Chapter 1

The white roses in the deliveryman’s hands were a sick joke.

Ronan Darkfang, the Rogue King, hadn't come to deliver Valentine's greetings. He had come to assassinate the Alpha of the Silvercrest pack.

But Adrian wasn't here at our house.

Instead of guarding his family, my mate was across town. Just ten minutes ago, his childhood sweetheart, Celeste, had posted a photo of two champagne glasses and Adrian's watch resting on a candlelit table.

Ronan kicked the door shut. The roses hit the floor, replaced instantly by a gleaming silver blade.

"Where is he?" Ronan's voice was like grinding stones.

Sophie, who had been carefully cutting out a red paper heart for her father at the kitchen table, froze in terror.

I stepped between them. "He isn't here."

Ronan's smile twisted into a snarl. "Then he'll come for his daughter."

Before my wolf could even surface to protect us, he lunged. He snatched Sophie by her hair, lifting her off her feet, and pressed the cold steel flush against her fragile throat.

She screamed my name.

"Shift," Ronan warned, pressing the blade until a bright bead of blood welled beneath her chin, "and I open her throat."

My frantic wolf whimpered and retreated.

Ronan tossed a small black vial at my feet. The thick liquid inside sloshed menacingly.

Wolfsbane.

Our kind could heal broken bones in days. An Alpha could survive a trace of ordinary wolfsbane if a healer reached him quickly. But I was a weak Omega. The dose in that vial would stop my heart long before anyone thought to look for me.

"Drink," Ronan said.

I reached for Adrian through the mate link.

The bond should have carried fear, pain, even a single word. Instead, I met the smooth black wall Adrian had built between us after Celeste came back.

He had severed the open link because he was tired of what he called my jealousy.

I still pushed against it until pain split my skull.

[Adrian. Sophie and I need you. Please!]

Nothing came back.

Ronan pressed the knife closer. A bright bead of blood appeared beneath Sophie's chin.

"Mommy," she whispered.

I took the vial.

"Let her go first."

"Drink first."

I looked at my daughter. Her dark hair had fallen over one eye. She was trying not to move because she understood the knife would hurt her if she did.

Five years old, and already learning how quiet fear could make a child.

I swallowed the wolfsbane.

It tasted like rust and bitter roots. Fire scraped down my throat. My knees gave out before the empty vial left my hand.

Ronan shoved Sophie away. As she scrambled toward me, he stepped over the crushed roses and vanished through the back door.

"Mommy?" Sophie pressed her trembling hands to my face.

My body was already fighting itself. My muscles cramped. Heat spread through my chest, then turned cold at the edges. I managed to crawl to the bedroom because I didn't want Sophie to watch me die on the kitchen floor, but she followed, crying and pulling at my sleeve.

A thick tide of blood bubbled up my throat and spilled past my lips.

She wiped it away with the cuff of her pink pajamas.

"I'll get Daddy." Her voice shook. "Daddy can fix it."

She ran barefoot to the living room and returned with my phone. I could no longer make my fingers obey me, so she pressed my thumb to the screen to unlock it.

He usually said he was working.

Tonight, he answered on the sixth ring.

"What?" His voice came through the speaker, sharp and impatient. Music played behind him. Glasses clinked. "I told you not to keep calling when I'm busy."

"Daddy?" Sophie sucked in a wet breath. "Mommy has blood in her mouth. A bad wolf came. She can't get up. Please come home."

Silence lasted one second.

It was long enough for hope to rise in me.

Then Adrian said, "Put your mother on the phone."

Sophie held the device to my face. I tried to speak, but only a wet choke escaped as more blood ruined the bedsheets.

"She can't talk," Sophie sobbed. "Please, Daddy. I'm scared."

His breath left him in a hard, disgusted sound. "Sophie, we've talked about lying. You don't copy your mother's manipulative behavior."

I forced a raspy gasp through my throat. "Adrian..."

"I heard you, Evelyn," he snapped. "Using our daughter to ruin tonight is low, even for you. All I did was take an old friend to dinner. Stop making everything ugly because you can't control me!"

The poison violently twisted my heart, but his words hurt infinitely worse.

"Daddy," Sophie begged, "Mommy's bleeding again."

"Then tell her to call a healer! I'm done with this childish game!"

Suddenly, a girl's voice cut in, bright and close to the phone. "Daddy Adrian, which dress should Mommy wear after dinner? The silver one or the red one?"

It was Chloe, Celeste's seven-year-old daughter. When she started calling him 'Daddy', Adrian had eagerly accepted it. But when Sophie complained, he told our daughter to stop being selfish.

Now, his voice changed so completely that even Sophie stopped crying out of sheer shock.

The viciousness vanished, replaced by a sickeningly sweet, doting warmth. "The red one," he told Chloe softly. "Your mom looks beautiful in red. Prettier than anyone in the pack."

I heard Celeste giggle coquettishly in the background.

Sophie stared at the phone, her little chest heaving. "Daddy?"

Adrian hung up.

The screen went dark in her hands.

I had thought the mate bond breaking would be the worst pain he could give me. It wasn't. The worst was watching our daughter understand that her fear could not compete with Chloe's dress.

Sophie climbed onto the bed and pressed her forehead to my shoulder.

"Don't die," she whispered. "I'll be good. I won't ask Daddy to come home anymore."

I wanted to scream that it wasn't her fault. I wanted to hold her.

But the wolfsbane had reached its final destination.

My vision tunneled. Sophie kept moving her small, blood-stained hand across my chest, frantically searching for my fading heartbeat.

"Here?" she whispered. "Mommy, is it here?"

I used my very last ounce of strength trying to lift my arm to embrace her.

My fingers twitched. Then, the agonizing burning abruptly stopped.

The room went dead silent.

For a second, I was swallowed by absolute darkness. But then, I blinked.

I was standing upright beside the bed.

I looked down. Below me lay my own pale, lifeless body, its eyes forever closed. Sophie was still weeping, her hand pressed desperately to my silent chest.

"Mommy?"

I reached for her.

But my fingers passed right through her hair.