VIOLA'S POV

The first thing I heard was his voice.

"Start the next round. She's awake enough."

My eyes opened to a white ceiling and a humming light that made my teeth ache. Something tight bit into my left forearm. I turned my head and saw a leather restraint buckled over skin already bruised purple and yellow, the old marks layered under fresh ones like someone had been tracing the same line for months.

Someone had.

"Alpha Derek," a nurse said quietly. She was young, with a tired ponytail and a name badge that read *Nell*. "Her pulse is still low. If we push another session this soon..."

"You can rest when Chloe is better."

He wasn't talking to Nell. He was looking at me.

Derek stood at the foot of the treatment table in a dark coat still wet at the shoulders, two pack guards behind him at the door. He was exactly the way the book had described him. Sharp jaw, gray eyes, the kind of stillness that made other wolves lower their heads without being asked.

The book.

My gaze slid past him to the metal rack against the far wall. A covered instrument tray sat on the top shelf, a white cloth draped over it, but I knew what was underneath. A silver bowl. A row of thin, hollow needles. The clamp shaped like a closing hand.

In the last chapter of that novel, Viola Mills had been strapped to this same table while those instruments pulled her wolf out of her, piece by piece, to keep Chloe alive. She'd died with her mate holding Chloe's hand in the next room.

I was Viola now.

*Viola.* The voice inside my chest was so faint it barely counted as sound. *It hurts.*

Ceci. My wolf. She sounded like a thread about to snap.

If I lay here and let them start again, I already knew where this road ended.

Derek came around the side of the table and put his hand on my shoulder.

It was meant to hold me down. I knew that. But the second his fingers touched me, my body leaned toward him before my mind could stop it, like a plant turning toward a window.

His fingertips were cold. They always had been.

And all at once I was somewhere else. Rain hammering the healing den windows. My mother was inside, and nobody would tell me if she was alive. Eight-year-old me in a borrowed sweater, too numb to cry, and a boy sitting down beside me on the wet porch steps without a word. He'd opened his hand. A caramel in wax paper, the cheap kind from the gas station.

"You didn't eat," Derek had said back then. "Eat something."

Viola had held on to that caramel for sixteen years. She'd let it carry her through every cold look, every missed dinner, every time he'd walked past her to reach Chloe.

My hand was shaking against the leather strap. I didn't know if it was her grief or mine. It didn't matter. It hurt the same.

*I miss him too,* Ceci whispered. *I miss how he used to be.*

I closed my eyes.

*I know why we stayed,* I told her. *We're still allowed to leave.*

She didn't answer, but something in my chest eased a fraction. Like she'd been waiting a long time for someone to say it.

I opened my eyes and looked at the man holding my shoulder.

"Where are Chloe's test results?"

Derek's brow creased. "What?"

"The first time she got sick. Someone must have tested her blood. I want to see what the poison was."

Behind him, Silas stepped forward. The pack's head healer, gray at the temples, wire-rimmed glasses he pushed up whenever he was about to lie. He pushed them up now and handed me a clipboard.

I scanned it. Session times. Dosage of healing energy. A note that read *Donor: V. Mills, continue until patient stabilizes.*

"This is a schedule," I said. "I asked for a diagnosis."

"The diagnosis is that Chloe is dying," Silas said. "That's all you need to know."

"Then it won't hurt to show me."

I flipped to the second page. There was a header that said *Initial Toxicology*. The lines below it were blank. No results. No signature.

I held it up so Derek could see.

"Nobody signed this. Nobody even filled it out."

"Silas has been treating Chloe for weeks." Derek's voice went flat. "I don't need a form to tell me she's sick. I've watched her cough up blood."

"Then why does it have to be my wolf? Why not a donor bank, or a healer from another pack?"

"Because your blood is the only one that works." His grip tightened. "Is this about jealousy, Viola? Because if it is, this is a really bad time for it."

