Severed Bond, New Beginning

I jolted awake, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caged bird desperate for escape. The nightmare clung to me with suffocating intensity—Brooks's hands on my shoulders, his face twisted with rage, the sickening sensation of falling, and then... nothing. Just devastating emptiness where something precious had been.

My hands instinctively moved to my flat stomach, trembling fingers searching for something that had never been there. Yet the ache in my chest felt so real, so profound, that tears spilled down my cheeks before I could stop them.

"It was just a dream," I whispered to the pre-dawn darkness of our shared bedroom. But even as the words left my lips, they felt like lies. The emotional pain lingered, raw and bleeding, as if I'd actually lost something irreplaceable.

Sage stirred restlessly in my mind, her presence unusually agitated. *Something's wrong,* she whispered, her voice carrying an edge I'd never heard before. *That wasn't just a dream, Miranda. It felt... like a memory.*

I shook my head, pushing away her unsettling words. Memories of what? I'd never been pregnant. Brooks and I had been careful, waiting until after our mate ceremony next month to start a family. The very idea was impossible.

But the phantom ache in my womb suggested otherwise.

Hours later, I stood outside the Grand Pine Hotel, clutching the territorial agreements Brooks needed to review with the neighboring packs. The autumn wind whipped through my hair, carrying the scent of dying leaves and the promise of winter. I'd volunteered for this errand, hoping the fresh air might clear the lingering shadows from my nightmare.

The hotel's marble lobby gleamed under crystal chandeliers, all polished elegance and whispered conversations. I approached the front desk, my omega instincts automatically making me smaller, less noticeable.

"I'm here to deliver documents to Alpha Brooks Mendoza," I told the clerk, who barely glanced up from her computer.

"Presidential suite, top floor. Elevator's to your right."

The ride up felt endless, my reflection in the polished doors showing a pale, haunted version of myself. Dark circles shadowed my eyes, and my usually neat appearance looked disheveled despite my careful grooming this morning.

I knocked softly on the suite door, expecting Brooks's familiar commanding voice to bid me enter. Instead, silence stretched between us, broken only by the faint sound of... voices? My enhanced werewolf hearing picked up low murmurs from within.

"Brooks?" I called, turning the handle. It wasn't locked.

The sight that greeted me shattered something fundamental inside my chest.

Brooks stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, his strong arms wrapped around a woman with cascading auburn hair. Her face was buried against his neck, her body molded to his with intimate familiarity. Even from behind, I recognized her—Talia Green, the she-wolf who'd haunted the edges of my relationship like a persistent shadow.

Time crystallized into sharp, cutting fragments. The way Brooks's hand cradled the back of her head. The tender whisper of her name on his lips. The devastating tenderness in