“I didn’t—” I started, my heart hammering.

“How could you?” Alpha Garry’s voice thundered. “You took a life that was never yours, and now you can’t even let your sister have her moment?”

“She’s not my sister!” The words tore from my throat before I could stop them.

A sharp crack rang through the air.

Harland’s hand met my cheek before I even saw it coming.

A sharp sting spread across my skin, the force of the slap making me stumble. I reached up, pressing trembling fingers to my burning cheek, my vision blurring with tears.

And as the room spun around me, as whispers filled the space like a suffocating fog, my hand drifted to my stomach—where no one knew yet.

Where our child—my child—was growing.

Avery's POV