Dr. Sarah Chen's office looked different this time. Maybe it was the late afternoon light slanting through the blinds, turning everything amber and soft. Maybe it was the way Sarah wouldn't meet my eyes when I walked in.

Or maybe it was because I'd come here to schedule my death.

"Are you sure?" Sarah asked. Her hands were folded on the desk between us, knuckles white. "Violet, there are still experimental treatments we could try—"

"How long would they buy me?" My voice came out steadier than I expected. "Weeks? A month?"

She didn't answer. That was answer enough.

I looked down at the form in front of me. Wolfsbane-Assisted Euthanasia Request. The words blurred and sharpened. Luna stirred weakly in my chest, a flutter like a dying bird.

"Next week," I said. "The anniversary of my mother's death. I want it then."

Sarah's breath hitched. "Violet—"

"Please." I picked up the pen. My hand shook so badly the first signature was illegible. I had to do it twice. "I can't do this anymore. The pain, the images she keeps sending—" My throat closed. "I just want it to stop."

Sarah reached across the desk and covered my hand with hers. She didn't try to talk me out of it again. Maybe she understood. Maybe she'd seen enough terminal cases to know when someone had reached the end of what they could carry.

I signed the last page and stood up. My legs nearly gave out, but I caught myself on the edge of the desk.

"One week," Sarah said quietly. "If you change your mind—"

"I won't."

I left before she could see me cry.

---

I woke up to agony.

Not the dull, grinding ache I'd grown used to. This was different—sharp and immediate, like someone had replaced my blood with battery acid. I tried to scream but my throat locked. My back arched off the mattress.

Something was wrong. Something was *wrong*.

Through the haze of pain, I caught movement near the door. A figure in scrubs, a surgical mask covering most of her face. But I knew those eyes. I'd known them since we were children.

"Ana?" The word came out broken.

She pulled the mask down, and her smile was the cruelest thing I'd ever seen.

"You were going to die anyway," she said, holding up an empty syringe. "I just made sure it would hurt more."

She was gone before I could move, before I could think. The door clicked shut and I was alone with the fire spreading through my veins.

I looked down at my arms. Black lines were crawling beneath my skin, branching out from the injection site like roots. The necrosis—it was accelerating. Days of deterioration happening in minutes.

I tried to reach for my phone. My hand wouldn't cooperate. Luna was screaming inside me, a sound I felt rather than heard, and then she went silent.

Completely silent.

I don't remember calling for help. I don't remember much of anything after that except the black veins and the certainty that Anastasia had just stolen even my controlled exit. She'd turned my death into something worse.

---

Three days later, Nash's Beta delivered the order personally.

I was in bed, because standing required crutches now and even that was agony. Marcus Reid stood in my doorway looking uncomfortable, holding a formal pack summons like it might bite him.

"The Alpha requests your presence at the hospital ribbon-cutting ceremony," he said. "Tomorrow at noon."

"Tell him no."

Marcus shifted his weight. "It's not a request, Violet. He said—" He stopped. Started again. "He said it's about pack unity. Appearances. With the neighboring Alphas attending and the press—"

"I can barely walk."

"I know." His voice dropped. "I'm sorry."

He left the summons on my dresser and saw himself out.

I stared at the ceiling and tried to find Luna. There was nothing. Just a vast, empty space where my wolf used to be. The black veins had faded to a sickly gray-green, but the damage was done. Whatever Anastasia had injected me with had accelerated the final stages. My body was shutting down.

But Nash wanted appearances.

I laughed, and it hurt my ribs. Of course he did. The pack needed to see their Luna, even if she was a hollow shell. Even if she could barely stand.

I would go. Not for him. Not for appearances.

I would go because I wanted to look Anastasia in the eye one last time before I died.

---

The ceremony was already underway when I arrived.

I'd borrowed a cane from the clinic—the crutches were too obvious, too pitiful. The cane let me pretend I had some dignity left. My dress hung loose on my frame. I'd lost weight I couldn't afford to lose.

The hospital's new wing gleamed in the autumn sun, all glass and steel and promise. Cameras flashed. Neighboring Alphas stood in clusters, their power rolling off them in waves that made my skin prickle. Nash stood at the center of it all, Anastasia at his side, her hand resting on her belly.

I made it halfway across the courtyard before she moved.

It happened fast. She stepped back as if startled, her foot hooking behind mine. I felt myself falling and couldn't stop it—my legs were too weak, my balance too far gone.

I hit the ground hard. The cane clattered away. Pain exploded through my hip and shoulder.

And Anastasia screamed.

"She pushed me!" Her voice was shrill, panicked, perfectly pitched for the cameras. "She tried to hurt my baby!"

I looked up from the pavement. Every eye was on me. The press. The Alphas. The pack.

And Nash, staring down at me with something that might have been disgust.

Nobody helped me up.

The pavement was cold against my cheek. I could taste blood where I'd bitten my tongue in the fall.

Anastasia's scream still echoed across the courtyard. "She pushed me! She tried to hurt my baby!"

I tried to push myself up. My arms shook. The cane was three feet away, might as well have been three miles. Around me, I heard the murmur of the crowd—shock, disgust, judgment. The cameras kept flashing.

"Violet." Nash's voice cut through everything else. Low. Dangerous. "Stand up."

I looked up at him. His eyes were already shifting red.