The old Viola would have spent ten minutes swearing she wasn't jealous. She would have cried and apologized and given him whatever he asked for just to prove she was good.

I didn't say anything.

A smooth gray stone was set into the device beside my arm, wired to the needles taped above my elbow. It glowed faintly whenever I let my power flow into it. I'd done it so many times my body knew the motion on its own.

I pulled back.

It was like closing a hand that had been open too long. Ceci shuddered with relief. The glow in the stone flickered, dimmed, and went dark.

Silas frowned at the monitor. "The connection's dropped."

"It didn't drop," I said. "I stopped."

Derek leaned down until his face was inches from mine.

"Turn it back on." The Alpha command rolled through the room. The guards stiffened. Nell took a half step back.

My shoulders locked. My spine tightened like someone had pulled a wire through it. Every instinct I had wanted to obey.

But obeying wasn't the same as having something to give. Ceci was nearly empty. His command could make me want to bleed for him. It couldn't make blood.

"I said turn it on."

"Show me the diagnosis," I said through my teeth. "Until then, you get nothing."

The silence that followed was loud enough to hurt.

"And I want an independent healer here," I added. "Someone outside this pack. Until that happens, I'm not starting another session."

Silas laughed, short and thin. "She's stalling, Alpha. Every hour she plays games, Chloe gets worse."

Derek straightened slowly. He looked at me for a long moment, and something in his face closed like a door.

"Get me the containment form."

Silas had it ready. Of course he did. Derek signed it against the wall, the pen scratching hard enough to tear the paper.

"Effective now, Viola doesn't leave the treatment wing." He handed the form to the nearest guard. "She's already hurt Chloe by stopping. I won't let her do more damage out of spite."

"Hurt her," I repeated. "By not letting you drain me."

"By choosing your pride over her life."

He didn't wait for my answer. He walked out, and the cold of his hand stayed on my shoulder after he'd gone.

The guards started clearing the room. Silas went with them, already muttering into his phone.

Nell stayed by the counter, pretending to sort gauze.

"Nell," I said quietly. "Can I borrow your pen?"

She hesitated, glanced at the door, then pressed it into my free hand.

On the counter beside her was a stack of standard forms. I'd seen them every time I came in. *Patient Transfer Request: Outside Evaluation.* Any patient in a healer's care could file one. The book had mentioned it once, in a single line, on the day Viola was too broken to remember it existed.

Nell slid one onto the table next to my hand without a word.

My fingers were too shaky to write a decent signature. I clicked the pen open, smeared the ink across my thumb, and pressed it into the signature box. The print came out dark and smudged, but it was mine.

"Done," I whispered.

Footsteps came back toward the door.

Nell moved fast. She folded the form in half and tucked it into a canvas pouch stamped with the logo of the neutral clinic downtown, the one that collected routine referrals every evening. She dropped it into the outgoing bin with three others like it, then picked up her tray as if nothing had happened.

A guard filled the doorway, a ring of keys in his hand.

"Out," he told her.

Nell left without looking back at me.

The guard reached for the door. Through the gap, I caught a glimpse of Derek in the hallway, his phone pressed to his ear, his back to me.

"Lock the door if you want," I called after him. "My answer stays no."

He didn't turn around.

The door shut. The lock turned with a heavy metal click, loud in the quiet room.

I lay there with the dark stone beside my arm and ink drying on my thumb. Ceci's breathing slowed into something almost like sleep, and for the first time in this body, nothing was being taken from her.

I'd kept my wolf.

And I'd learned the truth about my mate. He would lock me in a room to get what he wanted from me, and he wouldn't even turn around while he did it.

VIOLA'S POV

The breakfast tray came at seven. It left at seven-oh-two.

I'd barely pushed myself upright when a kitchen aide in a gray apron walked in, set it on the rolling table, and then lifted it right back off again as a guard leaned through the doorway and said something I didn't catch. Oatmeal, toast, a paper cup of orange juice. All of it disappeared down the hall.

