Kira's POV
I'm dying, and I can't even enjoy my freedom.
Three days. I've been running for three days straight, barely stopping to drink water, never stopping to sleep. My silver wolf is fast—faster than any wolf should be—but speed doesn't matter when your own body is killing you from the inside.
The pain started twelve hours after I rejected Daemon. A burning sensation in my chest, right where the mate bond tried to settle. At first, I thought it was just heartbreak—the normal agony of rejecting your fated mate.
But this is worse than normal.
This is wrong.
We're dying, my wolf whimpers. She's been getting weaker by the hour, her voice fading like a radio losing signal. The bond won't break. It's stuck.
"What do you mean stuck?" I gasp out loud, stumbling over a tree root. "I rejected him. It's done."
You rejected him. He didn't accept it. The bond is trapped between broken and whole. And it's killing us.
I collapse against a tree, my vision swimming. Through the mate bond—the cursed thing that won't let me go—I can feel Daemon. He's far away but getting closer. He's been tracking me for three days, never stopping, never giving up.
Obsessive bastard.
My stomach cramps so hard I double over, retching. Nothing comes up—I haven't eaten in two days. Can't keep anything down.
"Just a little farther," I tell myself. "Just—"
The world tilts sideways.
I'm falling, but I don't remember deciding to fall. The ground rushes up to meet me, and I taste blood. Did I bite my tongue? I can't tell anymore. Everything hurts too much to identify individual pains.
Get up, my wolf begs. Kira, please. He's getting closer. If he finds us—
"Let him find us," I mumble into the dirt. "Maybe he'll accept the rejection and I can finally die in peace."
You don't mean that.
"Don't I?"
I force myself to crawl forward. Just a few more feet. I can see a stream ahead, water sparkling in the afternoon sun. If I can just reach it, drink something, maybe I'll have the strength to keep running.
My hand touches water. It's ice-cold and perfect, and I'm gulping it down like I've been lost in a desert. Some of it goes down wrong and I'm coughing, choking, still drinking because I'm so desperately thirsty.
When I finally stop, I look up and freeze.
A line of stones crosses the stream. Each stone is marked with a symbol—a broken circle with a slash through it.
The boundary marker for the Shadow Lands.
Rogue territory. Forbidden territory. The place where wolves who've been exiled or who ran away from their packs live without rules, without law, without protection. Alpha Ryker has warned the pack about this place since I was a kid: "Cross that boundary, and you're no longer one of us. Rogues are dangerous, unpredictable, and they'll kill you as soon as look at you."
But right now, dangerous sounds better than going back.
I drag myself across the stream, over the boundary stones, into the Shadow Lands.
Immediately, the air feels different. Wilder. Freer. Like the forest itself knows it doesn't belong to any pack.
"Freedom," I whisper, and then I collapse for real this time.
The last thing I see before darkness takes me is two wolves emerging from the trees. One black as midnight, one brown with grey streaks. Their eyes are watching me, calculating.
Then nothing.
I wake up dying.
Or maybe I'm already dead, and this is what death feels like—soft blankets, warm firelight, the smell of soup cooking somewhere nearby.
"She's awake," a female voice says.
I try to sit up and immediately regret it. Pain explodes through my chest, and I'm gasping, clawing at my shirt like I can rip out whatever's burning inside me.
Hands push me back down gently but firmly. "Don't move. You'll make it worse."
My vision clears enough to see a young woman sitting beside the bed. She's maybe twenty-three, with brown hair streaked with grey—the same pattern as the wolf I saw before I passed out. Her eyes are kind but sharp, like she's seen too much of the world's ugliness.
"Who—where—"
"You're in the Shadow Lands," she says. "My name is Sera. My brother Knox found you collapsed by the border stream. You've been unconscious for six hours."
Six hours? Daemon could have caught up by now. He could be—
He's close, my wolf confirms weakly. But he stopped at the boundary. He won't cross into rogue territory without permission.
Even now, following rules. Typical Alpha behavior.
"We need to leave," I try to sit up again. "I can't stay here. He'll—"
"He'll what? The Alpha heir who's been tearing up the forest looking for you?" Sera raises an eyebrow. "Yeah, we know about him. Half the Shadow Lands heard his howling. Very dramatic."
"It's not funny," I snap, but my chest is burning again and I'm coughing up blood.
Sera's expression turns serious. "No, it's not funny. Kira, right? That's what he's been screaming. 'Kira, come back. Kira, please.'" She wipes the blood from my chin with a cloth. "You rejected your mate."
It's not a question.
"Yes," I whisper.
"But he didn't accept it."
"No."
