Thea’s POV

“I need to go,” I said, the words tumbling out. “Can you watch Leo?”

Sebastian said something, his words taking too long to reach my scattered thoughts. Everything felt distant, like I was underwater. Finally, his voice broke through: “…want me to watch him now?”

“Please.”I couldn’t meet his eyes, couldn’t handle whatever judgment I might find there. “Just… I can’t take him to the hospital. Not for this.”

There was a pause, perhaps concern, confusion, or annoyance, but honestly, I didn’t give a damn. My brain was already halfway to the hospital.

“I’ll have my mother watch him,” he said, his tone carrying an unfamiliar softness that any other day might have meant something.

“Thank you.” I turned to leave, then stopped. “Tell him… tell him I love him? And that I’ll be back soon?”

“Of course.”

The drive to Moon Bay General felt endless. Streetlights blurred past as memories flooded my mind—growing up in the Sterling Pack, always the outsider, the family’s greatest mistake. The wolfless daughter who brought shame to our bloodline.

I remembered the last time I’d driven this route – the night Leo was born. The only time my father had ever looked at me with something close to pride.

“You can’t come to the ceremony,” Mom would say at every pack gathering, her voice perfectly polite. “You understand, don’t you dear? It wouldn’t be… appropriate.”

Roman had tried, at first. My big brother, the future Alpha, sneaking me chocolate after particularly bad days. “They’ll come around,” he’d say. “Just give them time.”

But they never did. And eventually, even Roman’s kindness faded to nothing more than awkward glances across dinner tables.

Then there was Aurora. Perfect, beautiful Aurora and her perfect fucking life. Every pack member’s dream daughter, while I was the nightmare they tried to hide away. The ghost in the family photos, the name they never mentioned in public.

All of it hurt like hell, but I could’ve lived with it. I’d lived with it my whole life. Until seven years ago, when everything went to shit. Aurora swore she never wanted to see me again after what happened. My own sister, looking at me like I was worse than nothing. After that, even Sebastian and the Ashworth Pack rejected me. Only Leo – my lovely Leo – still looked at me like I mattered.

The hospital parking lot was nearly empty this late. I pulled into a spot, but couldn’t make myself get out immediately. What was I even doing here? The man dying in that building had spent my entire life making it clear I wasn’t really his daughter. Why should his crisis move me?

But I was here. Because despite everything, he was my father. Because some stupid, broken part of me still cared.

The emergency room reeked of antiseptic and fear. “Derek Sterling,” I told the receptionist. “He was brought in with… with injuries from a Rogue attack.”

I stood silent, an outsider watching a family moment I had no part in. Dad’s hand move slightly, passing something to Mom before they wheeled him away. The medical team rushed him through the operating room doors, leaving us in a heavy silence broken only by her quiet sobs.

The waiting was endless. I paced, unable to sit still, while memories crashed over me again like waves. Dad teaching Aurora to shift while I watched from my bedroom window. Mom braiding Aurora’s hair before pack ceremonies while telling me to stay in my room so I wouldn’t embarrass them. The day I turned sixteen and still hadn’t a wolf, the shame in Dad’s eyes when he announced to the pack that his youngest daughter was wolfless.

Roman made coffee runs. Mom prayed to the Moon Goddess. I walked circles in the waiting room and tried not to think about how fucking unfair it all was – that even now, even here, I still felt like I didn’t belong.

Two and a half hours passed before the doctor emerged, his expression grave. “Mrs. Sterling? I’m so sorry. We did everything we could, but your husband’s heart stopped. We couldn’t bring him back.”

Mom’s howl of grief shook the walls. Roman caught her as her knees buckled, his own eyes bright with tears. The sound pierced through me, primal and raw – the cry of a wolf who’d lost her mate. A sound I would never be able to make.

I pressed my hand to my chest, trying to contain the strange hollow ache there. My father was dead. The man who had never accepted me, never loved me, was gone. I should feel something. Grief or relief or… anything. Instead, I felt numb.

Then a terrible thought hit me like a physical blow. Dad’s death meant more than just a new Alpha for the Sterling Pack.

It meant Aurora would have to come home.