"Hey," I called. "That was mine."

The guard didn't bother looking at me. "Orders. You're on standby for the next session. No food."

The door clicked shut. The rolling table sat there, empty, with a faint ring of condensation where the juice had been.

My stomach cramped. I hadn't eaten since I'd woken up in this body, and Viola's body hadn't been eating much before that.

Nell came in twenty minutes later with a blood pressure cuff and the bedside nursing log tucked under her arm. She took one look at the bare table and frowned.

"Did they already take it?"

"Someone said I'm supposed to fast. For the ritual."

She opened the log and ran her finger down the page, then flipped back two more. "There's no fasting order. Nothing from Silas, nothing from the Alpha. You're actually flagged for low blood sugar." She tapped a line. "I wrote that myself on Tuesday."

"Then write this down too." I nodded at the log. "Write down who ordered it."

Nell hesitated, pen hovering. "Viola, if I put a guard's name in here, it goes in front of Silas."

"Good. Put the time. Put the reason he gave. Put that I asked for food and didn't get any."

She looked at me for a second longer than she needed to. Then she wrote it, neat and small, and turned the book so I could read it.

*0702. Breakfast removed by order of guard on duty. Stated reason: standby for session. No fasting order on file. Patient requested meal. Denied.*

The door opened before she could close the log.

Derek came in fresh from a shower, hair still damp, a pressed shirt under his dark coat. He looked at the nursing log before he looked at me.

"What are you writing?" he asked.

Nell closed the book halfway. "Her breakfast was taken, Alpha. There isn't an order for her to fast."

"She's supposed to be ready when Silas calls."

"Then Silas can give me a written reason," I said. "So far nobody has."

Derek held out his hand for the log. Nell gave it to him. He read the entry, then looked at the bare rolling table.

"You could have asked me," he said.

"I did. Yesterday I asked for Chloe's diagnosis. You locked the door. This morning I asked for breakfast. Your guard took it away."

"I'm trying to keep Chloe alive."

"I know what you're trying to do. I'm telling you what it's costing me."

He set the book on the counter. For a moment I thought he might actually read the page about low blood sugar. Instead he turned it facedown.

"I'll have them bring you another tray," he said. "When you cooperate with Silas. One session, Viola. Then you can eat and rest all you want."

Nell's pencil stopped moving.

"You hear yourself, right?" I asked.

"I'm offering to help you."

"You're offering me my own breakfast in exchange for more blood."

He went very still. Then he stepped closer and reached for the strap at my wrist. I jerked before he touched it. My arm ached from the old punctures, and the leather was still buckled tight enough to leave a mark.

Derek's hand paused over the buckle.

"You used to trust me," he said.

I wanted to. That was the problem. Somewhere inside this body, a girl was still holding a caramel wrapper and remembering the boy who'd sat beside her when her mother died. Ceci stirred at the memory, weak and frightened.

"Then give me a reason to," I said. "Let Nell take the strap off. Let her give me food. Show me what Chloe actually has."

He looked at Nell.

"Leave it on," he said. "Silas will decide when she's fit to move."

The little hope I'd felt went cold.

"Write that down, too," I told Nell.

"Viola." Derek's voice sharpened.

"His name. His order. The time." I looked at him instead of the strap. "If you're sure it's right, you shouldn't mind having it on paper."

He walked to the door and opened it. A guard straightened in the hall.

"No one takes her out of this wing without my permission," he said. "And I want her at the pack breakfast tomorrow. She needs to remember she's still part of this family."

He left without waiting to hear what I thought of that.

---

Nell stayed until the sound of his boots had gone. Then she turned the log over and finished the entry.

"Did he mean it?" I asked. "About tomorrow?"

"He told the kitchen to set the family table before he came here." She glanced toward the door. "I don't know what he's planning."

"Neither do I."

I watched her take the blood pressure cuff off my arm. There was a fresh bruise where it had pressed against the older ones.