"And now the bond is stuck between broken and whole, and it's slowly draining your life force." Sera's voice is matter-of-fact, like she's discussing the weather. "You've got maybe two months if you're lucky. One month if you're not."
The words hit like a slap. "Two months?"
"The mate bond isn't meant to be half-rejected," a male voice says from the doorway. A tall man enters—the black wolf from before, I realize. He has the same sharp eyes as Sera. "It's like tearing a piece of paper halfway. Eventually, the tear spreads and destroys the whole thing."
"This is my brother Knox," Sera introduces. "We're twins. And before you ask—yes, we're rogues. We left Silvercrest Pack five years ago."
I stare at them. "You're from Silvercrest?"
"Born and raised," Knox says bitterly. "Until Alpha Ryker decided we were traitors and tried to execute us for a crime we didn't commit. We ran instead." He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. "So when we found you—the girl everyone in Silvercrest thinks is worthless—collapsed in our territory, we figured you deserved a chance."
"I'm not worthless," I say automatically, and I'm surprised by how much I mean it. Three days ago, I might have believed them. But now, with my silver wolf and the knowledge of what I really am, I know better.
"No," Sera agrees, studying me with those sharp eyes. "You're not. You're a Silver Wolf, unless I miss my guess. Blessed by the Moon Goddess herself. Probably the most powerful wolf Silvercrest has seen in generations."
"Then why is she killing me?" I gesture at my chest where the bond burns.
"Because you rejected your other half," Knox says simply. "The Moon Goddess doesn't take rejection lightly. Especially not from her chosen wolves."
I want to argue, but another wave of pain cuts me off. This time it's so bad I actually scream, my back arching off the bed.
Sera grabs my shoulders. "Breathe through it. Knox, get the herbs."
"They won't help much longer," Knox says, but he disappears anyway.
When the pain finally fades to a dull throb, I'm soaked in sweat and shaking. "I won't go back to him," I gasp out. "I don't care what the bond wants. I won't."
"Even if it kills you?" Sera asks gently.
"He already killed me," I say, and I mean it. "He killed me every day for eight years. This is just my body catching up."
Sera and Knox exchange a look.
"There might be another way," Knox says slowly, returning with a cup of something that smells like plants and dirt. "But you're not going to like it."
"Tell me."
"The bond is stuck because it's incomplete," Sera explains. "You have two choices to unstick it. First choice: convince Daemon to accept your rejection. The bond breaks completely, and you both live."
"He won't accept it," I say flatly. "I can feel him through the bond. His wolf is going crazy. He'll never let me go."
"Then that leaves choice two." Knox hands me the cup. "Complete the mate bond. Accept him as your mate, let the bond settle fully. It'll stop killing you."
"No." The word comes out harsh and final. "I'd rather die."
"You might get your wish," Sera says softly. She takes my hand, and I see the pity in her eyes. "Kira, I know what he did to you. Knox and I lived in Silvercrest—we saw how the pack treated you. How he treated you. And you have every right to hate him."
"But?" I can hear the 'but' coming.
"But the mate bond doesn't care about right or wrong," Knox finishes. "It just cares about survival. And right now, you're not surviving."
I drink the herb mixture. It tastes like death but numbs some of the pain.
"How long do I really have?" I ask.
Sera's face tells me everything before she speaks. "With the herbs? Maybe six weeks. Maybe less."
Six weeks to live unless I either convince my tormentor to let me go, or chain myself to him forever.
Some choice.
"There's one more thing," Knox says, and something in his voice makes me look up. "Your bond—it's not just stuck. It's leaking."
"Leaking?"
"Your power is bleeding through the bond," Sera explains. "Daemon is absorbing some of it without meaning to. And there are people who would kill to get their hands on a Silver Wolf's essence."
"What people?"
Knox and Sera exchange another look.
"There are rumors," Knox says carefully, "that someone in Silvercrest has been practicing forbidden magic. The kind that steals wolf essence and power. If they find out you're a Silver Wolf and you're weakened by a half-broken bond..."
He doesn't need to finish.
I'm not just dying from the bond. I'm bait for anyone powerful enough to steal what I am.
"This just keeps getting better," I mutter.
A howl echoes through the forest—close enough that I feel it through my bones. Daemon. Still searching. Still refusing to give up.
He won't stop, my wolf whispers. He'll hunt us forever.
"Good," I say out loud, ignoring Sera and Knox's confused looks. "Let him hunt. I've been prey my whole life. At least now I'm prey worth chasing."
But even as I say it, another wave of pain hits, and I know the truth:
I'm running out of time.
And Daemon Silvercrest might be the only person who can save me—or the one who'll finally destroy me completely.