Thiago stared at me and followed me toward the doctor's office in the middle of this packhouse that was way too large for me to honestly keep it straight. I walked with my shoulders pushed back and my head held high.

"Please, don't do this," my wolf said to me. "Think about mate."

Truth was that I wasn't confident that this was the right choice. I knew that being here was the wrong one. I knew that all Thiago wanted was power and domination over the entire world, but... he promised me that Callum would be taken care of and he had kept half his promise already.

He had the medication ready and sent it to Callum's pack.

Even before college, Thiago always kept his promises. Good or bad.

When we reached the doctor's office, I stopped at the door, reality setting in for the first time today. This was the plan I had made with Holden, but now that I was trapped in this packhouse and had traded my life away, I didn't want to be here. I didn't want to give up this part of myself that I was slowly beginning to love, my wolf.

She was everything to Callum.

When I'd let her go, would he ever love me again? If I took away the one person that he's been searching for since he turned eighteen, would he forgive me? Would he hunt me down and hate me for trading her?

Did he love me or her?

I balled my hands into fists and let the tears fall down my cheeks, my chest tight. Being here might be the end of me. If Thiago didn't hold up his end of the deal after he took my wolf from me, then I would be helpless.

He could do anything he wanted.

I knew that when I came here. But anything was better than having Callum and pack hunted down every single day, pack members dying and tortured, all so The Council could find me. What hurt the most was having to lie and betray Callum.

For all of eternity, I would never forgive myself.

Never.

I could only imagine how he felt reading my note, if he had even found it yet, but I needed him to know that I loved him no matter what happened. He deserved that much, especially from his mate.

Thiago shoved me into the room. I stumbled toward the chair and sat down, shuffling my feet together against the cold, tiled floor. More tears welled up in my eyes, and I refused to look at Thiago.

For the past day, I had gone over and over all the possible outcomes once Thiago had my power. I glanced up at him. He stared at me intently, narrowing his eyes and making sure I wouldn't make a run for it.

"Don't remove One Alpha from her. She keeps it," he said, lips forming a smirk. He walked over to me slowly, stalking around me like I was his prey. "All this time, since I found out that you had it inside you, I thought that I wanted to take it from you. But now I see that all I have to do is force you into submission, like all my other warriors, brainwash you, make you become subservient to only me. And then I have total control without losing myself."

My heart raced, and I went to stand up, to tell him that this wasn't part of the deal, but cuffs suddenly locked my wrists and ankles to the chair and I couldn't move. Thiago stepped away from me and grabbed a needle hooked up to a monitor with some fluid inside it.

He slipped it into my arm and turned on the machine, pumping fluids into my body.

"You're mine now, Bria Benton. My slave."

Thiago suddenly tensed, eyes glazing over as if he was talking through the mindlink. Callum's eyes had done that when he was chatting with me through our newly formed one, and at that time, I thought it was the most magical thing.

"Stay here," Thiago said, looking at me, then at the doctor, and then rushed toward the door to the office room. "Don't let her leave until the procedure is complete. I have business that I need to handle." Before he walked out the door, he turned to me. "Don't leave or I'll kill every last one of your packmates."

And with that, he walked out the door. The dark gray automatic doors closed behind him and locked, the lights across the middle of the door turning a beaming red color. I stared at the door for a couple moments, wanting to leave so badly, then turned back to the doctor.

He stepped toward me with a needle to take a blood sample. I stayed still in the seat and stared emptily at the ground, feeling the prick of the needle and trying hard not to bawl my eyes out. This was the fucking end for me.

For us.

"I don't know why he wants my wolf so badly," I muttered. "I can't even shift."

"You can't shift?" the doctor asked, suddenly stilling. He furrowed his brows and pulled the needle out of my arm, hurrying to one of his little tricknets on the table that did God-knew-what.

"No. I can't shift," I repeated.

After tapping a button, a green light came on in the machine. He tensed and shook his head, muttering the word "no" over and over under his breath. In a moment, he turned toward the door and sprinted at it. "Alpha! Wait!"

"What is it?" I asked him.

But he didn't answer me.

My wolf thrashed around inside of me for control, and with the fluids pumping into my system, I was beginning to lose control of myself and my human. I was slipping, so she easily took the power from me.

Using all our strength, she broke the cuffs around my wrists and ankles and stood. I hurried toward the door before the doctor could slip out of it and find Thiago. He scrambled to get away from me, but I stopped him and held him still.

"What did you find?" I growled.

"It shouldn't be possible," he said, shaking his head. "It's not."

"What?" I growled.

"The first sterilization shot we gave you years ago." He paused. "It didn't work."

"What do you mean it didn't work?" I asked, my heart leaping inside my chest.

"I mean, that you're not sterile. Not anymore."

If I wasn't sterile, if what he was saying was true, that meant that I was fighting for more than me now. I couldn't sit back and let them take this away from me. If Thiago found out, then he would try to rip out my uterus with his bare hands.

Instead of letting the poor doctor go, I wrapped my hands harder around his neck and snapped it until his body fell lifeless in my hands, until he was dead and could never tell Thiago anything. Then I took control of my wolf and ripped the needle from my arm to stop the fluids.

Because now, I was fighting for Callum and me, and maybe... someone else too.