​Kaden’s POV

​"No, Rebecca! You can’t leave me... I won’t lose you!"

​My voice sounded foreign to my ears, cracked and broken, stripped of all royal power. She didn’t answer. Her hand lay limply on the blood-soaked dirt, and her eyes remained tightly shut. The sweet, intoxicating scent that usually filled my lungs was fading fast, replaced by the heavy, metallic stench of her blood.

​Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through my chest. My heart squeezed in pure agony, hammering against my ribs so hard it felt like it would break.

​Move! My wolf screamed inside my head, finally breaking out of its shock. Save her! Save our breeder!

​I was stunned... my mourning wolf just spoke.

​I didn’t waste another single second to dwell on that. I scooped her small, lifeless body into my arms, horrified by how light and fragile she felt.

​I jumped onto my stallion in one swift motion, pulling her tight against my chest to hold her wounds together. I dug my boots hard into the horse’s sides, forcing the beast into a furious, dead run back toward the palace.

​As the wind whipped past my face, I forced open the pack mind link, my voice booming with a desperate, terrified rage that shook every warrior in the territory.

​"Logan! Get the doctors! Get the top pack healers to my private rooms right now!" I roared through the link, my chest heaving as I looked down at Rebecca’s pale, blood-stained face. "Prepare the operating tables! If she dies, everyone answers to me! Move!"

​"On it, Alpha King!" Logan replied instantly, his voice tense with shock.

​I pushed the horse faster, faster than it had ever run before. The entire ride was a blur of trees and rushing wind, but inside my mind, everything was loud and chaotic. I had never felt fear like this. I was the Alpha King, a killer, a warrior who had survived a hundred battles. Yet, looking at the dark red stain spreading across her tunic, I felt completely helpless. My heart ached with a deep, crushing pain that I could not explain. Why did she do it? Why did she choose to shoot herself instead of staying with me?

​When the stallion finally tore into the palace courtyard, I didn’t wait for it to stop. I jumped off the horse with Rebecca in my arms and ran through the grand doors, taking the steps three at a time. The guards threw the heavy wooden doors open for me, their eyes wide with fear as they saw the blood covering my clothes.

​I kicked open the doors to my own bedroom and rushed inside. I didn’t care about the expensive sheets. I laid her down gently right in the middle of my huge bed.

​"Get to work!" I screamed at the five healers and doctors already waiting in the room.

​The room instantly turned into chaos. The doctors cut away her blood-soaked tunic while the pack healers brought out trays of clean water, towels, and medical tools. I stood at the edge of the bed, my hands shaking violently as I watched them. I was panicking. My wolf was pacing the borders of my mind, scratching at the walls, wanting to tear the room apart just to stop her pain.

​"We found the bullet, Alpha King!" the main doctor called out, his hands covered in blood as he carefully worked a pair of metal tools into her chest. With a sharp clink, he dropped the bloody piece of metal onto a silver tray. "The bullet is out!"

​"Now heal her!" I commanded, my voice rough and breaking.

​The primary pack healer stepped forward, placing her hands directly over the hole in Rebecca’s chest. A bright, warm green light glowed from the healer’s palms, flowing straight into Rebecca’s pale skin. I watched as the torn flesh slowly began to close. The heavy bleeding stopped, the deep gash sealed up, and the ugly wound turned into a smooth, pink scar.

​The physical damage was gone. The wound was completely healed.

​But Rebecca wasn’t waking up.

​Her chest rose and fell in tiny, weak breaths, but her eyes stayed closed. Her face remained completely pale, as still as a stone statue.

​"What is happening?" I demanded, stepping closer to the bed, my shadow falling over her small body. "The wound is closed! Why isn’t she opening her eyes? Why isn’t she waking up?!"

​The head healer slowly lifted her hands, looking up at me with a sad, heavy expression. She swallowed hard, clearly terrified of my anger.

​"Alpha King..." the healer began, her voice trembling. "Because her wolf was locked away by the silver choker, she has the weak body of an ordinary human. Her system took a massive shock from the blast. She is completely unconscious right now, and we just have to wait for her to wake up on her own."

​I clenched my fists, my jaw tight. "Then we wait. But why does her breathing sound so weak?"

​The healer looked down at Rebecca, then back at me, her eyes filled with deep worry. "There is something else, Alpha King... Your breeder doesn’t want to be healed. Her spirit is actively fighting our magic. We can fix her skin and her bones, but her soul is refusing to come back. She is choosing to stay dead."

​The words hit me like a physical punch to the gut. The room seemed to go completely silent.

​I took a slow step forward, sinking onto the edge of the mattress. I looked down at her quiet, beautiful face, my heart breaking into a million pieces.

​"Why?" I whispered, my voice barely a sound, as I reached out and touched her cold, unmoving fingers. "Why would you fight it? I thought you were happy... I freed your friend. I brought her back to you. I thought..."

​I choked on my words, the heavy guilt suffocating me. She didn’t want the life I was forcing her to live. She didn’t want to bring a baby into my world. She had chosen the cold peace of death over a single day more with me—and for the first time in my life, I had no power to command her back.