The Marrow Went to His Moon,Now I’m Alpha

The rain was still washing over the city when I got back to Whitecross General. By then, my hands had stopped shaking. I pushed open the door to the hospital room, and the air inside hit me like a wall. Suffocating. Heavy. Elder Raine was the first to reach me. "Lydia. Did you get the Bone-Kernel? Tell me. Where is Severin? He didn't come back with you?" I let out a bitter laugh. "I'm sorry. I don't have the Bone-Kernel. Severin gave it to Freya." Raine went pale. "What? Are you certain? Did you explain it to him clearly? Does he even know what condition the Chief is in?" Elder Kris was just as stunned. "The Bone-Kernel is the sacred treasure of the pack. The only thing that can save her life. Freya is nothing but a low-born hybrid. What gives her the right?" I lifted my head. Tears slipped down my cheeks, perfectly timed. "I told him everything. I spelled it out. I begged him. I got down on my knees and begged him. I said Mother was at the hospital waiting for the Bone-Kernel, that every second we wasted, she slipped further away. And Severin said let her wait. He said once Freya was done with it, he would send the leftover scraps over." The entire corridor sank into a dead silence. Then the wolves erupted. "Our Chief spent her whole life bleeding for this pack, and now in her final hour she's supposed to swallow some outsider woman's leftovers?" "Severin has lost his mind. He would let his own mother die for the sake of that female." "This is our future king? Does he have any respect left for the laws of the Bonehowl Pack? For the bloodline?" "When the Chief wakes up, I will tell her every single word." No one responded. Because everyone knew the truth. She might not wake up at all. I leaned against the wall and watched the frail figure through the glass of the intensive care unit. She lay there, her breathing so faint it barely registered. And then I remembered. Three years ago. That winter. A few of the young wolves had crossed the border during the full moon hunt. They clashed with a hunting party from the Urska, the bear clan of the north. Both sides came back bloodied. War was one wrong breath away. Nora walked straight into a blizzard with nothing but a cane. She stood between the two forces and pulled a full-blown war back from the brink with nothing but her words. The day she came home, she was burning with fever. But she grinned like a young warrior who had just taken down her first kill. She clapped me on the shoulder and said, "Lydia, our pack doesn't just need sharp claws and strong fangs. We need people with shoulders broad enough to carry real weight." That was the last time I saw her so alive.