When the wolf-skin curtain was pulled back, the cheers from outside flooded in.

They were shouting for Kael—no, he was Alpha Kael Ashford now. The people of the tribe chanted his name, over and over, a rhythmic roar that vibrated through the ground.

My silver needle didn't falter. I drove it through the jagged tear in the hunter's leg, stitching the meat of his thigh back together.

The man bit down on a wad of leather, a muffled grunt escaping his throat as cold sweat beaded on his forehead.

"Hold steady," I said, my voice clinical. "Last stitch."

I sounded flat, even to my own ears. I had been sewing flesh since dawn, seven men in total.

The ritual hunts before a tribal promotion were always like this. Young men, desperate to prove their worth, returned with trophies or scars. Usually both.

Kael had been one of them, though he’d been luckier than most. A single shallow cut across his cheek was his only price, a mark that only served to make him look more like a hero in the light of the bonfires.

"Seraphina." An elderly woman peeked through the curtain, her face creased with worry. "Aren't you coming out? He's about to..."

"I'm busy." I snipped the thread and checked the alignment of the wound's edges. The hunter had passed out from the pain, but his breathing remained steady. "Let them keep shouting. I can hear them fine from here."

I could hear them, but I heard more than just the cheering.

Kael’s voice was deep and resonant. Even through the thick hides of the medical hut, it was unmistakable—it carried the arrogance of a newly ascended Alpha. He was giving his speech, thanking the tribe for their trust, the ancestors for their blessing, and every person who had stood by him.

He did not mention my name.

I reached for a fresh roll of gauze and began cleaning my tools. I wiped the silver needles with high-proof spirits and tucked them neatly back into their leather case. At the bottom of the medicine chest, there were three jars of anti-inflammatory salve. I counted them; they would last two weeks.

If the tribal hunters continued to be this reckless, I would have to go back into the mountains for more herbs by the end of the fortnight.

Suddenly, the curtain was wrenched open.

The wind rushed in, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and the bite of the night air. Kael stood in the entrance, the black mass of the crowd behind him. The torchlight cast his shadow long and jagged across the floor, stretching until it touched my medicine chest.

"Seraphina," he said. My name sounded different on his tongue now.

"I'm here." I turned, folding the last piece of gauze with steady fingers.

"I need to make a public announcement," he said, stepping into the treatment room. His heavy wolf-skin cloak brushed against the doorframe.

A few tribespeople followed him inside, crowding the entrance. Their eyes darted between us, heavy with anticipation.

I waited.

Kael came to a halt, looking down at me from his new height.

There were only two paces between us. Once, that was close enough for me to smell the leather and smoke on his skin, just as I did now. But his eyes were different. They were cold, distant, and calculating.

"I have sworn my oaths before the people," he began, his voice projecting as if he were still on the podium. "As the Alpha of this tribe, I require a mate who can stand beside me. Someone of pure blood, worthy of the title and the seat."

He didn't look at me. His gaze drifted toward the crowd at the door, addressing them through me.

"Seraphina Edge—when I took her in five years ago, I saw only a homeless wanderer, a healer with no place to go. Now, the truth has come to light. She has no lineage, no family, no identity that can be traced. A woman of unknown origin is not fit to sit beside an Alpha."

A sharp intake of breath rippled through the onlookers.

I saw the old woman grip the curtain, her lips trembling, but she said nothing.

Kael continued. "Therefore, I declare it here and now—my mate bond with Seraphina is hereby severed."

He raised his right hand, exposing the underside of his wrist to the firelight. There, etched into the skin, was the contract rune.

We had carved those marks together three years ago. We used monkshood juice mixed with a drop of my own blood.

"The severance requires both parties to cut the link," he said. "Draw your blade."

He hadn't brought his own knife.

He had come here empty-handed, expecting me to be the one to physically cut myself away from him.

I looked down at my wrist, at the dark teal rune etched into my flesh.

Three years ago, in the middle of the night, he had held my hand as the ink went in. He’d whispered, "You’re mine now." At the time, I thought it was a promise. Only now did I realize it was a claim of ownership.

I set the gauze down. My voice was quiet, barely a whisper. "You told me in private that you wanted me to stay on as your mistress. Didn't you?"

Kael’s face stiffened for a fraction of a second. He didn't deny it, but he didn't answer.

The crowd at the door went deathly silent.

"You said my blood wasn't pure enough to be your mate," I continued, my voice gaining strength. "But my body was good enough for your bed. Those were your words."

"Seraphina," he growled, his voice low with warning.

I smiled. It was a faint, thin thing that didn't reach my eyes. There was no warmth left in me, only a strange, crystalline clarity.

"Don't trouble yourself," I said. "I'll do it."

I pulled the silver knife from the bottom of my medicine chest. A few flecks of dried herbs still clung to the blade. I didn't bother cleaning it. I pressed the edge against the rune on my wrist and sliced.

The blood welled up instantly.

It stung, but it didn't hurt nearly as much as it had when the rune was first carved. Back then, I thought the pain was the price of a vow. Now I knew that pain was just the beginning of waking up.

The rune split. The dark ink fractured down the center, the color bleeding out and fading into the surrounding skin. The process took only seconds, but not a single person in the room breathed.

I set the knife back on the table and pressed a piece of gauze to the wound. Blood soaked through the fibers, staining my fingers and dripping onto the floor.

"You aren't worthy of my medicine," I said, meeting Kael’s eyes. "You aren't worthy of my blood, my time, or every single wound I’ve healed for you over these three years."

Kael’s jaw tightened.

I saw his right hand ball into a fist, but he didn't move toward me.

