She pushed the thought away.

She had one hour. One hour to pack the clothes that had been given to her. The salve for her throat. The small comfort items that belonged to the estate, not to her.

She moved quickly through the packing. Fold. Stack. Place in bag. Her hands did the work while her mind spiraled with questions she had no answers to. Why were they sending her away? What had she done?

But the questions didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was going to see her mother.

She was going to see her mother again.

At 8:57 AM, she picked up her bag and walked toward the main staircase.

The estate was quieter than it had been over the past days. The brothers were nowhere to be seen. The staff moved around her with practiced invisibility. She was a shadow here, present but not quite real. A payment. A body. Something that existed in the margins of their world.

Marcus was waiting at the main entrance when she walked out.

The older warrior looked the same as he had yesterday, professional, composed, kind in the way that older warriors were kind. He didn’t ask questions. Just opened the passenger door for her and waited for her to settle in before closing it gently.

The car pulled away from the estate.

Lilith watched the gates disappear in the side mirror.

***

The drive to Shadowmere took four hours.

Four hours of road that twisted through forest and climbed through mountains. Four hours of landscape that became increasingly familiar as they moved deeper into pack territory.

Lilith pressed her forehead against the window and watched the world change.

The first hour was silence. Broken only by the sound of the engine and the occasional radio static from the driver’s side. Marcus didn’t attempt conversation. He seemed to understand that silence was what she needed.

She used it to think.

The brothers had sent her away. Not angry. Not as punishment. Sebastian had been almost gentle about it, had touched her face after, had kissed her forehead. That didn’t feel like punishment.

It felt like protection.

But protection from what? From the full moon? She understood the full moon made wolves unpredictable. She’d seen Lucian’s eyes go feral, had heard Nicholas’s voice drop into something darker. But they’d never hurt her before. Not in a way that felt like genuine danger.

Unless they were afraid they would hurt her.

She pulled the collar of her dress higher, covering the marks on her neck. The ones from Sebastian, from before. The ones that told their own story about what these men were capable of.

By the second hour, they’d reached the outer edges of Shadowmere territory.

The landscape changed. The wild forest gave way to familiar landmarks. The old oak tree where warriors trained....Lilith could see it from the road, lightning-split trunk standing like a monument to something ancient. The stone bridge where she’d run laps with her father. The meadow where pack gatherings happened.

Each landmark was a weight on her chest.

This was home. Or it had been. Now it was just a place she used to belong.

Marcus drove through the territory without stopping. Passed warriors who nodded in recognition. Passed buildings that looked exactly as they had when she’d left. Nothing had changed here. The pack had moved forward without Victor’s daughter. Without even seeming to notice she was gone.

By the third hour, they were approaching the hospital.

Lilith’s heart had started racing. Her hands were shaking. She clenched them into fists to hide it from Marcus, but the tension in her body was palpable.

She was about to see her mother.

Her mother, who’d been unconscious for fourteen days now. Who was still fighting the trauma of a broken mate bond. Who had no idea what her daughter had been doing. What had been done to her daughter.

***

The fourth hour dragged.

The sun was moving across the sky. They were getting closer. Lilith could feel it in her bones, the pull toward her mother. The desperate need to see her mother’s face, to hold her hand, to know that she was still alive.

Marcus pulled into the hospital parking lot at 12:33 PM.

He turned off the engine and turned to look at her.

"I’ll be here by morning," he said quietly. His voice was gentle. Kind. Like he understood something she didn’t want him to understand. "Don’t be late."

"I won’t," Lilith said.

She stepped out of the car.

The hospital smelled the same.

Antiseptic. Staleness. The particular scent of sickness and machines and bodies fighting to stay alive. Lilith breathed it in and felt something inside her settle slightly. This smell meant her mother. This smell meant she wasn’t completely alone.

She moved through the lobby without hesitation. She knew the way. Third floor. South corridor. Room 304.

The elevator was empty when she stepped inside. She watched the numbers climb. 1. 2. 3.

When the doors opened, she stepped out into a hallway that felt exactly the same as it had when she’d visited before. Quiet. Sterile. Filled with the soft beeping of machines and the low hum of fluorescent lights.

She walked toward Room 304.

Her footsteps echoed on the linoleum floor. She could hear other sounds from other rooms—the murmur of voices, a patient crying out in pain, a monitor alarming. The hospital was alive with suffering.

She stopped outside her mother’s door.

For a moment, she just stood there. Just breathed. Just prepared herself for what she was about to see.

Then she pushed open the door.

Her mother lay exactly where she’d left her.

In the hospital bed, surrounded by machines, hooked up to IVs and monitors, her body fragile and still and unconscious. But in the afternoon light streaming through the window, She looked different than she had before.

There was something softer about her face. Something that suggested the deep places inside her were beginning to heal.

Lilith moved to the bed slowly.