Chapter 7
Ford’s POV
I was on my knees, the letter clutched in my trembling hand.
Blood dripped from my knuckles, staining the edges of the paper, but I felt no pain.
The last sentence was seared onto my retinas:
“Ford, I miss you so much. The very air feels thin without you. Wait for me. Our baby and I will be with you soon.”
“No, no, no-“I shook my head wildly. “Shelly, it wasn’t supposed to be like this—”
She thought I was dead.
She thought she’d lost me, so she took her own life.
I had killed her.
“Alpha!” The Beta burst into the room, his eyes widening at the blood and debris. “What are you doing?”
“She thought I was dead!” I looked up, my eyes filled with a desperate madness. “She thought she lost me, so she-“I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Alpha, you need to calm down-”
“CALM DOWN?” I let out a wild, hoarse laugh. “I killed my mate,” I choked out, the words like acid in my throat. “I killed her with my own two hands.”
The Beta approached me cautiously. “Alpha, the Luna’s death was an accident-”
“IT WASN’T AN ACCIDENT!” I yelled. “Why did she leave so suddenly? Why would she take a plane, alone, at night?”
I scrambled to my feet and stumbled to the window.
“Investigate everything she did before she died,” my voice turned to ice. “I want to know everything that happened in her last few days.”
“Alpha-”
“DO IT NOW! I want every minute accounted for!”
Three hours later, the Beta returned with a stack of files.
“Alpha, we found something… strange,” he said, setting the files down, his expression grim. “The night before she died, the Luna went to the family’s secret altar.”
My head snapped up. “The altar? What was she doing there?”
“The security footage shows-” the Beta paused. “She performed a forbidden Life Weaver ritual.”
My blood ran cold. “What ritual?”
“She used her own power,” the Beta said softly, “to place the pup’s life force into a magical stasis.”
I collapsed into a chair.
Shelly had killed our child.
No. Not killed. Suspended.
“Show me the footage,” my voice was a ghost of itself.
1/2
On the screen, Shelly was kneeling at the altar.
I watched as she suddenly clutched her head, bending over in pain, tears streaming down her face.
Then she stood, trembling.
The audio was faint, but I could hear her desperate voice, “Starlight”
A mind-link.
Our code.
She was calling for me. For help.
Then I watched her wait. And wait. And wait.
Until the link was severed.
She crumpled to the ground, sobbing silently,
And then she stood, pressed her hands to her belly, and began that fatal ritual.
“Turn it off,” I closed my eyes, my voice raw,
“Alpha, there’s more-”
“I SAID TURN IT OFF!”
The screen went dark.
The memory slammed into me.
The mind-link. Shelly’s call.
I had been in bed with Kyra.
I thought Shelly was being needy, annoying.
So I brushed her off, cut the link, and went back to Kyra.
And while I did that, my Luna was at the altar, in agony, putting our child to sleep.
All because she thought she had lost me.
“What else?” my voice was terrifyingly hollow.
The Beta handed me the last file, his own hand shaking. “Alpha… we investigated the war threats Kyra told you about.”
I looked up at him.
“The war threat from the Blackrock Pack, Alpha… it never existed. Our intelligence shows they’ve been at peace for decades.
There was never any danger.”
15 Bare
Ch
