Before We Die Again

Chiara’s POV

They say you know when you’re about to die. That something in your body just knows. I didn’t believe that. Not until today.

The damp air stank of mold and blood. The flickering torchlight threw jagged shadows across the stone walls, making the dungeon feel like the mouth of some beast that had swallowed me whole. My wrists were bound high above my head, rough iron shackles biting into my skin, leaving angry marks that burned. My lips were dry, cracked. I tried to lick them but my tongue felt like sandpaper. My legs trembled from kneeling for too long, my body so weak I wasn’t sure I could even stand if they freed me.

“Please… please let me go…” I begged, but my voice came out like a whisper torn from a dream. No one looked at me. Not even him.

Kai.

He stood just beyond the bars. The same man who used to hold me when I cried and kiss my hair when I was scared of thunder. My mate. My once forever. Alpha of the Moonlit Pack. Now his eyes were cold. Like the surface of a frozen lake that never thawed, not even under the summer sun.

“She is to be banished,” he said. His voice didn’t shake. Not even a little. “And the child… it dies.”

My breath caught. I think my heart stopped for a moment.

“No… no, Kai, please,” I cried, my voice rising, trembling like a broken branch in the wind. I shook my head so hard I felt my neck ache. “Please, he’s yours… he’s yours, I swear to you. Bridget… she lied. You have to believe me, please—”

He didn’t even flinch. He turned around and walked away, just like that. Like I was nothing. Like I was dirt under his boot. My heart shattered, slow and sharp, like glass grinding itself into dust.

Bridget came in next. She always smelled like roses and poison. Her smile was cruel, a thin, painted thing that didn’t reach her eyes. Her eyes were like polished stone, dark and empty.

“No mercy,” she told the guards, her voice soft and deadly. “Make sure she feels every second of it.”

The guards exchanged glances, then one stepped forward with a small clay jug. The bitter metallic scent hit me before I saw the liquid inside — wolf’s bane mixed with something darker.

“Please… please don’t…” I whispered.

But no one listened.

The liquid was forced between my lips, burning all the way down like fire and ice together. My whole body arched in pain, my wrists twisting in the shackles until they bled. My stomach clenched violently, a deep tearing ache spreading through my belly. I could feel the life inside me slipping away, ripped from me as if I was just a vessel.

With a loud groan, my baby forced himself out of me in the pool of my own blood.

There was no cry.

My pup was dead.

“Let me… please… let me hold him,” I sobbed, tears streaming down my cheeks, falling onto the cold stone beneath me.

The youngest guard hesitated, then carefully wrapped the tiny, fragile body in a torn piece of cloth and placed him in my trembling arms. He was so small, so warm, and yet I could already feel him fading.

I brought him to my chest and breathed him in. His scent. My scent. Kai’s scent. Proof. Proof I wasn’t lying.

I whispered to him. Told him I loved him. Told him I was sorry. Told him not to forget me, not ever.

Then Bridget’s shadow fell over me.

“You really are pathetic,” she hissed, yanking the baby from my arms. I cried out, weakly trying to hold on, but she was too strong.

She gave my pup to the guard who took him out.

“You really thought you could steal him from me again? Him and this bastard pup? I told him you cheated. I told him it wasn’t his. And he believed me.”

She leaned close, her breath hot and bitter against my face. “I’ll take everything from you, Chiara. Your life, your mate, your future. Everything.”

She raised a dagger, the edge glinting red in the torchlight. I saw it too late.

“No—”

But before she could strike, the dungeon door slammed open.

Kai.

He looked like a storm given flesh. His eyes were wild, his chest heaving. And in his arms… my baby. His scent was all over him. Our scent. The truth.

“He’s mine,” Kai said, voice hollow, full of disbelief and horror. He stared at Bridget like he’d never seen her before. Like she was a stranger wearing his trust like a mask.

She tried to lie, to spin something, but he was already moving. He threw her across the room like she weighed nothing. She hit the wall and crumpled to the floor with a cry.

He was at my side the next second.

“Chiara—goddess, please—” he dropped to his knees beside me, hands on my face, tears falling from his eyes. Real tears. His voice cracked like old wood under pressure. “Please, don’t go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You were telling the truth. I know it now. Just hold on. Please.”

I laughed. Or maybe I coughed. It came out as this broken, dragging sound, thick and wet. It tasted like blood.

“You don’t get to be sorry,” I said. My voice didn’t feel like mine anymore. It felt too far away. “You let them do this. You let her do this. You chose her over me. Over our pup.”

He shook his head, tried to explain, but I didn’t want to hear it.

“You didn’t believe me,” I whispered. My eyes felt so heavy. My body was cold. The edges of my vision darkened. “And now it’s too late.”

He grabbed my hand. His tears dropped onto my skin. Warm. Real. But useless.

“No. No no no no,” he said. His voice shook. His hands shook. “I’ll fix this. I’ll do anything. Just stay with me. Please stay.”

But I was already fading.

The last thing I saw was his face, broken open with grief. And I wanted to believe he meant it. That he was sorry. That maybe, in some twisted way, he still loved me.

But it didn’t matter now.

Because I was already gone.