"Why am I here, Kael?" I demand, straining against the thick leather straps binding my wrists and ankles.

The blinding surgical lights overhead force me to squint. The harsh glare reflects off the cold alloy table beneath my spine. The sterile stench of bleach coats the back of my throat, failing to mask the heavy, metallic smell of old blood lingering in the room.

"Lilith's Beta body is failing," Kael replies. He stands near a metal tray, adjusting the collar of his white medical coat.

"Failing at what?"

"Carrying my heir."

"She's barren."

"Watch your tone, prisoner," Lilith snaps from the adjacent hospital bed. She props herself up on a pile of plush pillows, glaring at me.

"It's the truth," I shoot back. "And how does strapping me to an operating table fix her?"

"Lilith needs your Silver Marrow," Kael states. "And you're the only living Silverblood who can provide it."

He picks up an electromagnetic scalpel. The tip hums to life, emitting a vicious violet glow.

"You're insane," I gasp, thrashing against the restraints. "An extraction that deep could kill me."

"A normal wolf would die. Silverbloods regenerate."

"Not from the sternum! Kael, the marrow binds my wolf to my body!"

"Stop lying," Lilith whines, crossing her arms. "You just don't want to help the pack. Kael, she's trying to scare me."

"Quiet, Lilith," he orders without looking at her. "It will be over soon."

"Where is the anesthesia?" I ask, my voice trembling as he steps closer.

"We don't waste sedatives on traitors."

"You're going to butcher me awake?"

"Consider it payment for my parents."

"I didn't take them!"

"Hold still."

He presses his left hand flat against my collarbone, pinning me down with crushing force.

"Wait. Kael, please."

He lowers the blade. The violet energy slices straight through the skin and muscle over my sternum.

"Ah—!" I scream, arching my back off the metal surface.

The leather straps groan under my desperate struggle. Fire rips through my chest.

He tosses the scalpel aside and grabs a heavy steel marrow drill.

"Don't do this!"

He plants the serrated tip against my exposed breastbone and pulls the trigger.

*Crunch.*

The drill punches through my sternum. The sound echoes through the clinic, a sickening grind identical to a saw biting into frozen wood.

I scream until my vocal cords tear. Blood fills my mouth, choking my cries into wet, gurgling sobs.

Kael fits a thick extraction needle into the hole in my breastbone and drives it deep into the marrow cavity.

Silver-blue light floods the glass chamber attached to the needle. It pulses in time with my heartbeat—the living marrow that binds every Silverblood wolf to their human body.

Our eyes lock.

For a fraction of a second, the dead winter in his golden-green gaze shatters. His jaw tightens. A sharp flash of raw, undeniable pain crosses his features. His hand trembles around the extraction handle.

"Kael?" I whisper, blood bubbling past my lips.

The hesitation vanishes instantly. Pure ice reclaims his expression.

"For the pack," he mutters.

He twists the valve and pulls the plunger.

"No!"

The needle tears a stream of radiant marrow from my bones.

My vision goes entirely black. The world drops out from underneath me.

Every organ in my body violently seizes. I choke on the thick, metallic foam rising in my throat, my spine bowing off the table in a massive, uncontrollable spasm.

"Is it done?" Lilith asks, leaning over the edge of her bed.

"The marrow is pure."

Kael pulls the blood-slick needle from my chest. The extraction chamber is half full of glowing silver-blue fluid.

I lie paralyzed on the alloy table, staring blindly at the ceiling. The deafening roar of my own erratic heartbeat fills my ears.

He transfers the radiant marrow into a large medical syringe.

He steps over to Lilith's bedside.

"Kael, be gentle," she whimpers, offering her pale arm. "I'm afraid of pain."

"I know." He leans down, pressing his lips softly to her forehead. "It won't hurt soon."

He pushes the needle into her vein.

I turn my head weakly, forcing my eyes to focus on my own ruined body.

The drilled wound in my sternum gapes open beneath the harsh clinic lights.

Before Kael chained me in Ironfang Keep, my flesh would have knit together in three seconds. Muscle and bone would have sealed seamlessly.

Now, I watch the sluggish, agonizing crawl of tissue trying to repair itself.

One minute passes. Two.

Three full minutes tick by before the skin finally seals over my damaged breastbone.

The new scar isn't the usual faint, shimmering silver of my bloodline. It is a necrotic, dead gray.

Kael walks past my table toward the exit, wiping his hands on a towel.

He tosses a crumpled, blood-soaked gauze pad onto my stomach.

"Don't play dead," he orders, stopping at the door. "I'm taking another dose tomorrow."

"You drill into me again..." I cough, spitting a red glob onto the floor. "...and there won't be anything left to torture."

"Then you better heal fast."

The heavy steel door slams shut. The magnetic lock engages with a loud click.

Silence fills the sterile room.

I reach up with trembling fingers and touch the dead gray scar on my chest.

A broken laugh escapes my throat.

Tears spill over my temples, mixing with the blood smeared across my cheeks. The warm liquid pools inside my ears.

I laugh harder, my shattered ribs aching with every breath.

He doesn't know.

He thinks I am just another wolf. He thinks I will bounce back to entertain his cruelty.

One extraction weakens a Silverblood. A second cripples the wolf within. A third severs the bond between wolf, body, and soul. The physical body turns to ash soon after.

Nine days have passed since the wedding.

I only had twenty-nine days left to live then.

Now, I have exactly twenty days left before the curse of leaving the Moon Blessed Lands claims me.

Tomorrow, he will drain what remains of my Silver Marrow.

I will dissolve into ash right in front of him, and he will never get the answers he wants.

A low scraping sound interrupts my laughter.

I freeze, turning my head toward the ceiling.

The heavy iron ventilation grate above the door rattles.

The screws pop loose, clattering onto the tile floor.

A massive shadow drops silently from the ceiling, landing in a crouch beside the surgical supply cabinets.

Two glowing red eyes pierce the darkness of the clinic, staring directly at my exposed, ruined chest.

"Found you," a raspy, unfamiliar voice growls.