After I Died, My Alpha Begged Me to Come Back

The metallic tang of blood filled my mouth as another wave of agony tore through my abdomen. My wolf whimpered somewhere deep inside, a broken sound that echoed the fracturing of my very soul. This was the eighteenth time. Eighteen forced terminations. Eighteen times my body had been violated, my potential children ripped away before they could even form.

The stone bed beneath me was cold, unforgiving, much like the pack healer who stood over me with clinical detachment. Elder Moira's weathered hands moved with practiced efficiency, but I could see the concern creeping into her ancient eyes as she pressed a blood-soaked cloth against my lower abdomen.

"The bleeding won't stop," she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. But in the suffocating silence of the healing chamber, every word rang like a death knell.

My vision blurred, darkness creeping in from the edges. Through the haze, I heard the soft beep of Moira's communication device as she placed the call I'd been dreading.

"Alpha Ryker," her voice was steady, professional. "Your mate's condition is... critical. The procedure has caused severe hemorrhaging. She needs immediate—"

The voice that cut through the speaker was like ice water in my veins. Cold. Distant. Utterly devoid of any emotion that might suggest he cared whether I lived or died.

"Is she dead yet?"

Four words. Four simple words that shattered what remained of my already broken heart.

Moira's intake of breath was sharp, audible even through my fading consciousness. "Alpha, she's your mate. She needs—"

"Answer the question, Moira." Ryker's tone carried that familiar edge of authority that had once made me feel protected. Now it only made me feel like prey. "Is she dead?"

"No, but—"

"Then don't call me again until she is."

The line went dead.

The silence that followed was deafening. Even Moira, who had served this pack for over a century, seemed stunned by the casual cruelty in her Alpha's words. I felt her hand tremble slightly as she pressed another cloth to my wound.

But I wasn't shocked. Not anymore. This was who Ryker had become. This was who he'd always been, underneath the facade I'd been too young and too foolish to see through.

As my life ebbed away, my mind drifted back to the beginning. To when I was eight years old and still believed in fairy tales.

I could see it so clearly now—the grand hall of my father's estate, filled with the warm glow of chandeliers and the laughter of allied pack leaders. I'd been hiding behind one of the massive marble pillars, watching the adults in their formal attire, when he'd found me.

Ryker had been twenty-five then, already an Alpha, already carrying himself with that dangerous confidence that would later prove to be my downfall. But to my eight-year-old eyes, he'd seemed like something out of a storybook—tall and strong, with those piercing gray eyes that seemed to see everything.

"What are you doing hiding back here, little wolf?" he'd