Kacie POV:

Pain was a color. It was blinding white, then throbbing red, then absolute black.

I woke up to the smell of antiseptic and the beep of machines. I wasn't dead. I had landed on a firefighter's rescue cushion that had been partially deployed. It had saved my life, but the impact...

I moved my hand to my stomach.

It was flat. Empty. The tiny spark I had felt on the roof was gone.

"No," I croaked. My throat felt like it was filled with glass.

A doctor walked in. He was a Beta from our pack. He looked at me with pity.

"Luna," he said softly. "You suffered severe internal trauma. We... we couldn't save the pup."

A howl built up in my chest, a sound so raw and primal it scared me. But I didn't have the strength to let it out. I just stared at the ceiling, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.

The door opened. Cedric walked in. He looked exhausted, his shirt torn.

"Kacie," he breathed, rushing to the bedside. "Thank the Goddess. You're alive."

I turned my head slowly to look at him. "My baby."

Cedric flinched. "I know. The doctor told me. It... it's a tragedy."

"You pushed me," I whispered. "You traded your child for her."

"It was a calculated risk!" Cedric insisted, pacing the room. "Jayden wouldn't have survived the stress of being a hostage. You are stronger. I knew you would survive. We can have other children."

"Other children?" I laughed, a dry, cracking sound. "You killed this one."

Mind-Link: Cedric... help me... the nightmares...

It was Jayden again. Calling him. Always calling him.

Cedric froze. He looked at the door. "I have to go check on her. She's in shock."

"Get out," I said. "And don't come back."

He left. He actually left.

The next morning, I forced myself out of bed. I couldn't stay in this place. I walked into the hallway, holding the wall for support.

I ran into Carol, Cedric's mother.

Slap!

Her hand connected with my cheek, snapping my head to the side.

"You useless girl!" she screeched. "You lost the Moon heir!"

"I..." I touched my stinging cheek. "Your son traded me to Rogues."

"Lies!" Carol hissed. "Jayden told us everything. She showed us the photo."

She shoved a phone in my face. It was a picture of me, standing in an alleyway, handing an envelope to the Rogue who had attacked us on the roof.

"I never did that!" I gasped. "That's Photoshop! Look at the lighting!"

"It's dated three days ago," Carol sneered. "You hired those Rogues to stage a kidnapping so you could play the hero. But it went wrong, didn't it? And your own scheme killed my grandchild."

"That is insane," I said, backing away.

"Cedric!" Carol shouted.

Cedric appeared from Jayden's room. He took the phone from his mother. He looked at the photo, then at me.

His eyes were cold. Dead.

"Is this true?" he asked. "Did you stage this? To get attention? To make me choose you?"

"You think I would risk my baby for attention?" I asked, my voice trembling with rage.

"You didn't know you were pregnant until the roof," Cedric reasoned, his logic twisted by grief and manipulation. "You thought you would just get 'rescued'. You are sick, Kacie."

"I didn't do it," I said.

"Jayden saw you meeting him," Cedric said. "She was too afraid to tell me until now."

Of course she was.

"I hate you," I said. "I hate you all."

14 Days.

Kacie POV:

"Arrest her."

The words hung in the sterile hospital air. Two pack Enforcers, large wolves with stone faces, stepped forward.

"Cedric, you can't be serious," I said, backing up until my hospital gown brushed the cold wall. "I need to heal. I just lost a child."

"You are a danger to the pack," Cedric said, his voice devoid of any warmth. "You conspired with Rogues. That is treason. The punishment is death, Kacie. Be grateful I am only imprisoning you."

He nodded to the Enforcers. One of them pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

They weren't steel. They glinted with a dull, white sheen.

Silver.

"No," I gasped. "Cedric, please. Silver will burn me. It stops the healing. I'm already bleeding internally!"

"Maybe the pain will help you reflect on your sins," he said.

The Enforcer clamped the cuffs onto my wrists.

Sizzle.

Smoke rose from my skin. The smell of burning flesh filled the corridor. I screamed, my knees buckling. It felt like acid was being injected directly into my veins. The silver suppressed my wolf, locking Serenity away in a cage of agony.

They dragged me through the hospital. Pack members watched, whispering, pointing. I was the traitor. The child-killer.

They didn't take me to the police station. They took me to the Moon Estate's dungeon. It was a damp, lightless basement carved into the bedrock beneath the house.

