He Let My Sister Die, So I Ended His Bloodline novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Fifty Dollars
Nessa's sister dies after the pack's finance director stalls her surgery deposit, and Nessa leaves for Austin, where Slade's wolves are waiting.
The fifty dollars arrived while I was still buckling my seat belt.
It came from the pack's private account, with a note attached.
"Peyton forgot to file your sister's surgery deposit. Please accept this as compensation."
Fifty dollars for my sister.
I was on a flight to Texas with a clinic bracelet still on my wrist.
That morning I had ended my pregnancy, because I could not carry the Alpha's pup after what he had done.
My sister's ashes were in my carry-on, in a tin the funeral home called a keepsake urn.
Cara had amber eyes, the only amber eyes in a family of gray ones.
Mom used to say she took after nobody.
Slade Haught's messages started coming in a rush.
"You sound worn out. From now on, anything over two hundred dollars goes through Peyton, so you don't have to carry it."
"Why aren't you answering? Carrying my pup doesn't excuse you from pack rules."
"Explain yourself tomorrow. Cara's surgery slipping a few days has nothing to do with Peyton."
He still didn't know.
I turned the screen off and shut my eyes.
My wolf lay quiet inside me, and the faint second heartbeat she had listened to for weeks was gone.
Five days earlier, I had stood in the hallway of Brazos Treatment Center and begged him on the phone.
"Slade, please. Cara finally has a kidney match. I need three hundred thousand dollars by Monday."
"I've told you a hundred times, Nessa. If you need money, go to Peyton."
Then he hung up.
Peyton Goelet was his executive assistant.
She was also the pack's finance director, and nothing over two hundred dollars left the Alpha household accounts without her signature.
I drove straight to the pack house and found her in the open office, with two clerks typing at the desks beside hers.
"Nessa, sit down, you look wrecked."
She put a mug of tea in my hands and read the application with her eyebrows pulled together.
She held her phone over the donor's match letter and took a picture of it.
"For the file, honey. You know how Slade is about paperwork."
"The center won't send a full invoice until after the surgery," I said. "They need the deposit first."
"I'm not saying I don't trust you. Some people pad their expenses, and I have to protect the pack's money."
She tapped the page with one nail.
"Fill in every box and I'll put it in front of him today. Today, I promise."
I filled in every box while the clerks kept typing.
When I handed it back, she squeezed my hand.
The money never came.
On Thursday I called her, and she answered on the first ring.
"Oh my God, Nessa, the elders' meeting swallowed my whole week. I completely forgot. You won't hold it against me, will you?"
By then the match had gone to the next name on the list.
The doctor said that with Cara's condition, it had been her last chance at a kidney that fit.
That was the night I walked into Slade's study.
He sat behind his desk with the territory accounts open on his screen and did not look up.
"I want to dissolve our mate contract," I said.
"Stop making a scene."
We were not fated mates.
Three years ago we had signed a chosen-mate contract, and he had never marked me and never held a Luna ceremony.
I said it again, and this time he stood.
Alpha pressure rolled off him, and the back of my neck prickled with the instinct to drop my eyes.
I kept my head up.
"Over something this small?" he said.
"Cara is dying, and you gave your assistant the key to the money."
"Peyton follows my orders. I froze the extra funds because of how you behaved the other day, and I've already had them restore her normal care."
"I'm busy, Nessa. I don't have time for your emotions."
He took his coat off the chair and walked to the door.
"Have the registrar's lawyer call me tomorrow at ten," I said to his back.
He stopped.
"Before you threaten me, think about who pays your bills. Your sister needs treatment, and you're carrying my pup."
His phone rang before I could answer.
His voice went soft the moment he picked up.
"Peyton, don't cry. It isn't your fault. I'll take you to pick out a gala dress tomorrow. Get whatever you want."
I stood in his doorway and listened to him comfort her.
Cara died two nights later, before the sun came up.
So I left.
Now the plane touched down in Austin, and I turned my phone back on.
Joanie Higginbotham, the night nurse at Brazos, had written three times.
"Slade is here. He walked into Cara's empty room."
"I told him the deposit never came and we lost her. Nessa, he went gray."
"He's asking where you are."
I walked out through arrivals with the tin held against my ribs.
Slade's beta and two Cedar Ridge wolves were waiting by the exit. "Alpha says you're coming home," the beta said. "The contract isn't dissolved until he signs it."
"Then he can tell me himself."
"Peyton called the clinic this morning, Nessa. He knows you were there."
He stepped closer, and his voice dropped.
"He says you owe him a pup."
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