chapter 9

The plane touched down, and Edward stepped off with the kind of exhaustion that settles deep in your bones after a seven-hour flight. Simon took his luggage and loaded it into the car.

"Werewolf Alliance Hospital," Edward said as he slid into the back seat. He pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to shake off the fatigue.

He glanced outside. The sun was rising low on the horizon. He pulled out his phone and dialed Catherine's number.

He'd promised to call her. He wasn't going to break his word.

The ringtone sounded different than usual. The seconds stretched out, each one longer than the last, but Catherine didn't pick up.

Still asleep, maybe?

Edward tugged at his tie in irritation.

The car pulled up to Werewolf Alliance Hospital, and Edward got out and walked through the outpatient building toward the elevator that led to the sky bridge connecting to the third floor of the inpatient wing. Just as he stepped inside, the elevator next to his opened, and someone wheeled out a gurney carrying a body covered with a white sheet.

Edward glanced over. The hand hanging outside the sheet was a woman's hand.

Something clenched in his chest. He wanted to see the family pushing that gurney, but the elevator doors were already sliding shut.

He shot his hand out to stop them and started to step out, but a family of three rushed in before he could.

"Thank you," the woman said gratefully. She'd thought she'd have to wait for the next one, but the man inside had held the door for them.

Edward pushed out of the elevator and looked around, but whoever it was had already disappeared down the corridor.

"Sir? Are you coming back in?" the woman called after him.

Edward stood there for a moment, lost. Then he stepped back into the elevator, and a bitter, self-mocking smile tugged at his lips.

He was losing it. For just a second, he'd thought that hand belonged to Catherine.

He really was going crazy.

Catherine wore her moonstone mate ring on her left hand every single day. She never took it off. Not once.

That hand he'd seen didn't have a moonstone ring on it. There was no way it could've been hers.

He shook his head and forced the ridiculous thought away.

Jane had just gotten out of surgery and was still unconscious in the recovery room. Edward waited outside in the hallway for a while, then tried calling Catherine again. Still no answer.

His wolf snarled low in his mind. "Go find Catherine. Now."

Edward hesitated, debating whether to call her again, but his wolf's insistence was making him restless and irritable. He stood and turned to his beta. "Simon, head to the Bloodmoon Pack Alpha Manor."

After the attack on Bloodmoon Pack, the entire territory looked like a wasteland. The Alpha Manor's gates were locked tight, and no one was around.

Edward sat in his car and smoked cigarette after cigarette. Three hours later, Bloodmoon Pack's car finally pulled up.

Mary stepped out with a bag in her hand. Behind her, a maid from the manor followed, clutching something in her arms and crying quietly.

Edward glanced into Mary's car, but no one else got out.

Mary kept walking until she heard the maid's sobs behind her. She turned around with a scowl. "What the hell are you crying for?"

Catherine had finally become Edward's Luna, and Stormclaw Pack was powerful and wealthy now, but Catherine died without getting a single dollar.

Stormclaw Pack paid for her father's medical bills, but the money never touched Mary's hands.

Now Bloodmoon Pack was in chaos, and the other packs were already circling like vultures, plotting how to carve up the territory.

Mary hadn't found a pack willing to take her in yet, and she didn't have a decent job. She was completely broke.

"I feel so bad for Ms. Hartwell," the maid said through her tears. She couldn't even have a whole body to bury.

Catherine was a girl the maid had watched grow up—so young, so full of life...

"Bad? Why do you feel bad about her?" Mary snapped. "The Moon Goddess never blessed me. I only had one daughter, and I didn't get to enjoy anything before she went and died. And she donated her heart! What kind of person does that? She must've been out of her mind!"

She should've had more kids while she had the chance.

"What did you say? Who died?"

The cold voice cut through the air and made Mary jump.

She stopped in her tracks and turned toward the sound. When she saw Edward standing there, her knees nearly buckled.

Honestly, she'd always been terrified of the Stormclaw Pack Alpha.

"Catherine died." Mary forced the words out through her fear, though irritation crept into her voice despite herself.

Even if Catherine had broken the mate bond with Edward, even if she'd run off with that Thornhowl Pack Alpha Leon—fine. But dying? How was that possible?

"I asked you who died!" Edward strode toward her, and the Alpha pressure rolling off him made Mary's legs go weak. She nearly dropped to her knees.

"Catherine..." Mary's voice came out in a trembling whisper.