Beside her, my father stood silent as the grave, his lips pressed into a line of condemnation that spoke more than words ever could. His piercing gaze cut deeper than any blade, declaring what I had known my whole life, that I was not their daughter, only their burden.
I broke the surface once, coughing, gasping, fighting for even a fragment of air, but it stole the last of my strength. My eyes, blurred by tears and chlorine, found Alpha Alaric. My soul clung to him as my final lifeline. He knew I couldn’t swim. He knew my fragility. He was my mate, perhaps not by love, but at least by bond. Surely, surely, he would not watch me die.
But he did not move.
Sitting at the pool’s edge with Nyra draped in his arms like a queen carried by her chosen king, he looked down at me with eyes hardened into stone.
“Do you even realize Nyra is carrying a child?” His words boomed like thunder across the silent crowd. “How could you be so heartless? You could have killed her, and the heir she bears!”
The word heir struck me like a blade, a reminder of the Silverfang bloodline’s obsession with lineage. My throat locked with anguish, but my pleas drowned within the water.