmed within them, onc the way he looked at her, not with pity or disappointment, but with the same fierce admiration he’d had when she’d dragged that bear from the woods at eleven, and the words died in her throat.
She couldn’t send him away. She couldn’t. Because even though she’d failed him, even though she’d ruined them both, she loved him too. And she would keep loving him, for as long as she had left.
Harry was born four months later. Sebastian had been terrified the entire pregnancy, but she’d made it, barely. She was thinner than ever now, frailer, her wolf-gold hair dulled, her gray eyes shadowed with exhaustion. But when she held Harry, when she looked down at his tiny, wrinkled face, at his little button nose and wide green eyes, she felt something bloom in her chest, something that felt almost like joy.
She had given him this. She hadgiven him life. She had given him a chance at everything she would never have. Sebastian crouched beside them, his finger tentatively brushing their son’s cheek, his eyes glistening with something that looked suspiciously like tears.
**“He’s perfect,”** he whispered. Cass smiled, achingly. **“He is. ”** **
They left the pack a month later.
Sebastian hadn’t been lying when he said he’d renounced his title, and her father had made it clear she was no longer welcome, not after what she’d done. They settled in a small human town on the edge of nowhere, far from the forests and the pack and everything that had once defined them. Sebastian got a job at a hardware store. He came home every night smelling of sawdust andsweat, and he’d wrapped her in his arms, kissing the top of her head, whispering that he loved her, that they’d be okay, that they would find their way.
She let herself believe him. She let herself hope. And each night, when she held Harry, when she watched him grow stronger and healthier, she told herself it was worth it. She checked herself beneath the covers, her husband’s warmth spooned around her, her son sleeping peacefully in the crib beside their bed.
She’d lost everything. Her pack. Her wolf. Her future.
But she had gained something too, something she’d never expected, something that somehow, impossibly, made it all worth it. She had gained him. She had gained them. And she would not trade that for anything.
She would not trade it for the world.
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