"Will the clinic get my transfer request?" I asked.

Nell hesitated. Then she lifted the corner of a small receipt tucked into her pocket, just enough for me to see the neutral clinic's stamp.

"The referral pouch was collected last night. I got a receipt when they took it. It's outside Silverpine's filing system now."

I let out a breath I'd been holding since the guard turned the lock.

"Keep that receipt," I said.

"I will."

She checked the door, then went to the counter and filled a paper cup with water. She held it where I could reach it without pulling against the strap.

"I can't get an unauthorized meal past that guard," she said quietly. "But I can record what happened. And the outside evaluation request is already on its way."

"That's more than anyone else has done."

Her mouth tightened. She didn't look pleased by it.

"It shouldn't be," she said.

I drank slowly. My stomach hurt, and my arm hurt, and none of it made me want to turn the gray stone on again. The monitor beside the table stayed dark.

Tomorrow he'd make me sit with the pack as though this was a family disagreement. Tonight his order still held the door shut.

I watched Nell put the nursing log under her arm. She took her receipt with her when she left.

At least one request he'd tried to block had made it outside his walls.

VIOLA'S POV

Derek didn't come to drain me that morning. He came to collect me.

"Breakfast," he said, holding the door open. "The pack's waiting. You're coming."

Two guards walked me down the corridor with Nell trailing behind, the nursing log hugged against her chest. My legs felt like wet paper. By the time we reached the dining hall, the long oak table was already full, and every conversation dropped at once.

My chair sat at Derek's right hand, the way it had for three years.

A folded place card rested on the plate. Cream stock, gold ink, careful handwriting.

*Chloe.*

Derek stood before I could say anything. He didn't look at me. He looked at the table.

"While Viola recovers, Chloe will handle Luna duties. Events, visitors, the council calendar. I expect everyone to support her."

Chloe rose from the seat beside his, pale and soft-eyed in a cream sweater. Derek reached into his pocket and took out a small silver brooch shaped like a crescent moon.

His mother's brooch. The one he'd pinned on my collar the night of our engagement, telling me it had been waiting for the right Luna.

He fastened it to Chloe's sweater with careful fingers. Someone started clapping. Then everyone did.

An older she-wolf from the kitchen staff slid a silver tea tray across the table until it bumped my hip. Teapot, sugar bowl, a single porcelain cup.

"Go on," she said, not unkindly. "Pour for the acting Luna. She shouldn't have to strain herself."

The room waited. Old Viola would have smiled, poured, and called it an honor.

I picked up the tray and set it back on the table, harder than I meant to. The cup rattled on its saucer. I closed my hand around the back of the nearest chair until the dizziness passed.

"She can have the chair," I said. "She cannot have my blood."

Nobody clapped for that.

Chloe was already moving toward me, her hands lifted, her eyes shining.

"Viola, please don't be upset. I never asked for any of this." She wrapped her arms around me before I could step away. "I just want us to be okay."

Her fingers slid down my left arm and pressed, right through the sleeve, on the inside of my elbow.

On the fresh scab.

Pain shot up to my shoulder. I jerked back. It wasn't a shove. I simply took my arm out of her hands.

Chloe stumbled like I'd thrown her. She fell sideways into Derek, who caught her by the waist.

"Chloe." His voice went low and furious. He turned it on me. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

I didn't answer him. I turned to Nell, who was standing closest, and rolled up my sleeve.

The cuff was damp. A dark red spot had soaked through the cotton. Underneath, the puncture mark had split open again, a thin line of blood running toward my wrist.

"Write this down," I told her. "Left arm, inner elbow. The site from my last session. It was closed when I woke up."

Nell's eyes went from the wound to Chloe's hand and back. She opened the log.

"You pushed her," Derek said. "In front of everyone. She can barely stand."

"She hugged me and pressed on this." I held my arm up, so the whole table could see it. "I moved away. That's what happened."

"She was trying to apologize to you."

