60 Days Before the Mate Bond Kills Me

I thought Dr. Robert was going to write another prescription for iron supplements or tell me to get more sleep.

Instead, he uncapped a red pen, clicked it against his clipboard, and wrote two words across the header of my chart in thick, jagged block letters:

*60 DAYS.*

He set the pen down, the plastic tapping sharply against the steel desk.

"I am not going to sugarcoat this, Elara," he said, his voice flat with clinical gravity. "Eighteen months of severe mate rejection have pushed your bond into terminal collapse."

My throat felt tight and dry. "It's just fatigue. I haven't been sleeping because of the pack shift transitions."

"Your wolf is dying," Dr. Robert cut in, not letting me hide behind excuses. "Look at the telemetry. Your resting heart rate shows progressive arrhythmia. Your natural scent markers have dropped by seventy percent over the last four weeks alone. Your body has begun rejecting its own cellular regeneration."

He turned the monitor toward me. The jagged lines of my vital signs looked brittle, like dry twigs waiting to snap under pressure.

"If this regression continues unchecked, your internal organs will fail one by one," he continued. "You will suffer catastrophic internal hemorrhaging within two months. Sixty days is the outer limit."

"There has to be a stabilizer," I said. "An injection. Something from the apothecary."

"There is only one medical treatment that can restart the dormant channels of a rejected bond," Dr. Robert said, handing me the printed diagnostic summary. "Full, voluntary mate consummation. If Alpha Cassian does not sleep with you, you will not survive the summer."

I stared at the black ink stamped across the bottom of the page: *Recommended Intervention: Immediate Sexual Consummation via Primary Mate Bond.*

I folded the paper once, stood up, and left the clinic without another word.

***

The Alpha suite on the third floor of the packhouse was dead silent when I walked in.

Cassian sat behind his dark walnut desk, a stack of territorial boundary reports spread before him. He was in a crisp black dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, his jaw set in the usual hard, distant lines he reserved exclusively for me.

I shut the door behind me and turned the deadbolt until it clicked into place.

He didn't look up from his papers. "Whatever grievance you have with the household staff, talk to the steward. I'm busy."

"I don't care about the staff," I said.

My heart hammered violently against my ribs, irregular and weak, exactly as the monitor had shown. I walked across the Persian rug until I was standing directly in front of his desk.

"I need you to sleep with me," I said.

Cassian froze. The pen in his fingers stopped moving.

Slowly, he raised his head, his dark gray eyes scanning my face with cold disbelief. A cruel, incredulous smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "I need you in bed. Today."

I slapped the folded medical report down on top of his territorial maps.

Cassian looked at the paper for a long, silent second before picking it up with two fingers, as if it were contaminated. His eyes skimmed the bold header, drifting down the page until they hit the diagnosis and the recommended treatment.

He let out a dry, mocking laugh that felt like a blade dragged across my skin.

"Consummation?" He dropped the report onto the desk. "Is this your newest angle, Elara? You've moved on from subtle guilt trips to forging medical documents?"

"It's not forged," I said, stepping closer. "Dr. Robert signed it ten minutes ago. The rejection is killing my wolf. The bond is starving, Cassian. My organs are shutting down. If we don't complete the bond, I have less than two months."

"You really think I'm that stupid?"

He stood up, towering over me, his shadow swallowing the light from the desk lamp. His voice dropped to a low, venomous rasp.

"You spent the last six months dropping hints about starting a family," he said, leaning over the desk until I could smell the sharp cedar scent of his skin. "Three months ago, you sat at the dining table and cried because the Beta's mate had a pup. You told me our pack needed an heir."

"That was before—"

"And now you suddenly have a terminal illness that can only be cured by me putting a child in you?" He scoffed, his gaze hardening into pure contempt. "You don't want to live, Elara. You want a baby. You want an heir locked to your name so you can permanently secure your title as Luna before I find a way to sever this bond legally."

The accusation struck so hard my breath caught in my throat. The room seemed to tilt.

"I am trying to stay alive," I whispered. "That's all this is. Look at my vitals. Call Robert right now and ask him yourself."

"I am not playing your pathetic games," he said coldly. "Using the threat of death to force me into your bed is the most disgusting thing you've ever done. If you think I would ever touch you under coercion, you have severely underestimated me."

Before I could speak, the sharp chime of his personal phone shattered the air between us.

Cassian glanced down at the screen. The icy fury on his face vanished in an instant, replaced by immediate concern.

He didn't hesitate. He answered it right in front of me.

"Talia?" he said, his voice dropping into a gentle, soothing register I hadn't heard him use in over a year. "What's wrong?"

I stood frozen as I listened to the quiet, distressed murmurs coming through the speaker.

"Another nightmare?" Cassian asked softly, turning his back to me as he walked toward the window. "Take a deep breath. You're safe. I'll have someone bring chamomile tea to your room right now, and I'll be over in twenty minutes to check on you. Just stay in bed."

Every word felt like a physical blow. He spoke to her with the tenderness of a devoted mate, while looking at me like an intolerable burden.

He ended the call and slipped the phone into his pocket before turning around. The warmth in his expression vanished the moment his eyes landed back on me.

"Unlock the door and get out," he said flatly. "I have somewhere to be."

I looked at him—really looked at him. The man the Moon Goddess had chosen for me. The man who would rather watch me rot from the inside out than believe I was in pain.

I didn't yell. I didn't cry. The panic that had driven me into his office was suddenly replaced by a hollow, freezing clarity.

I reached across the dark wood, picked up my medical report, and folded it neatly in half.

"Fine," I said quietly. "Fifty-nine days, then."

Cassian rolled his eyes, shaking his head at what he clearly considered another melodramatic line in a scripted performance. "Don't embarrass yourself any further, Elara."

I didn't answer. I turned the lock, opened the heavy oak door, and walked out into the corridor.

I didn't stop until I reached my private bedroom at the far end of the west wing.

Inside, the silence was suffocating. I walked over to the desk by the window where a small paper calendar hung on the wall.

Taking a pen from the drawer, I drew a thick, black X over today's date.

One day down. Fifty-nine left.

My chest gave a sharp, violent spasm, and I pressed my sleeve against my mouth as a coughing fit tore through my lungs. When I pulled my hand away, a dark crimson smear stained the white fabric.

I turned toward the wastebasket beside the nightstand.

Sitting at the very bottom was the tissue from this morning, crusted with the exact same blood.

Cassian didn't believe I was dying.

And by the time he realized the truth, the countdown would already be over.