"Nash, I didn't—" My voice broke. "She tripped me, you have to know I would never—"

"I said *stand up.*"

I tried. God, I tried. My legs wouldn't hold me. The LAS had eaten through too much, and Anastasia's poison had finished what was left. I made it to my knees before my body gave out again.

That's when I felt it.

His aura slammed into me like a physical blow. The full weight of an Alpha's power, unleashed and unrestrained. It crushed down on my shoulders, my spine, forcing me flat against the pavement. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. The pressure was everywhere, grinding me into the concrete.

"You dare," Nash said, and his voice carried across the entire courtyard, "attack the mother of my heir? In front of witnesses? In front of our allies?"

"I didn't—" I gasped the words out. "Please—"

"Silence." The Alpha command hit me like a fist. My jaw locked shut. Tears streamed down my face but I couldn't even sob. "You have disgraced this pack for the last time."

He stepped closer. I could see his shoes, polished and perfect, inches from my face.

"The title of acting Luna is hereby revoked," he announced. His voice rang out clear and formal, meant for every ear, every camera. "Effective immediately, that honor will be bestowed upon Anastasia Hart, the true mother of the Silverfang heir."

The crowd erupted. I heard gasps, murmurs, a few scattered cheers. Through the crushing weight of his aura, I managed to turn my head just enough to see Anastasia. She had her hand pressed to her mouth, eyes wide and wet, the perfect picture of shocked gratitude.

She met my gaze over Nash's shoulder.

And smiled.

"You will vacate the Alpha residence immediately," Nash continued. "Anastasia will be moving in tonight. I will not have my mate and child subjected to your presence any longer."

My mate. He'd called her his mate. In front of everyone.

The aura lifted all at once. I sucked in air, my lungs burning. My whole body was shaking.

"Marcus will escort you," Nash said, already turning away. "See that she's gone within the hour."

He walked back to Anastasia, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, guided her toward the ribbon-cutting platform. The ceremony continued. The cameras turned away.

I lay on the pavement, broken and discarded, and nobody helped me up.

---

The guest cottage was cold.

I'd managed to pack one bag before Marcus arrived. He stood in the doorway of the main house, uncomfortable but unyielding, while I gathered what little I could carry. My hands shook too badly to fold clothes properly. I just shoved things in—a few shirts, my mother's necklace, the bottle of pain medication that barely worked anymore.

The cottage was on the edge of pack territory, a small structure meant for visiting relatives or wolves in transition. It had a bed, a bathroom, a kitchenette. It had four walls and a door that locked.

It was more than I deserved, apparently.

I'd been there less than three hours when Nash came.

I heard his footsteps on the gravel path first. Heavy. Deliberate. Then the door slammed open—he didn't bother knocking.

He filled the doorway, his presence sucking all the air from the small room. In his hand was a piece of paper.

"Eviction notice," he said, and threw it at me. It fluttered to the floor at my feet. "You have seventy-two hours to leave pack territory."

I stared at him. "This is my home."

"This is *my* territory." His eyes were still faintly red. "And you're becoming a blight on pack morale. Everyone can see you're dying. It's depressing. It's weak."

The words landed like blows.

"I have nowhere to go," I whispered.

"That's not my problem." He crossed his arms. "You can leave voluntarily, or I can reassign you as an Omega servant. Your choice."

Omega. The lowest rank. The shame rank. For wolves who'd failed, who were broken, who had nothing left to offer.

He looked around the cottage with obvious distaste. His gaze landed on the dresser, on the small red braided bracelet sitting there—the one he'd given me three years ago, before everything fell apart.

He crossed the room and picked it up, dangling it between two fingers like something contaminated.

"You kept this?" He laughed, sharp and cruel. "This childish trinket? God, Violet. How pathetic are you?"

He dropped it on the floor.

I watched it fall. Watched him grind it under his heel as he turned to leave.

"Seventy-two hours," he said from the doorway. "After that, you're trespassing."

The door slammed shut.

I stood there in the silence, staring at the crushed bracelet, and felt the last thread holding me together finally snap.

---

The storm started just after midnight.

I'd been sitting on the cottage floor for hours, the eviction notice crumpled in my fist, trying to think of anywhere I could go. Anyone who might take me in. The list was short. The list was nonexistent.

No family. No mate. No home. No wolf.

Just a dying body and three days until I was officially homeless.

The rain began as a whisper against the windows, then grew into a roar. Thunder cracked overhead. The wind screamed.

I stood up. My legs shook but they held.

I didn't remember deciding to leave. I just found myself at the door, then outside, then walking. The rain soaked through my clothes immediately, plastered my hair to my skull. I didn't feel cold. I didn't feel much of anything.

My feet knew where they were going before my mind caught up.

The territorial bridge.

It stretched across the Whitewater River, a old steel structure that groaned in high winds. The river below was swollen from the storm, churning white and violent. The sound of it was deafening.

I reached the middle of the bridge and stopped.

The railing was slick with rain. I gripped it with both hands, my knuckles white.

Below, the river raged. Above, lightning split the sky.

I thought about my father. My mother. Luna, silent and gone inside me. I thought about Nash's face when he called the bracelet pathetic. About Anastasia's smile. About dying slowly in some Omega servant's quarters, my body failing piece by piece while the pack whispered about the fallen Luna.

I thought about how tired I was.

I climbed onto the railing.

The wind tried to tear me off immediately. I held on, my legs dangling over empty air, the river a churning darkness below.

One more second. That's all it would take.

Just let go.