The Alpha's command slammed into me like a physical blow, driving me to my knees on the cold hospital floor. "Sign the papers, Vera." I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The Alpha's voice wrapped around my mind, squeezing until there was nothing left but obedience. This was what it meant to be wolfless in a pack of predators—no defense against the crushing weight of an Alpha's will. "Please," I whispered, my hand trembling as I stared at the consent forms. "I can't. I only have one—" "Enough lies." Killian Blackwood's voice cut through my protest like a blade. He stood above me, six feet of raw power and barely contained fury, his silver eyes burning with contempt. "My mate is dying, and you dare refuse her?" My mate. The words twisted in my chest like a knife. Of course she was his mate. Beautiful, perfect Celeste—my half-sister, the golden wolf of the Blackwood Pack. And me? I was nothing. The wolfless bastard daughter my father had brought home in shame, the girl who couldn't shift, couldn't bond, couldn't do anything right. "Alpha, please listen—" I tried again, desperation clawing at my throat. "I'm telling the truth. When I was sixteen, I had surgery. They took—" "Lies!" Celeste's voice rang out from the hospital bed behind him, weak but still managing to sound ethereal. She looked like a dying angel, her platinum blonde hair spread across the pillow, her porcelain skin almost translucent. "She's always been jealous of us, Killian. Even now, when I'm dying, she can't bear to help me." Tears streamed down my face as I looked at my sister. How could she do this? She knew. She knew what had happened to me. She'd been there that night six years ago when I'd woken up in agony, a fresh scar across my abdomen and no memory of how I'd gotten to the hospital. "I don't remember giving you permission to cry," Killian snarled, his Alpha presence intensifying until I thought my bones would crack. "You have two kidneys. The doctors confirmed it. Celeste needs one to survive. You will sign those papers, or I will make you wish you'd never been born into this pack." My hand moved without my permission, reaching for the pen. The Alpha's command was absolute. I couldn't fight it, couldn't resist, even though every cell in my body screamed that this was wrong, that I was telling the truth, that this would kill me. "That's better," Killian murmured, his voice softening slightly as I pressed the pen to paper. "You're finally doing something useful for once." The words shouldn't have hurt. He'd never hidden his disdain for me. In the five years since he'd become Alpha, since he'd announced his engagement to Celeste, he'd made it clear that I was less than nothing to him. Just the wolfless embarrassment his pack was forced to tolerate. But they still hurt. Because despite everything, despite his cruelty and his contempt, I'd loved him since I was seventeen years old. Pathetic, really. Loving the man who would never see me as anything more than an inconvenience. I signed my name, each letter feeling like a death sentence. "Good girl," Celeste whispered from her bed, and I caught the flash of something dark in her eyes. Something triumphant. It was gone so quickly I almost thought I'd imagined it. Almost. The medical team swept in immediately, their faces professionally blank as they prepared me for surgery. I tried one more time, grabbing the doctor's sleeve as they wheeled me toward the operating room. "Please, check the records. I only have one kidney. There was a surgery six years ago—" "Miss Thorne, we've reviewed your medical files thoroughly," the doctor said, not unkindly but firmly. "You have two healthy kidneys. The Alpha has assured us that your claims are simply... resistance to the procedure." "But—" "We need to move quickly if we're going to save Miss Celeste." The operating room was blindingly white, sterile and cold. They positioned me on the table, and I stared up at the harsh lights, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Count backward from ten," someone said, and I felt the prick of the IV in my arm. "Ten... nine... eight..." The anesthesia should have pulled me under. Should have dragged me into peaceful darkness. It didn't.