Spicy Book Club-92

I shoved the heavy triple stroller through the freezing mud toward the pack clinic. My mate wouldn't answer his mind-link. He was too busy wrapping his Alpha cloak around his ex-lover so her dress wouldn't get wet. Rhea was barely three. Her lips were turning blue, and her tiny veins pulsed with an unnatural silver glow. Her body jerked against the stroller straps as the silver-fever ravaged her. In the back seats, her twin brothers, Declan and Henry, screamed, their scentless little bodies trembling in the freezing rain. But Rhea was silent. Too silent. As I unbuckled my seizing girl, dripping wet while my boys cried for their father, a loud cheer erupted from the center of the territory. I looked up through the pouring rain. Standing on the packhouse balcony, illuminated by the pack-crystals, was Rurik. He wrapped his fur-lined Alpha cloak around Lilith's shoulders, sheltering her from the wind while the pack cheered for their precious White Healer. He told me this morning he was patrolling the borders. He lied. "Mommy… it burns…" Rhea wheezed, her eyes rolling back. "I know, baby. Mommy's got you. HELP!" I burst through the clinic doors, my voice cracking over the sound of my sons' frantic crying. Medics finally rushed over, prying Rhea from my freezing arms. I stood in that cold hallway, sliding down the wall to the floor as Declan and Henry clung to my wet legs, sobbing. Four years. I had endured four years of this mating bond. "Luna," the pack doctor said. "It's silver-fever. She has no wolf to fight it. She won't last twenty minutes without the Moon-Lotus serum. But the Alpha took the last vial." My blood ran cold. The Moon-Lotus serum was the only vial in the territory. And Rurik had taken it to the packhouse for Lilith. I bypassed the mind-link and dialed his Alpha line. This time, he answered. "Rurik, Rhea is dying!" I screamed into the phone. "Bring the serum back! She's burning from the inside out!" "Thalia, stop being dramatic." Rurik's voice was rough with annoyance. "The thunder startled Lilith's wolf. She’s having a severe panic attack, and I had to give her the serum to calm her heart rate." "You used a life-saving fever serum for a panic attack?!" I screamed, my voice cracking in disbelief. "Rhea is your daughter!" "Lilith is the only White Healer we have!" Rurik roared, his Alpha command leaking over the line, forcing my knees to the floor. "If her core is damaged by stress, we lose our warriors. I have to put the pack first." "She is your pup..." I sobbed, pressing my face against the cold clinic wall. "And she's a Null," Rurik cut in, his voice brutally cold. "No wolf. No scent. So what if she doesn't make it, Thalia? You still have the two boys. I have to prioritize the Healer." He hung up. Four years. Just because I was a "Null"—a scentless mate forced on him to settle a debt—I let his pack mock me. I let them call my babies "defective runts." They didn't know. Rurik didn't know. My pups didn't have silver-fever. They were Royal Purebloods. Rhea's tiny body was trying to survive her first Royal Awakening. She didn't need a doctor. She needed her mother's aura to anchor her. But my aura was sealed. I looked at my dying pup. The last shred of my love for Rurik died right there. I reached into my boot and pulled out a pure silver dagger. The doctor gasped. "Luna, what are you doing? You can't—" I didn't answer. I pressed the burning silver blade against the mate-mark on my collarbone—and sliced straight through the flesh. The mating bond snapped with a sickening tear. Blood poured down my skin. "I, Thalia, reject Alpha Rurik of the Bloodfang Pack as my mate," I whispered to the empty room. But I didn't stop there. I reached around to the base of my neck. Right where my father, the Lycan King, had embedded the Lunar Seal four years ago to hide my scent. I drove the silver blade into my own skin, dug my fingers into the metal seal, and ripped it out. The clinic windows shattered outward. The pack doctor dropped to his knees, gagging as a pure-gold Royal aura exploded from my body, forcing every wolf nearby into absolute submission. I wasn't a Null. My eyes glowed pure gold. I walked over to Rhea, placing my glowing hand on her chest. Her silver veins instantly calmed, syncing to my heartbeat. I pulled out my phone and dialed the Royal Citadel. "Princess?" my father's Commander answered. "The Seal is broken. Are you—" "Send the Royal Vanguard," I ordered. "We're going home."