Dante's POV
The pain hits me like lightning at midnight.
I'm in my office, staring at maps and phone records, trying to find any sign of Isla, when my chest explodes. Not metaphorically. It actually feels like something exploded inside my ribcage.
The mate bond—that thread I've felt humming in the background for seven years, easy to ignore like background music—suddenly pulls tight. Then snaps.
I hit the floor hard, gasping. It's like someone reached into my chest and ripped out half my heart. My wolf screams, a sound so full of pain that I taste blood in my mouth.
"No," I choke out. "Not yet. She said seventy-two hours—"
But the link is unraveling. I can feel it dying, breaking, disappearing like smoke. The link to Isla that I barely paid attention to is being torn away, and now that it's going, I finally understand what I had.
She was always there. A warmth in the corner of my mind. A presence I took for granted like breathing. And now there's just cold, empty nothing.
"Alpha?" The door bursts open. Serena rushes in, her face painted with worry. "I heard a crash. Are you—"
"Get out." The words scrape my throat raw.
She doesn't listen. She never hears. "Dante, you're on the floor. Let me help—"
She reaches for me and something inside me snaps worse than the bond.
I shove her away so forcefully she hits the wall. "Don't touch me! What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?"
"I don't—I didn't do anything!" But her eyes dart away. Guilty. "Dante, you're not making sense—"
"The bond is breaking." I'm crawling across the floor now, pathetic, trying to get away from her. "Isla's cutting it. But you knew. You knew this would happen. What did you do to us?"
My wolf is thrashing, dying, and memories are rushing back. Memories that don't make sense. Serena bringing me tea every morning for years. "To help with the stress," she'd say. Serena always touching my arm, my shoulder, my hand. Casual touches that felt normal until now, until the bond is breaking and the fog in my head is clearing.
"You've been drugging me," I whisper. The truth hits like ice water. "How long? How long have you been killing me?"
"It wasn't poison!" Serena's voice goes loud. "It was just—it was herbs. To help you think clearly. You were so stuck by that mate bond, so blinded by duty to a woman who wasn't worthy of you. I freed you, Dante. I freed you to feel what you really wanted—"
"You manipulated my MIND!" I'm shouting now, and wolves are gathered outside the office. I can hear them. "You made me think—you made me believe I didn't love her. But I did. I DO."
The reality is killing me worse than the breaking bond. I loved Isla. Somewhere under the herbs and the magic and Serena's poison, I loved my mate. And I let Serena twist it until I couldn't feel it anymore.
"She was nobody!" Serena screams back. "A packless orphan with no links, no power, nothing! I did you a favor. We could have been—"
"We could have been NOTHING!" My Alpha power bursts outward, making every wolf in the building drop to their knees. Except Serena. She keeps standing, and that's wrong. That's so wrong. "What are you? What the hell are you really?"
She laughs, and the sound raises every hair on my body. "You really want to know? Fine. I'm a witch, Dante. A real one. And I've been casting spells on you since we were fifteen years old. Love spells, obedience spells, memory magic. I've been shaping you into the right mate for me for almost twenty years."
My stomach turns. Twenty years. Since before I even met Isla.
"The mate bond was an accident," Serena adds, pacing now like a predator. "The Moon Goddess picked her, and I couldn't break the bond completely. But I could control it. Make you ignore it. Make you feel nothing when you looked at your beautiful little wife." Her smile is wicked. "It was working perfectly until she finally grew a spine and left."
"Kieran," I breathe. "You did something to Kieran. He doesn't remember his own mother—"
"Blood magic." She says it proudly. "Been feeding him drugs since he was two. Rewriting his memories, his ties. In another year, he would have forgotten Isla entirely. He would have been mine completely. " I'm going to kill her. The thought comes crystal clear. I'm going to shift and rip her throat out.
But I can't move. My body won't follow me. The pain from the breaking link is spreading, turning my limbs to lead.
"You're dying," Serena notes, almost clinically. "The link break is killing you faster than it should. That's because of my magic—it made the link weaker, easier to sever. But also more dangerous to you when it snaps." She kneels beside me. "But I can save you, Dante. I can stop the pain. All you have to do is accept me as your mate. Choose me. Let me finish the spell—"
"I'd rather die."
The words come out clear and strong despite the pain. And I mean them. I'd rather die than betray Isla one more time.
Serena's face twists with rage. "Fine. Then die. But first, let me tell you the best part." She leans close, whispers in my ear. "Isla's pregnant. Was pregnant, I should say. Found out the day before her birthday party. She was going to tell you that night. " No. Please, no. " But she left before she could. And now she's gone, and you'll never know if she kept it or if the stress of running made her lose it." Serena's smile is pure evil. "Either way, you ruined another piece of her. How does that feel, Alpha?"
She leaves me there, broken on the office floor.
The bond is almost totally severed now. Just threads left. Soon there will be nothing.
Marcus finds me an hour later, barely breathing. "Hospital. Now."
"No." I grab his arm. "Find her. Find Isla. She's—there might be—"
I can't say it. Can't say the word 'pregnant' because if I do, if I let myself hope there might be another kid, and then find out I destroyed that too— "I'll find her," Marcus promises. "But first, we're keeping you alive."
The pack doctor studies me with grim eyes. "The link break is killing him. His wolf is too damaged. If we can't reconnect them in the next forty-eight hours—"
"He'll die," Marcus finishes.
The doctor nods.
I stare at the ceiling, feeling my life drain away hour by hour. Somewhere out there, Isla is probably partying. Free of me at last. Maybe she is pregnant. Maybe she'll teach my child to hate me, and I'll deserve every bit of that hatred.
Or maybe she lost it. Lost the baby because I stressed her so badly she ran away, and that killed— I can't finish the thought.
My phone rings. Unknown number.
"Hello?" My voice is barely a whisper.
"Alpha Blackthorn." It's Elder Moira again. "I've changed my position. You may see Isla. Once. To say goodbye before the bond severs completely."
Hope bursts in my chest. "Where? When? I'll leave right now—"
"Silver Moon City. Tomorrow at sunset. The old Cathedral. Come alone, or you'll never see her again." She stops. "And Dante? She knows about the pregnancy. She's keeping the baby. Thought you should know what else you're losing."
The line goes dead.
I'm crying now, ugly and broken. There's a baby. Another child. And I'll die before I ever meet them.
Unless I can convince Isla to give me one more chance.
Unless I can make her understand that I loved her all along, I was just too poisoned and blind to feel it.
Forty-eight hours until the bond kills me.
One chance to save everything.
Marcus emerges in the doorway, his face pale. "Dante. There's something else. Kieran's having dreams. Violent ones. He keeps yelling about 'the silver-haired lady' and asking why she left him. " He drinks hard. " The pack doctor says Serena's spells are breaking. His real memories are coming back. And it's killing him. "
My five-year-old son is breaking apart because of my choices.
"Bring him here," I whisper.
When Kieran walks in, he looks so small. His eyes are red from crying. He looks at me like he doesn't know me.
Maybe he doesn't. Maybe I've been a stranger to both my children.
"Daddy?" His voice is tiny. "Where's my real mommy? The one who sang to me? I miss her. Why did she leave?"
The question breaks what's left of my heart.
"Because I was bad to her," I tell him honestly. "Very, very bad. And now she's gone."
Kieran gets onto the hospital bed, curls against me. "Can you bring her back?"
"I don't know, son. I don't know."
But I have to try. Even if it kills me.