The scent of blood and wolfsbane hit me before I even reached the Alpha's quarters. I stood frozen in the marble hallway of the Silvermoon packhouse, my heart hammering against my ribs as memories that didn't belong to this timeline flooded my mind. I knew what was happening behind that door. I'd lived this moment before. In my first life, I'd been the one to save him. "Isla!" My brother Kieran's voice echoed down the corridor as he sprinted toward me, his face pale with panic. "Thank the Moon Goddess you're here. It's Matthias—he's been poisoned. The healers say only his true mate's bond can purge the toxin." I already knew. In my previous life, I'd rushed through that door twenty-three years old and desperate to prove myself. I'd offered myself to Alpha Matthias Blackwood, believing the pull I felt toward him meant we were destined. The mate bond had snapped into place the moment our skin touched, just strong enough to save his life. Just strong enough to doom us both. "Where's Sera?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt. Kieran blinked, confusion crossing his features. "Our sister? What does she have to do with—" "Where is she?" I interrupted, grabbing his shoulders. "Kieran, trust me. Where is Sera right now?" "At the solstice gathering in the eastern territory, but Isla, we don't have time. Matthias is dying. The wolfsbane is mixed with silver and nightshade—it's the Crimson Death poison. He has maybe an hour before it reaches his heart." I knew. I'd watched the dark veins spread across his chest, watched him convulse in agony. And then I'd watched our forced mate bond slowly destroy us both over the next five years. Because I wasn't his true mate. Sera was. I'd discovered it too late in my first life, after Matthias and I had already completed the bonding ritual, after the pack had already accepted me as Luna. The real mate bond between him and my younger sister had been suppressed, twisted, buried under the artificial connection we'd created. It had driven Matthias half-mad with confusion, made Sera waste away with unexplained grief, and left me trapped in a marriage built on a lie. The Moon Goddess had given me a second chance when I'd died at twenty-eight, my heart giving out from the strain of maintaining a false bond. I'd woken up six months in the past, back in my twenty-three-year-old body, with all my memories intact. I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice. "Call Sera," I commanded. "Tell her it's an emergency. Tell her the Alpha needs his true mate, and she needs to come now." "Isla, you're not making sense. Sera's never even met Matthias properly. You're the one who's been working as his pack liaison for the past year. You're the one he—" A roar of pain erupted from behind the carved oak doors, cutting Kieran off. The sound was barely human, more wolf than man, and it made every instinct in my body scream at me to go to him. That was the cruel joke of it all. The false mate bond had been real enough to hurt. "Do you trust me?" I asked my brother, meeting his dark eyes. "Have I ever steered you wrong?" Kieran hesitated, then slowly shook his head. "No, but—" "Then call Sera. Now. Tell her to break every speed limit getting here." He pulled out his phone with shaking hands, but before he could dial, the doors burst open. Marcus, Matthias's beta and closest friend, stood in the doorway. His shirt was stained with blood, and his expression was desperate. "Isla Thornwood," he said formally, though his voice cracked. "The Alpha is requesting your presence. The healers believe you may be his mate. Your bloodline is compatible, your age is right, and he's been drawn to you since you started working here. Please. We're out of options." This was it. The exact moment where everything had gone wrong before. I could feel the pull even now, that strange gravity that drew me toward the room. It wasn't the true mate bond—I knew that now. It was something else, some cosmic mistake or desperate magic that had allowed us to forge a connection strong enough to save him but not strong enough to sustain us. "I'm not his mate," I said clearly. "But I know who is." Marcus's eyes widened. "What? How could you possibly—" "My sister, Seraphina Thornwood. She's his true mate. I'd stake my life on it." "We don't have time for guesses!" Marcus snarled, his wolf rising to the surface in his desperation. "If you're wrong, Matthias dies. If you're right but she can't get here in time, Matthias dies. You're here now. You can save him now." Another scream echoed from inside, and I flinched. Every fiber of my being wanted to rush in there, to ease his pain, to be the hero I'd tried to be before. But I'd learned the hard way that being the wrong person's savior was its own kind of poison. "Kieran," I said quietly. "Did you make the call?" "She's answering now," he replied, pressing the phone to his ear. "Sera? Thank gods. Listen, you need to get to the Silvermoon packhouse immediately. No, I can't explain. Just trust me. Drive fast." "She's forty minutes away," Marcus said, and I could hear the grief already settling into his voice. "He won't last that long. The poison is accelerating. Isla, please. Even if you're not his mate, maybe you can slow it down, maybe—" "If I go in there and bond with him, even partially, it will block his true mate bond from forming," I said, surprised by how calm I sounded. "It will save his life tonight and kill him slowly over the next five years. I've seen it happen." Marcus stared at me like I'd lost my mind. "Seen it? What are you talking about?" I couldn't explain. How could I tell them I'd lived this life before, that I'd died because of the choice I was about to refuse to make? "How long can the healers keep him stable?" I asked instead. "They're using every technique they know, but the poison is too strong. Twenty minutes. Maybe thirty if we're lucky." "Then we make our own luck," I said, pushing past him into the room. The sight of Matthias Blackwood nearly brought me to my knees. He lay on his massive bed, his body convulsing as black veins spider-webbed across his chest and neck. His normally golden skin had taken on a grayish pallor, and sweat poured down his face. Three healers surrounded him, chanting in the old language while pressing glowing hands to his skin. His eyes—those striking amber eyes that had haunted my dreams in both lifetimes—locked onto mine. "Isla," he gasped, reaching out a shaking hand. "Please. It hurts. Make it stop." The pull intensified, nearly overwhelming. This was the moment. In my first life, I'd taken his hand. The incomplete mate bond had flared to life, just strong enough to burn the poison from his system. Just strong enough to chain us together in misery. I knelt beside the bed but didn't touch him. "I'm here," I said softly. "And I'm going to save you. But not the way you think."