Sarah POV
The light hits Sarah's face and she wakes up smiling.
Today. It's finally today.
She sits up in bed and her whole body feels different. Lighter. Like she's been holding her breath for six months and now she can finally breathe. The white mating dress hangs on the back of her closet door and even from across the room it makes her chest tight.
She's getting mated today. To Mason Cole.
Sarah gets out of bed and walks to the mirror. She studies her face like she's seeing it for the first time. Brown eyes. Dark hair that falls past her shoulders. Nothing special. Nothing that should make an Alpha want to bind his life to hers forever. But Mason chose her anyway.
She touches her collarbone where the mate mark will go tonight. She imagines how it will feel. The bite. The bond snapping into place. Two souls becoming one. That's what the elder women told her when they were planning the ceremony. Two souls becoming one. She thinks that might be the most beautiful thing she's ever heard.
Downstairs the pack house is already insane. She can hear it even from her room. Voices shouting. Things being moved around. Someone is yelling about flowers. Someone else is arguing about the feast arrangements. Everyone is running around because tonight is huge. The Alpha is taking his mate. That doesn't happen every day.
Sarah pulls on her simple white dress and looks at herself in the mirror again. She's only twenty-eight. She's the pack vet. Nobody special. But Mason loved her anyway. He loved her when she was just the quiet girl who fixed broken animals. He loved her before he was powerful. He loved her when he was still figuring out how to be Alpha after his father died.
That's the version of Mason she loves back.
The man who sits with her in the clinic late at night while she's working. The man who asks her questions about healing. The man who tells her he needs her to keep him grounded when being Alpha makes him too hard. That Mason. Not the one who scares other Alphas. Not the one who makes strategic decisions that shake the whole region. Just the boy underneath the title.
She runs her fingers over the dress one more time. It's simple. White cotton. Nothing fancy. She didn't want fancy. She just wanted to feel like herself. Mason said she didn't need to be anything but herself. He said himself was enough.
The noise downstairs gets louder.
Sarah starts to head down to help but stops. Today is her mating day. Usually the Alpha's mate doesn't work on her own ceremony. She's supposed to stay calm and prepare. She's supposed to let other people handle things. But Sarah has never been good at staying still.
She goes downstairs anyway.
The main hall is chaos. White flowers cover every table. Long strips of fabric hang from the ceiling. The feast is being prepared in the kitchen. The bonfire is being set up in the courtyard for later when the whole pack will gather to witness the mating ceremony. It's beautiful and it's messy and it's perfect.
Sarah's best friend Lily sees her and runs over. Lily grabs her hand and squeezes it tight. They've been friends since they were kids. Lily asks if Sarah is nervous. Sarah tells her that she's not nervous. She's just ready.
Lily pulls her into a hug and whispers that Mason is lucky. Lily tells her that Sarah is going to be the best mate this pack has ever had. Lily tells her to go be happy.
Sarah hugs her back and thanks her. She's about to say more when she hears it.
A scream.
Not the good kind. Not the excited kind. The kind that means something is wrong.
The sound comes from outside the pack house. The kind of sound that makes everyone stop what they're doing and listen. Sarah's stomach goes tight. She knows that sound. She's heard it in her clinic before. That's the sound of pain. Real pain. The kind that means injury or sickness or death.
Another scream. Then another.
The people in the hall look at each other confused. Lily's hand tightens on Sarah's arm. Sarah is already moving toward the door. Her body knows before her mind understands. The vet is needed. The healer is needed. The person who fixes things is needed.
Sarah runs outside and what she sees stops her cold.
The courtyard is falling apart.
Pack members are collapsing. Just dropping where they stand like someone cut their strings. A warrior woman is on her knees vomiting. An old man is convulsing. A child is crying and her mother can't get up to help her. People are being carried toward the clinic. People are screaming. People are dying.
Sarah doesn't think. She just runs.
She moves through the chaos and heads straight for her clinic. Her brain is already working through possibilities. Poison. Sickness. Something in the water. Something in the food. Something that spread through the pack fast. Real fast.
Inside the clinic, injured wolves are already being brought in. Her assistant Marcus looks panicked. He asks Sarah what happened. Sarah tells him she doesn't know but she needs him to start checking vitals. She needs him to start writing down symptoms. She needs him to stay calm because if he stays calm then the patients might stay calm too.
Sarah moves from person to person. She checks their eyes. She checks their pupils. She smells their breath. She touches their skin. The poison is making their nervous system go wrong. Their bodies are shutting down. The toxins are burning through their blood.
Wolf poison. She's sure of it now.
Sarah runs to her supply room and starts pulling bottles and tools. Her hands are steady even though her heart is racing. This is what she was trained for. This is what she's good at. She can fix this. She can save them.
An hour passes. Then two hours. Sarah works without stopping. She treats the first group of sick wolves. Some respond to treatment. Some don't. Three people die despite everything she tries. Marcus is crying while he works. Sarah doesn't have time to cry.
More people keep coming in. More symptoms. More poison victims. Sarah realizes this wasn't an accident. Something was poisoned on purpose. Something that affected multiple people. The water maybe. Or the feast food. Something that was made available to the whole pack.
On her mating day.
Sarah's white dress is covered in blood and sickness now. She doesn't remember when that happened. She doesn't care. She just keeps working. She keeps trying to save her pack.
It's late at night when the door to her clinic opens hard.
Mason walks in with Derek Stone right behind him. Derek is Mason's closest advisor. They've been together for twenty years. Derek is the only person besides Sarah that Mason really trusts.
Mason looks at Sarah with an expression she's never seen before. Cold. Angry. Like he's looking at a stranger.
Derek points toward the storage shelves in the back of Sarah's clinic.
There's a bottle sitting on the shelf that shouldn't be there.
Sarah's breath catches because she knows that bottle. But she also knows she didn't put it there. She's never seen that bottle before in her life.
Mason's face goes completely white.
Then he walks toward Sarah like she's a threat. Like she's dangerous. Like the woman he was supposed to mate with tonight is suddenly the enemy.
Mason holds up the bottle and Sarah sees the label.
Wolf poison.
Her name is written on it in handwriting that's not hers.
Mason looks at the dead pack members laid out in her clinic. He looks at the bottle in his hand. He looks at Sarah like she's broken his heart and poisoned his pack at the same time.
And in that second, Sarah understands.
She's been framed.
But she doesn't know why. And she doesn't have time to explain. Because Mason is already turning away from her. Derek is already telling him something. And Sarah can see in Mason's eyes that he's already made a decision.
He believes she did it.
And her entire world is about to end.