Second Chance to Free Myself

I woke to agony.

Not the soft morning light filtering through silk curtains. Not the distant sounds of pack members beginning their day. Just pain—white-hot and visceral, tearing through my abdomen like phantom claws ripping me apart from the inside.

My hands flew to my stomach, clutching at flesh that bore no wounds. But I felt it. Every slash. Every tear. The exact moment life had drained from my body while I bled out on cold stone, my unborn pup's heartbeat stuttering to silence beneath my palm.

I counted. One. Two. Three. Four.

My own heartbeat. Steady. Alive.

The counting calmed me—a habit born in another lifetime, when I'd pressed my hand to my swollen belly and listened for the flutter of my child's heart. The child who never got to take a first breath. The child who died because I'd tried to stop Nolan from abandoning me one last time.

Blair. It had always been Blair.

I forced my eyes open. The Luna's quarters—my quarters, though they'd never truly felt like mine—materialized around me. Pale gray walls. Minimalist furniture. Everything chosen by the former Luna, Nolan's mother, who'd made it clear from day one that I was a placeholder until her son came to his senses and chose Blair.

My phone sat on the nightstand, screen glowing with the date.

Today.

The wolf-strengthening ritual. The procedure that was supposed to fix my "weak" wolf, to finally make me worthy of being Shadowcrest's Luna. In my past life, I'd begged Nolan to come with me, clinging to his arm while Blair watched with those calculating eyes. He'd promised he would. Right up until Blair called twenty minutes before we were supposed to leave.

I sat up slowly, my fingers drifting to my neck. The mark there felt incomplete—a half-formed claim that had never fully bonded. Three years as his chosen mate, and the connection remained thin as spider silk where it should have been steel cable.

Because it was false. Because I was never meant to be his.

The Moon Goddess had given me a gift—a second chance wrapped in the memories of my own death. Most wolves would kill for such mercy. But all I felt was cold determination settling into my bones like frost.

I would not beg this time.

The bathroom tiles were freezing beneath my bare feet as I moved through my morning routine on autopilot. The mirror reflected a face I barely recognized—twenty-one years old but eyes aged by death and rebirth. Dark hair that Nolan had once called beautiful before he stopped looking at me altogether. Brown eyes that had cried themselves dry in another timeline.

No tears today.

I dressed in simple leggings and a loose sweater—practical clothing for the ritual that didn't require an audience. My fingers trembled only slightly as I braided my hair back. The phantom pains in my abdomen had dulled to an ache, but I knew they'd never fully disappear. Some wounds transcended timelines.

Nolan's footsteps approached down the hallway before I heard the knock. Alpha hearing—one of the few advantages of our bond, however false it might be.

"Lily? You ready?"

His voice carried the same distracted tone it always did when he spoke to me. Like I was a task on his endless Alpha checklist. Mate the Beta's daughter for political stability. Check. Maintain minimal connection to avoid pack scandal. Check. Actually love her?

Skip.

I opened the door to find him already dressed in tactical gear—prepared for the ritual's demands. He looked the part of an Alpha: tall, powerfully built, dark hair styled with casual perfection. The mate pull tugged at my wolf, that instinctive draw that had fooled me for three years.

But I'd died knowing the truth. The pull was manufactured. The bond was poison.

"I'm ready," I said, keeping my voice neutral.

He glanced at his phone—checking messages, already half-present. "The Healer's expecting us in thirty minutes. It shouldn't take more than a few hours if everything goes smoothly."

If. Such a small word for such enormous implications. The wolf-strengthening ritual could kill a she-wolf without proper support. Without a mate's anchor to ground her through the magical infusion. We both knew this. The Healer had explained the risks three times.

Nolan's phone buzzed in his hand.

I watched his expression shift—the micro-tell I'd learned to recognize over three years of marriage. His jaw clenched. His eyes flickered away from mine before he'd fully processed whatever he'd seen on that screen.

Blair.

"It's probably nothing," I said quietly, making it easy for him.

