Untitled Episode
PROLOGUE: The Bridge
I cannot forget the f*****g time I died.
Not the moment my heart stopped beating. Not the moment the water closed over my head. The moment I died was three hours earlier, standing in a ballroom full of wolves, watching Richard press his lips to Mirabel's forehead while holding my son.
My son…The baby I carried for nine months. The child I sang to every night, whose kicks I counted like blessings. The boy I handed over because Richard promised me the world and I was stupid enough to believe him.
He stood at the front of the gala in his fitted black suit, his arm around Mirabel's waist. She wore emerald green. She was smiling, but it never reached her eyes. In her arms was Emmanuel, dressed in a tiny suit that probably cost more than my rent.
Nobody saw me at the back of the room. I had used a stolen invitation from a server I knew. I just needed to see for myself. Part of me still believed Richard would explain. That there was some misunderstanding. That the six months of silence after I signed over my parental rights was a mistake.
It was not a mistake.
Richard had planned every second of it. Every soft word he whispered during my pregnancy. Every lingering touch. Every promise that Mirabel was a business arrangement, that I was his true choice. All of it was calculated. All of it was a lie designed to keep me happy and compliant until the baby was born and my signature was on the documents.
I left the gala without anyone noticing.
I walked for a long time. My wolf was silent inside me. She had not spoken in weeks. The rejection of our child, the betrayal from the man we trusted, it had broken her too.
The bridge appeared ahead. Millbrook Bridge, spanning the gorge on the eastern edge of pack territory. The water below was black and fast.
I climbed the railing. The wind whipped my hair across my face. I was wearing a cheap dress and no coat. It was November and the cold bit at my skin, but I could not feel anything. I had stopped feeling weeks ago.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out.
A photo had been posted to Richard's social media. Emmanuel in his arms, Mirabel beside him, the caption reading: Our perfect little family. Grateful beyond words.
I let the phone fall into the darkness below.
"I'm sorry," I whispered to my wolf. She did not answer.
I stepped off the railing.
The fall lasted forever and no time at all. The wind screamed in my ears. The water rushed up to meet me. I closed my eyes and waited for the end.
It never came.
Instead, there was light. Blinding, searing white light that burned through my eyelids. And then warmth. Soft cotton against my skin. The smell of cheap laundry detergent and instant coffee.
My eyes snapped open.
I was lying on my back in a bed. A small bed with scratchy sheets and a lumpy mattress. Above me was a water-stained ceiling with a crack running through the plaster.
I knew this ceiling. I had stared at it for two years.
My apartment. My tiny studio apartment in the human district.
I sat up so fast my head spun. My hands grabbed at my stomach. It was damn flat. No baby, no stretch marks…absolutely nothing.
My phone was on the nightstand. I grabbed it with shaking hands and stared at the date.
Eighteen months. I was eighteen months in the past.
On the screen, between old text messages and a low battery warning, there was one notification. A targeted ad from a fertility clinic.
Seeking surrogates. Earn $500,000 and change your f**king life.
My wolf stirred inside me for the first time in weeks. She did not speak words. She did not need to. The rage that poured through our bond was enough.
I stared at the ad until my vision blurred. Then I pulled the phone to my chest and let a smile spread across my face. It did not rea
"Alright, Richard," I said to the empty room. "Let's do this again.”