"Then she can apologize to the healer who has to close it again." I didn't lower my arm. "Look at my arm before you ask me to apologize."

For three years, I'd said sorry for everything. For being in the way. For being tired. For crying where he could see it. Every apology had been a coin I paid for one more day of being believed, and I'd never once been paid back.

I wasn't buying anything today.

Derek's gaze dropped to the blood. Something flickered across his face, too quick to name. Then Chloe made a small, shaky sound against his chest, and it was gone.

"Sit down," he said. "Wait until she's calm. Then we'll talk about this like adults."

"There's nothing to wait for."

I twisted the ring off my finger.

It stuck at the knuckle. My hands had gotten thinner since he'd put it there. When it finally came free, the skin underneath was pale and dented, like the ring had left a shape of itself behind.

I set it on the edge of the silver tray, beside the teacup nobody had filled.

"From now on, take Luna business to the acting Luna," I said. "The calendar, the visitors, all of it. Don't send it to me."

The room went so quiet I could hear the radiator ticking.

Derek moved fast. His hand closed over the ring and swallowed it into a fist, as if he could undo the moment by hiding the evidence.

"Don't do this, Viola." His knuckles were white. "You want me to back down about Chloe, fine, we can discuss it. But not like this. Not in front of the pack."

He thought it was a move. A threat. A way to make him come running.

"I'm not asking you to back down," I said. "If you want her in my place, stop asking me to fill it."

His fist didn't open. He stared at me like I was speaking a language he used to know.

I didn't need his shock. I didn't need anyone in this room to witness what I'd decided. My thumbprint was already sitting in a canvas pouch somewhere downtown.

"Take her back," Derek said to the guards, without taking his eyes off me.

The walk back felt twice as long. Nell stayed at my elbow, close enough to catch me. I didn't let her have to.

We turned the last corner into the treatment wing and stopped.

Two strangers stood outside my door.

The woman was in her forties, short silver-streaked hair, a battered leather medical case at her feet with the corners worn white from travel. The man next to her was tall, broad through the shoulders, in a dark jacket with road dust on the hem. He didn't move like a guard. He moved like someone the guards should be worried about.

My skin prickled. Alpha. Not ours.

Derek's footsteps came up fast behind us. He must have followed.

The woman didn't greet anyone. She walked straight past the guards, into the room, and looked at the treatment table. At the leather restraint still hanging open from the rail, stained dark at the buckle.

"I'm Mira Lowell. Clinic referral." She turned to me, her eyes going to my bleeding sleeve. "Was this used on you?"

"Every session."

"Take it off the table," Mira said to the nearest guard. "Now. My patient doesn't go near that again."

The guard looked at Derek.

"She's not your patient," Derek said.

The tall man reached into his jacket and held up a folded document. A wax seal was pressed into the bottom corner, deep green, stamped with a mountain and a river.

"Rowan Hale, Alpha of Greyhaven. This is a border passage seal under the neutral medical corridor agreement." His voice was calm and unhurried. "Your council signed it twelve years ago. Any patient who files for outside evaluation gets safe transport and an independent healer. No pack can block it."

The guards stepped back from the door. One of them actually lowered his eyes.

Derek's jaw tightened. "This is a pack matter. She's my mate."

Rowan didn't argue with him. He didn't even look at him. He looked at me.

"I'm asking Viola," he said. "Do you want to leave with us?"

The question hung there.

Nobody had ever asked me that. Not in this body, and from everything Viola remembered, not in hers either. Questions about me were always asked over my head. Decisions about me were always signed against walls.

Rowan waited. He didn't rush me, and he didn't fill the silence for me.

*Yes,* Ceci whispered, faint but sure. *Yes.*

I nodded.

Beside me, Derek's hand came up, reaching for my elbow the way he used to when I stumbled on stairs, a long time ago.

It stopped in midair, an inch from my sleeve.

And for the first time, I watched him realize he didn't get to decide where I went next.