The next morning, I told Ethan, “Let’s hit Shadow Fang Pack together.”
His face tightened, but he smoothed it out quickly. “Fine. but let’s return right after we’ve delivered the gift.”
Yeah, he was worried I’d ruin Riley’s special moment.
I didn’t care about her. I simply needed to see my family one last time. After tomorrow, I was out for good.
The atmosphere at Shadow Fang Pack was lively. Riley, dressed in a ceremonial gown, soaked up the praise while pregnant with a puppy, flaunting it, and somehow up for Chief Healer.
The pack elders beamed at her as if she had hung the moon.
“Riley made the wolfsbane antidote. No question-she’s the next Chief Healer.”
“Amazing! Usually takes the council labs forever to crack stuff like that.”
“They even slapped a certificate on her. Total prodigy!”
I froze at the banquet hall entrance, my feet glued to the ground.
Not long ago, I was working hard with my mentor, Master Healer Levi, to develop an antidote for wolfsbane.
There is no way this was a fluke.
My gaze was fixed on the certificate dead centre in the hall.
The formula, the research notes—every line of them stabbed like a knife.
That was mine. Two years of blood, sweat, and restless nights.
And it had her name on it.
Riley spotted me. Her smile cracked for a second before morphing into something sugary and fake. She moved over, her voice laced with mockery.
“Lizzy, my darling sister, you came too? Like the formula? Too bad for you. It’s mine now.”
I gave her a glare, ready to fire back.
But Riley gasped, staggering as if I had punched her, clutching her stomach as if it were about to shatter.
The entire hall erupted into chaos.
“What happened?!”
“She’s carrying a pup! How could you push her?!”
One voice broke through the noise, tight and desperate.
“Riley!”
I recognised that voice. I could find it anywhere.
Ethan.
The heartbreak dripping from it destroyed the last glimmer of hope I was foolish enough to hold onto.
He caught me looking and quickly wiped the panic from his face.
Turning to face me, his voice was calm but full of reproach.
“No matter what happened, Riley’s carrying a pup. You shouldn’t have pushed her.”
I looked back at the wolf I’d been living with for five years.
His worry was raw. Real.
Then someone broke the news that Riley had crushed four other competitors and officially won the Chief Healer title, all thanks to the stolen formula.
Ethan’s face lightened up.
Pure, unfiltered joy—something I’d never seen directed at me.
I asked him, barely a whisper, “Why is Riley’s formula the same as mine?”
Ethan stiffened but quickly concealed it, playing dumb.
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Her research was kinda like yours…”
I did not bother responding. Just sneered.
Only three people were aware of my wolfsbane antidote research: me, my mentor, and Ethan.
And the formula? Locked up in our home study.
It wasn’t difficult to figure out how or who leaked it.
I originally created that formula for Ethan after he was accidentally poisoned with wolfsbane and went berserk.