"Leave," I said. "Tonight you became an Alpha. That should be enough for you. From this moment on, this infirmary is closed to you. Don't come back with your scars."

As he turned to leave, his heavy cloak swept across my workspace, knocking a jar of salve to the ground. The yellowish ointment spilled across the floorboards. No one stopped to pick it up.

The crowd followed him out, their voices rising again as they moved away toward the bonfires.

I stood in the silence of the infirmary for a long time. It wasn't until the candle flickered that I realized my hands were shaking. It wasn't fear; it was a hollow, echoing sensation, as if something had been scooped out of me.

Three years. I had lived with this man for three years. I had brewed his tonics every single day and saved his right arm after a hunting accident that should have left him crippled. He had held my hand during his fever dreams, calling my name in the dark. I had believed all of it was real, but in the end, he was only waiting for a "more suitable" opportunity.

I knelt and began to scrape the spilled salve off the floor. I saved what was clean and discarded what had touched the dust.

My wrist was still bleeding. The gauze was soaked through. I replaced it with a fresh bandage and pulled it tight.

Footsteps sounded outside, but no one entered. Likely a tribesman passing by, unsure of whether to offer a word of comfort or judgment.

I didn't look up.

By midnight, the wind was whistling through the gaps in the door. I fed the fire until it roared and sat beneath the lamp, reorganizing my medicine chest.

By tomorrow, the tribe would take Kael’s side. They would say I was ungrateful. They would say the Alpha gave me a home for three years and I bit the hand that fed me. I could already taste the bitterness of their words, like raw herbs before they’re honeyed.

I closed the lid of the chest and tucked the silver knife into the bottom layer.

Outside, the sound of wheels grinding over gravel broke the silence.

That wasn't a sound the tribe made. They didn't use carriages here.

I looked up, peering through a slit in the wolf-skin curtain. Beneath the moonlight, a black carriage sat idle. A dim, amber lantern hung from the front.

The door opened, and a man stepped out.

No—he didn't step. He was lowered into a wheelchair. He wore a heavy black coat, his face partially obscured by shadows, leaving only the sharp line of his jaw visible. An attendant stood behind him, pushing the chair silently over the uneven ground until it stopped right before my door.

I didn't move.

The curtain was pushed aside. A gust of cold air made the candle flame dance wildly.

The man in the wheelchair lifted his head. The firelight caught his features—he was young, with eyes the color of a calm, grey sea.

"Seraphina Edge," he said. His voice was low, carrying a measured cadence that demanded attention without needing to shout.

"Who are you?" I asked. My hand was already hovering over the hidden compartment in my chest—there was another knife there, shorter and much sharper than the silver one.

"Lysander Sheridan," he replied with a slight nod. The gesture wasn't one of submission; it was a formality, a reminder of his station. "Your father is waiting for you to come home. Your real home."

My fingers froze over the compartment.

"I don't have a father."

"You do." Lysander raised a hand from the armrest, extending it toward me. Held between his fingers was a ring—an old silver band with a stone-crested signet that caught the dim light. "The daughter of House Masters, the girl who was kidnapped and vanished five years ago... that was you. Not the one currently living in their manor."

The ring hit the table with a sharp, metallic clink. I stared down at it. On the inner band, there were words. I picked it up and turned it toward the light.

"Clara Livingston."

The name was engraved clearly into the silver.

I pushed it back toward him.

"You have the wrong person," I said. "The ring has someone else's name on it."

Lysander didn't take it back. He watched me, his grey eyes steady, as if he had expected this exact response.

"If the name is wrong," he said softly, "then why did you look at it twice?"

I looked down again. My finger was still resting on the edge of the ring. The engraving of the name was deep, but as my nail traced the letters, I felt a faint set of grooves beneath them—scratches, as if a previous line of text had been systematically filed away.

Beneath "Clara Livingston," there had once been another name.

It had been erased.

My hand went still.

Lysander didn't push. He sat in his chair, half his face illuminated by the fire, the other half swallowed by the dark. "I don't expect you to believe me tonight. I only ask that you keep the ring. Look at it again when you begin to remember."

"And if I never remember?"

"Then keep it regardless." He tilted his head slightly, and the attendant began to turn the wheelchair. "In five days, if you're willing to talk, I will be waiting at the valley entrance to the west. If you don't show, I'll assume you aren't ready."

The carriage wheels began to grind over the gravel again, retreating into the darkness.

I stood by the curtain, watching the amber light of the lantern fade until the night reclaimed it entirely.

The wind was freezing. I dropped the curtain and sat back down at the table.

The ring remained where he’d left it, a small circle of silver reflecting the dying light of the fire. I didn't need to look at the name again; it was burned into my mind. Clara Livingston. And the ghost of the name beneath it.

I held up my right hand, tracing the freshly broken rune on my wrist. The bleeding had stopped, leaving behind a crust of dark, dried blood.

Three years ago, Kael had said, "You’re mine." He’d said it with such certainty, as if I had nowhere else in the world to go.

Now, there was a place that suddenly had another name.

Masters.

I picked up the ring, turning it over once more before dropping it into the deepest compartment of my medicine chest, right next to the sharpest blade.

The candle sputtered and died.

In the darkness, I listened to the rhythm of my own breathing. My wrist still throbbed, but the hollow feeling in my chest was being filled by something new—something cold and tentative, like water seeping through a crack in stone.

It wasn't trust. It was the possibility of something else.

I closed my eyes and spoke into the silence, my voice so low it was barely a breath:

"Five days."

I could wait that long.

The Alpha’s Healer: Severed Bonds — Chapter 2: The Weight of the Masters Gates

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