They threw me into a cell and slammed the iron bars shut.

"Enjoy your stay," the Enforcer grunted, leaving me in the dark.

I crawled to the corner, cradling my burning wrists. The pain was constant, a high-pitched scream in my nervous system.

I lay there for hours, shivering on the dirty straw.

Eventually, the elevator hummed. Footsteps approached.

It was Carol. She stood outside the bars, looking down at me like I was a cockroach.

"You should know," she said, smoothing her skirt. "Since you have proven yourself unfit and traitorous, the Elders have annulled your marriage rights. Cedric will marry Jayden as soon as her health permits. To restore the pack's luck."

"Good," I rasped, my voice barely audible. "Let her have him."

"You will rot here until you die," Carol smiled.

She left.

I closed my eyes. The rune on my chest was burning hotter than the silver. I pulled down the collar of my gown to look at it in the dim light.

3 Days.

I had three days left. I wasn't going to rot here. I was going to leave. Not just the pack, but this world.

"Just hold on, Serenity," I whispered to the silence. "We're almost free."

Kacie POV:

The dungeon had no windows, but my body knew time was passing. Not by the sun, but by the countdown etched into my flesh.

My jailer was a brute named Brutus, a wolf loyal to Jayden. For two days, he had brought me "food." It was a bowl of gruel that smelled sharp and bitter.

Wolfsbane.

I knew it. He knew I knew it.

"Eat up, traitor," he laughed, kicking the bowl through the bars.

I didn't eat it. But the fumes alone were enough to make my head spin. The silver cuffs had turned my wrists black and necrotic. My womb, still unhealed from the miscarriage, throbbed with a dull, persistent ache.

On the third day, I collapsed. My body finally gave out. I convulsed on the floor, foam gathering at my mouth.

When I woke up, I was back in a hospital bed, handcuffed to the rail.

Cedric was sitting in a chair next to me. He was reading a file.

"You are stubborn," he said, not looking up. "Starving yourself won't make me forgive you."

"I wasn't starving myself," I whispered. "Your guard was poisoning me."

Cedric slammed the file shut. "Brutus is a loyal soldier! Stop lying! Why can't you just admit what you did?"

"Because I didn't do it."

He stood up, looming over me. "I want to save you, Kacie. Despite everything, I feel the bond. But you make it impossible. Just submit. Admit your guilt, pledge loyalty to Jayden as the new Luna, and I will let you live in the servant's quarters."

"Become a servant to the woman who killed my child?" I looked at him with pity. "You truly are lost, Cedric."

He growled, frustrated, and stormed out of the room to cool off.

A minute later, the door creaked open. Jayden slipped in. She looked healthy, glowing even. She was wearing my blue velvet dress.

She didn't speak out loud. She tapped her temple.

Mind-Link: You look terrible, Kacie.

Her voice in my head was smug, oily.

Mind-Link: I just wanted to tell you... I knew.

I looked at her. Knew what?

Mind-Link: I knew you were pregnant. I could smell it weeks ago. Why do you think I arranged the rooftop meeting? I needed to make sure Cedric made a choice before you started showing. And he chose me.

My breath hitched. "You monster," I said aloud.

Jayden giggled. "Who is he going to believe? The traitor in cuffs, or his savior?"

She leaned in close, her perfume choking me. "Die quickly, Kacie. I want to redecorate the master bedroom."

She left before Cedric returned.

When Cedric came back, I was staring at the ceiling, calm. The rage was gone. The sorrow was gone. There was only the countdown.

24 Hours.

"Cedric," I said.

He looked at me, wary.

"I want to make a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"I will sign the confession," I lied. "I will admit to everything. I will annul the marriage. I will disappear from your life."

Cedric's shoulders relaxed. Relief washed over his face. "Okay. Good. That is... the right choice."

"But I have one condition."

"Name it."

"Tomorrow night. Take me to the Starlight Ferris Wheel. At midnight."

"The amusement park?" Cedric frowned. "Why?"

"It's where we had our first date," I said. "Before you knew who I was. Before the drugs, before the politics. Just... take me there one last time. Let me see the moon from the top. Then I will sign."

He hesitated. He looked at my broken body, the silver burns, the hollow eyes.

"Fine," he said. "Tomorrow night. But after that, you are gone."

"Yes," I closed my eyes, a faint smile touching my lips. "Gone."