Chapter 3

The pup was gone.

My heart died right along with it.

Sienna made a huge scene, threatening to jump off the pack's cliff to pay for my pup's life with her own. Ethan was the one who dragged her back from the edge.

But after that, he withdrew all his favors from her. He stopped seeing her and fully returned to our home.

When I told him we were over...

He seemed genuinely terrified. With tears streaming down his face, he asked me, "Sarah, are you really giving up on me?"

He knelt down, begging, swearing over and over that he was wrong, and that I was the only one he loved.

Ethan’s tears looked so sincere, just like when he was eighteen.

I remembered when we were pups, and he would sneak me roasted rabbit legs on the training grounds.

I remembered when we were teenagers, and he almost broke his leg climbing a steep cliff just to pick a night-blooming orchid for me.

I remembered seeing an Armani lipstick ad, and how he worked three part-time jobs just to buy it for me because his allowance wasn't enough—only to end up picking the ugliest shade of plum.

Memories are a tangled, messy web.

My love for Ethan had long become a part of my own flesh and blood.

I couldn't just cut it out.

For a long time, I suffered from severe insomnia and anxiety, listening to my own erratic heartbeat just to fall asleep.

Ethan traveled everywhere to find a secluded rogue Healer for me. He prepared herbal baths and brewed medicine for me every single day.

Only then did I slowly begin to recover.

He had caused me so much pain and humiliation. He made me cry oceans of tears.

But he was also the boy who grew up with me, the man who had loved me for over a decade.

The love was real, and the torment was real too.

But back then, I didn't know how to face a world without him.

So, I chose to believe him one more time.

And that was why I had become a laughingstock once again. I had humiliated myself, and I got exactly what I deserved.

Ethan, the teenage version of you bought you one last chance.

And you wasted it.

...

Ethan insisted on holding me to sleep.

Like a fragile, guilty pup, he kept whispering promises and explanations in my ear.

"Tomorrow, I’ll definitely take you to the clinic for your check-up, okay?"

"I won't do anything stupid ever again."

"Our pup will be born safe and healthy."

But when I woke up, the only thing waiting for me was a cold text message.

"Emergency Pack business, honey. I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you as soon as I get back."

How convenient.

Right after I read his text, Sienna’s Instagram feed updated.

"Thank you for saving me from the fire, time and time again."

The post featured a photo of Ethan brawling with the werewolf who had bought her.

Ah, so he went to play the hero again.

I let out a soft laugh, sitting alone in the empty bedroom. As I stared at those photos, tears streamed silently down my face.

Suddenly, a violent, squeezing cramp seized my abdomen.

The pain was so intense that I curled into a ball on the sofa, my consciousness drifting.

By the time the agonizing pain finally subsided, I already knew.

My pup was gone.