After My Mate Murdered Our Child, I Rose Again

The clifftop memorial sat at the edge of Shadowvale territory, where the forest dropped away into open air and the stone marker bearing Oliver's name faced the sunrise. I'd spent hours here in my wheelchair, tracing the letters with my fingers, talking to him in whispers the wind carried away.

Victoria arrived first. I heard her heels on the stone path before I saw her—sharp, deliberate clicks that announced her presence like a performance beginning. She wore soft gray, mourning colors, her hair pulled back in a way that made her look younger. Concerned.

I was already positioned beside the marker, my wheelchair locked in place. The rejection papers and Oliver's drawings sat in my jacket pocket, pressed against my ribs.

"Selene," Victoria said, her voice pitched to carry. "Thank you for coming."

I didn't answer. I looked at the marker instead, at Oliver's name carved into gray stone.

Victoria moved closer, her perfume coating the air—synthetic roses, too sweet. My wolf stirred immediately, that low heat rising. I pressed my thumb against the mark scar on my neck and waited.

"I wanted us to do this together," she continued, crouching beside the marker like she had any right to be near it. "To honor Oliver's memory. To show the pack that we can move forward with grace."

She reached into her own pocket. My wolf went still.

Victoria pulled out a folded piece of paper. Even before she opened it, I recognized the crayon-soft edges, the particular way the folds had worn thin from being carried.

Oliver's last drawing. The unfinished family portrait. Three figures in a field.

I'd kept it in my jacket pocket for a year. I'd checked for it this morning before I left the Omega quarters.

It had been there.

"I found this in Oliver's old room," Victoria said softly, smoothing the paper against her knee. "Such a sweet picture. He was so talented."

She was lying. She'd taken it from my pocket. Probably when she'd patted my shoulder outside the Omega quarters, her hand lingering a second too long.

My wolf sent a pulse of heat up my spine. I locked it down.

Victoria held the drawing up to the light, tilting her head like she was admiring it. Then, very slowly, she tore it in half.

The sound was soft. Paper separating. Crayon lines splitting down the middle.

My body moved before my mind caught up. I lunged from the wheelchair, my damaged legs folding wrong, my hands reaching for the pieces. "Stop—"

Victoria stepped back, tearing again. Massimo's crayon face separated from mine. Oliver's figure split at the waist.

"It's just paper," she said, her voice still soft, still performed. "He's gone, Selene. Holding onto these things won't bring him back."

I hit the ground hard, my knees scraping stone. The pieces fluttered between us—Massimo's smile, Oliver's unfinished sun, my own crayon face staring up at nothing.

Victoria tore once more. Oliver's head separated from his body.

"Massimo!" she called, her voice rising into distress. "Help!"

He appeared within seconds. Too fast. He'd been waiting nearby.

Massimo took in the scene: me on the ground, the drawing in pieces, Victoria's wide eyes and performed fear. His expression hardened.

"Selene." His voice dropped into Alpha tone, the command hitting like a physical weight. "Kneel before Victoria. Apologize."

My body tried to obey. My spine curved inward. My damaged legs folded further, the angle wrong and agonizing. My head bowed.

But my wolf exploded.

Heat flooded my chest, my throat, my eyes. Not the low simmer I'd been swallowing down for days. This was a detonation—primal, enormous, something I couldn't contain.

Gold bled into my vision. My pupils dilated so fast it hurt.

Massimo's Alpha tone faltered. He stepped back, his face uncertain.

My body fought itself—the command pulling me down, my wolf surging up. I was caught between them, my spine arching, my hands clawing at stone.

Victoria's performance cracked. Something cold crossed her face. She grabbed the wheelchair and shoved it into my hip.

Momentum carried me sideways. Toward the cliff edge.

I reached for the marker, for the stone path, for anything. My hands found air.

I went over.

The rock face rushed past. Wind screamed in my ears. The ground approached with brutal clarity—hard, final, terminal.

Oliver's face flashed through my mind. Not the drawing. Him. Real. Four years old and laughing.

My wolf detonated.

Silver fur erupted from my skin in a blinding cascade. My bones cracked and reformed—not the slow shift I'd known before, but something massive and immediate. Pain lanced through every nerve as my body doubled in size, then doubled again.

I was not a wolf. I was something larger.

My claws—silver, huge, sharp enough to split stone—slammed into the rock face. The impact jarred through my shoulders, my spine, my newly reformed legs. But I held.

I clung to the cliff face, trembling, my body enormous and unfamiliar. My vision sharpened—colors brighter, edges clearer. I could smell everything: stone and earth and my own blood, Massimo's scent above, Victoria's synthetic roses.

And something else. Something in my own fur, my own scent.

Royal blood.

Above me, I heard voices. The two Shadowvale sentries who'd been stationed at the memorial perimeter.

"Moon Goddess," one whispered. "That's—"

"Royal blood," the other finished, his voice shaking. "Lycan-lineage. Look at the size of her."

I opened my eyes. Gold stared back at me from my reflection in the stone—not the amber of an ordinary wolf, but the unmistakable Lycan-lineage gold that marked royalty.

My wolf was awake. Fully awake.

And she was not broken.