His head snapped up, something like guilt flashing across his features before his Alpha mask slid back into place. "What?"

"Whatever she's texting you about." I kept my tone light, conversational. In my first life, this was the moment I'd grabbed his arm. Pleaded. Reminded him that he'd promised. That I needed him. That I was his mate.

This time, I simply picked up my phone and keys. "We should probably get going. The Healer doesn't like to wait."

His phone buzzed again. Then again. The rapid-fire pattern of someone in crisis—or someone very skilled at performing one.

I made it three steps toward the door before Nolan's voice stopped me.

"Actually, Lily—"

I turned back slowly. His discomfort was palpable, radiating through the thin bond between us like heat shimmer on asphalt.

"Blair's injured. Training accident. She's saying it's bad—might be a fracture."

Of course she was. The same script as before, playing out with clockwork precision. In my past life, she'd called it a severe injury. Demanded Nolan come immediately. He'd left me standing in this hallway while he rushed to her side, returning four hours later to find I'd gone through the ritual without him.

This time, her timing was even more precise. Twenty minutes before we left instead of during. Giving him time to make his choice before I could corner him with guilt.

Clever Blair.

I met Nolan's eyes and watched him prepare his justification—the Alpha logic that would make abandoning his mate during a life-threatening procedure seem reasonable.

"It's just a routine procedure," he started, and something in my chest went cold. The same words. Exactly the same. "The Healer knows what to do. She's done this dozens of times. And Blair—if she's actually fractured something, the pack's training schedule will be completely thrown off."

The pack. Always the pack's needs over mine.

"But if you need me there—" He added it like an afterthought, already shifting his weight toward the door.

This was the moment. In my first life, I'd said yes. I'd admitted I needed him. I'd watched the frustration flicker across his face as obligation warred with desire, and I'd seen which one lost.

I'd spent my last moments of life remembering that expression. The resentment in his eyes because I'd asked him to choose me over her.

Never again.

"Go," I said.

Nolan blinked. "What?"

"Go to Blair. I don't need you."

The words hung in the air between us like smoke. His confusion was almost comical—this wasn't in the script. I was supposed to cling and plead. I was supposed to make him feel guilty enough to stay, to give him ammunition to resent me later.

I was supposed to play my part in our mutual destruction.

"Are you sure?" he asked, and I heard the relief already bleeding into his tone. "Because the ritual—"

"The Healer will be there. You said yourself it's routine." I adjusted my bag on my shoulder, keeping my movements calm and controlled. "Blair needs her Alpha. The pack needs its training schedule maintained. I understand."

I understood perfectly. I understood that he'd made his choice three years ago when he'd stood at the altar and looked at me with duty in his eyes instead of love. I understood that every moment since then had been a slow march toward the death I'd already died.

But not this time.

"I'll call you after," I continued, moving past him toward the door. "Let you know how it went."

"Lily—" Something in his voice made me pause. When I glanced back, he was staring at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Uncertainty, maybe. Or surprise that I wasn't fighting harder to keep him.

"It's fine, Nolan. Really." I allowed myself a small smile—the same one I'd perfected over three years of pretending everything was fine. "Go take care of Blair. I'll be fine."

The relief on his face as I gave him permission to leave was answer enough.

I walked out of the Luna's quarters with my head high, leaving my mate to rush off to his childhood companion. Behind me, I heard him making a call—his voice dropping into that tender tone he'd never used with me.

My wolf whimpered inside my mind, confused by the mate bond that insisted we needed him. But I silenced her with memories she now shared—the feeling of claws tearing through us while he was miles away, holding Blair's hand. The final flutter of our pup's heartbeat. The cold stone beneath our dying body.

No, I thought firmly. We don't need him. We never did.

The Healer's chambers lay deep beneath the pack house, carved into the bedrock where ancient magic still hummed through stone. I descended the stairs alone, my footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. No mate at my side. No Alpha to anchor me through the storm to come.

Just me. Just my determination to survive what I'd survived once before.

And this time, when I emerged from the ritual, I would emerge free.