After My Mate Deceived Me, I Fled

The cold metal of the restraints bit into my wrists and ankles, holding me immobile against the extraction table. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped animal seeking escape. The antiseptic smell of the pack healer's private wing burned my nostrils, mixing with the scent of fear—my own—that filled the sterile room.

"Please," I whispered, my voice cracking as I looked into the faces surrounding me. Faces I once trusted. Faces that now watched me with cold detachment. "I didn't hurt her. I would never hurt Victoria."

No one responded. My father, Alpha Marcus James, stood rigid and unyielding, his expression carved from stone. Beside him, my mother, Luna Clara, avoided my gaze entirely, finding something fascinating about the polished floor. Pack members lined the walls—witnesses to my humiliation, my punishment for a crime I didn't commit.

And then there was Ethan. My mate. My everything.

He stood closest to the table, his once-vibrant eyes now dull and sunken in his gaunt face. The illness had ravaged him, stealing his strength, but not his cruelty. Not his conviction that I had somehow harmed his precious Victoria.

"Begin the extraction," he commanded, his voice barely above a whisper yet carrying the unmistakable weight of an Alpha tone.

Healer Elara approached, her expression professionally blank as she raised her ceremonial staff. The moonstone at its tip glowed with an eerie blue light as she pressed it against my temple.

"This will be... uncomfortable," she said, the first hint of hesitation in her voice. "Try to relax your mind. Fighting will only make it worse."

I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of her instruction. Relax while they violated the most sacred part of me? While they tore through my memories like thieves?

"Wait!" I cried out, one last desperate attempt. "Please, you need to know—I'm pregnant. Three months. Your heir, Ethan. Our pup."

A flicker of something—shock, disbelief, perhaps even hope—crossed Ethan's hollow face before Victoria's poisonous whispers reasserted their hold. He hardened again, giving Elara a curt nod.

"She's lying. Continue."

The staff pressed harder against my skin, and then the world exploded into agony.

It felt like talons ripping through my mind, shredding through memories and thoughts with brutal efficiency. I screamed until my throat was raw, my body arching against the restraints as Elara forced her way deeper into my consciousness.

Memories flashed before me, projected for all to see. My childhood. My return to the pack. The first time Ethan looked at me with love instead of pity. Our mate ceremony, beautiful and sacred, now tainted by betrayal.

"Deeper," Ethan commanded, his voice distant through the haze of my pain. "Find what she did to Victoria."

Another surge of agony as Elara pushed further into my mind. My screams became desperate, animalistic.

"Her heart rate is dangerously elevated," I heard Elara say, concern finally breaking through her professional detachment. "We should pause—"

"Continue," my father ordered, his Alpha tone brooking no argument.

Something warm and wet