Page 24 of Lycan Prince's Secret Baby

But truth clawed at my conscience. His accusationwasn’tentirely unjust. In my muddled state of preparing to see him that night, I had forgotten to take my pills. After returning from Kyle’s, three lonely pills had mocked me from the vial.

Footsteps interrupted my thoughts. Phoebe and Lucy burst into the cabin, laughter spilling over the threshold. “Yay!” Lucy shrieked. “We hoped you’d been given the afternoon off, too.”

Phoebe closed the door and made her way to the bed, excitement twinkling in her eyes. “Who knows how slack the Moonlights might get if they’re celebrating their Alpha’s return?” Her chestnut curls bounced around her as she plotted, and before long, she added, “Maybe we can sneak out into the woods later.”

Lucy grinned, her porcelain skin glinting in the sun from where she danced by the door, clearly too buzzed to be still. My heart ached. I wished I could be so carefree. How I longed to go back to before, to before this weight was lodged in my chest, dragging me down. Not even the glowing sheen of health that our extra rations had given to all of us could buoy up my sour mood.

For a moment, Phoebe’s proposal burrowed into me. Maybe she was right. Maybe the dirt beneath my paws would ease some of this tension. Sometimes, all four of us shifted into our wolf forms. But lying around our cabin and grooming each other wasn’t exactly the same as being free to run the forest paths or climb the slopes of the hills.

But then I remembered that with the way my instincts were running wild—heat flurries swirling through me—my wolf wouldlikely run straight to Kyle’s house given the chance. I clenched my fists at the thought. “I’m tired,” I said, forcing the words out. “I think I’ll just stay in and read.”

I reached for my vial of pills, taking the second to last one. The last one was for tomorrow. I’d rationed them over the last two days.

Mary observed me with concern. “When’s Healer Maria back to give you a refill of vitamins?”

“Tomorrow, hopefully,” if her note on the infirmary door was to be believed. That meager hope was all I had to cling to—the prospect of relief from my heat cycle symptoms and the tumultuous needs of my wolf.

“Seriously, what’s wrong, Leah?” Phoebe’s brown stare locked on me, piercing and probing. “You haven’t been yourself these last couple of days. You’re not telling us everything.”

This was the umpteenth time that my friends had asked me what was eating me. I felt their eyes on me. But so far, I hadn’t been able to open up. Whether it was the news of Kyle’s father’s return or the dwindling medication, I couldn’t pinpoint the source of my anguish. But it was amplified, so much so that tears pricked my eyes at Phoebe’s words.

Mary was beside me in an instant, laying her hand on mine. “Hey, hey… You know you can tell us anything, Leah. Come on,Nuka.”

She used the moon goddess’s word for sister, and my chest filled with warmth. It was true. Sharing this small space and all of our time together had transformed us into sisters. I knew the womenaround meweremy family and had my back. Finally, I felt ready to unburden myself.

“I didn’t tell you before. I didn’t want to worry you all, but Kyle and I are fated mates,” I confessed.

Phoebe narrowed her eyes, slipping into overprotective mode. Mary’s gentle expression encouraged me to go on, and Lucy, for once, didn’t even squeak.

The words poured out of me, each syllable releasing the weight I’d been carrying. “I thought he was different,” I explained, humiliation prickling over my skin. “But after we slept together, he told me to stay away, blaming our hook-up on my estrus symptoms.”

Rage swirled within me, ignited by a flash of memory—the light in Kyle’s passionate stare cooling to disdain.

“What a jerk!” Phoebe blurted out.

“The thing is,” I muttered, “he was right. I did forget to take my medication that day. When I went to see him to return his necklace, I thought I was in control. But I wasn’t.” I fought against the churning emotion swirling through me. More than anything, I was desperate for autonomy and for strength over the primal urges that my heat brought. “I need to find a way to take control of my body, my wolf’s urges—I can’t keep doing this!”

Mary broke the charged quiet. “When I visited the Nightwing Pack for supplies, I met a witch who said that it was within their power to sever the mate bond between two wolves.

A thrill of anticipation sparked through me. “So, it’s possible?” My heart knocked against my chest, racing with possibility.

Mary’s tales of distant towering mountains and deep valleys in far northeast Alaska danced in my mind.

“But we can’t even go out for a run in the woods,” I complained. “How do you propose I get there?”

“No, silly,” Mary said, chuckling. “That’s just where I met a witch who told me about the ritual. Any witch should be able to perform it if you really want the bond broken.”

Hope ignited within me, though it faltered slightly as my wolf growled in protest, anxious to protect the mate bond as usual.

“I want to sever it,” I affirmed fiercely, meeting Mary’s unwavering gaze. “It’s that bond that pulls me to Kyle beyond reason. I refuse to be at the mercy of my wolf’s primal needs; I want to be myself again, strong and independent. I just want to be me,” I finished, my voice steady and sincere.

“What about Naomi?” Phoebe suggested, her eyes sparkling at the thought.

“Nay?” Lucy echoed, coming to sit down on her bed. “Goddess, she was there when I first shifted. She blessed all of us that night when we shifted under the full moon. She’d be perfect.”

Naomi was a well-known local witch who had once graced our pack’s ceremonies before the war. I recalled the whispers about her from those moonlit nights, how magic had shimmered in her wake. “Didn’t she live a few valleys over?”

“Exactly. We could all sneak out this afternoon,” Phoebe said, optimism filling her voice.

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