I'm a transmigrator with a mission. My task is to marry Caden Holt. But the Holt pack has a bloodline law: only a she-wolf who bears a son can become Caden's true mate. I carried nine pups over six years. Every single one was female. So every pup was ripped from me before six months. Forced termination, every time. When I fell pregnant with the tenth, a nurse pulled me aside and whispered congratulations. She said the scans showed a boy. I ran to find Caden. I was practically glowing. Then I heard him talking to the pack doctor through a cracked door. "You're going to tell Lyra her pup is female again. Tell her it needs to be terminated." The doctor's voice cracked. "Caden, she's already terminated nine pups. Her womb is tissue-thin. One more procedure could trigger hemorrhage. She could die. She might never carry again." Caden's voice was ice. "She has a system. She could carry a hundred pups and she'd be fine." "But my sister-in-law only gets one shot at becoming Pack Mistress. I won't let anything threaten her position. Once Sera takes over as Alpha of the Holt pack, I'll make it up to Lyra." I stood frozen in the hallway. My nine dead pups. All boys. Caden didn't know. My system gave me exactly ten chances to carry. Ten. That was it. If this tenth pup didn't survive, if I failed to marry him, the system would erase me. So when the system asked how I wanted to go, I had one answer. "Let me die on the operating table. When they take my last pup." I wanted Caden Holt to spend the rest of his life regretting it. --- Even the doctor, Marcus, who had been Caden's closest friend for years, had finally had enough. "Don't you think this is monstrous? Lyra would have waited for you. If you had just told her to wait, she would have agreed. You know she would have." "I know." Caden's voice went quieter. Heavier. "But I couldn't risk it." "The Alpha Mistress position carries absolute power in this pack. You've seen what Lyra would sacrifice. She cut off her own birth family just to be with me. How am I supposed to trust she won't secretly carry my pup to term the moment she thinks it gives her leverage?" Hearing that hollowed me out. I'm a transmigrator with a mission. If I marry Caden, my original body, dying in my home world, gets healed. But I hadn't planned on falling in love with him. On day one of being with him, I told him everything. Every truth. I told him even after the mission ended, I would stay. He turned my honesty into evidence of an ulterior motive. And that evidence became the blade that killed nine of our pups. Marcus wasn't done. "Even if you were scared she'd use the pup against Sera, why did you keep dragging it to six months? Gender can be confirmed at three or four months. Why wait until six?" "At six months the pup is fully formed. It's not a simple termination. It has to be induced. Some of them come out crying." His voice broke slightly. "Even with her system, the physical damage is irreversible. How could you do that to her?" My nose burned. My body still remembered every one of those procedures. The tearing pain. The sound of tiny cries. It felt like someone had ripped my heart out with bare hands. Caden's voice came back rougher. "Every time, I was in agony too." "But there was no other way. My nephew Eli has a heart condition. A specialist told me that a pup's heart, extracted at six months of development, could be used in a treatment compound." Marcus exploded. "What? You had those pups' hearts cut out and fed to your nephew? Caden, what is wrong with you?" And then my legs gave out. I fell into the door. The two men went completely silent. I didn't wait. I crawled back to my room before Caden could find me. By the time I was back in bed I was shaking so hard I couldn't stop. Tears ran straight down into the pillow. No wonder Caden always told me not to think about the pups after each procedure. He said they didn't count as ours if they never reached full term. I thought he was trying to comfort me. He just didn't want me to mourn something he'd already decided were ingredients.
When Caden came back, my eyes were dry. He wrapped his arms around me tight. His voice was low and deliberate. "Lyra. Scans confirm it's a female pup again. We need to terminate. I've already told the doctors to prepare." "Caden." I pulled back and looked at him. I kept my voice steady. "I want to carry this one to term." He went white. "Are you out of your mind? You only become my mate if you birth a son." The Holt bloodline carried an anomaly. Male pups born to Holt blood came out brilliant, powerful, exceptional. Female pups born to the bloodline didn't survive past three days. It had happened enough times that the pack had made it law. Any she-wolf who wanted to bond with a Holt male had to first birth a healthy son. Because of this, Holt mates held extraordinary rank. They received major pack shares. The Alpha Mistress position itself was always filled by the bonded mate, not by blood. My silence made Caden go still. "Lyra. Did you hear something?" Part of me screamed to keep lying. If I could keep him from knowing the truth, my pup still had a chance. "No," I said. "I just... find it hard to let go." He pulled me close again. "Don't grieve, Lyra. We're young. I promise you, the next one will be a son." He didn't know there was no next one. If I failed to bond with him this time, my body in this world would be erased. I could accept dying. But this pup was innocent. I had to get him out alive. So when the nurses came to take me to the procedure room, I asked to stop at the bathroom first. Inside, I stripped off my jewelry and swapped it with a woman in the hall, trading for her clothes and a handful of cash. I was going to run. My system tried to talk me down. "Caden does love you, in his way. If you confronted him honestly, he might let you carry this pup to term. He might actually bond with you properly." Before I'd heard that conversation, maybe I would have tried. But when it came to his sister-in-law Sera, I had never once won. From the beginning I noticed how Caden treated Sera. Every time we went out and I found something I liked, he bought two. One for me. One for Sera. He sent her flowers on my anniversaries with him. He delivered them personally. I made a scene about it once. Caden told me gently, "Lyra, don't misread it. I love you. With Sera, it's guilt. Nothing more." That was when I learned Caden's older brother had died years ago. He'd driven drunk after a fight with Caden and his car went off the road. Caden had spent every year since believing he caused his brother's death. He'd made Sera and her son Eli his personal responsibility. I used to think that kind of loyalty was something to admire. I know better now. What Caden feels for Sera isn't guilt. It's something that rotted into obsession long ago. Enough to make him harvest our pups' hearts for her sick child. Enough that if she asked, he'd probably cut out mine too. I thought I had time. I hadn't even made it to the hospital entrance when his hand closed around my wrist. I turned. Caden looked at me. Then his face went rigid. "Lyra. Where are you going?" Before I could answer, he already knew. All the color left his face. "You were outside that door. You heard everything."
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