After I Died, the Alpha Went Mad Holding My Body Chapter 01

After I Died, the Alpha Went Mad Holding My Body Chapter 01

My fifth labor nearly broke me.

And the pup I’d torn myself open to deliver was already gone—taken from me because of Isabella Frost, just like the four before him.

Outside the Blackwood packhouse, my parents were on their knees in the snow. Silver blades in their hands. Farewell letters in their pockets. Everything they had—on the table—to make me back down.

“Isabella was chosen by the system too. Everything she did, she did for her mission. Evelyn—if you really want her to answer for this, you go through us first.”

Everyone expected me to lose it.

To cry. To scream. To demand Isabella pay for what happened to my pup.

Even Alpha Kaelen Blackwood—who’d torn across the territory to get here—sat at my bedside, eyes red, talking me down.

“Evelyn. Isabella’s system mission only completes if she gives the Blackwood Pack its first heir.”

“My first acknowledged pup—it has to come from her.”

“Be the bigger person. Stop coming at her. Once your body recovers, we’ll have more.”

I nodded. Numb to the bone.

“Yes. Whatever the Alpha wants.”

That night, crates of “compensation” came pouring into the West Wing.

Kaelen was softer than usual. Gentler. As if any of it could undo a single thing.

I watched the snow piling onto the forest outside my window, and asked the system in my head:

“The mission failed, didn’t it?”

…

What Kaelen didn’t know was this: I was a system host too.

And my mission was the same as Isabella’s.

[MISSION FAILED: Pup not safely delivered.]

[ERASURE PROTOCOL INITIATED. T-MINUS 24:00:00.]

The system’s voice came through the same second Kaelen’s footsteps hit the door.

A second after that, his arms were around me from behind.

His voice was low. Soft. Tender—too late.

“Evelyn. They’re taking the pup to Moonstone Cemetery soon. Do you want to see him one more time?”

The word pup hit a part of me I thought had gone numb. Something stabbed clean through.

He felt me go rigid. A flicker of guilt crossed his eyes.

“This pup wasn’t meant for us. Once you’re stronger, we’ll have more.”

I laughed. Soft. Hollow.

Kaelen didn’t know there was no more.

The system had given me five chances.

All I had to do was bring one pup safely into the world, and the mission was mine.

But five years ago, Isabella came to me sobbing. Confessed she had her own system. Said she had to give Kaelen his heir—or she would be erased.

After that night, every pup I carried ended up in the ground. Her shadow was behind every loss.

Remembering, I turned my face from the kiss he was bending down to give me.

“It’s fine.”

“The Alpha can handle it.”

The warm breath at the back of my neck stopped.

Kaelen paused. Then his arms closed tighter around me, and he gave me a small, helpless smile.

“Evelyn. I know you’re hurting. But don’t punish me to spite yourself.”

“He was our child. How can you talk about him like that?”

He sounded heartbroken.

I just thought it was funny.

The first time I went into labor, I bled for two days and two nights before I delivered. When I had nothing left in me, Isabella came tearing into the West Wing and took the baby from my arms.

I held my son.

He was already gone.

My body was splitting open. My wolf was shaking inside me.

And still, I asked Kaelen—word by word—

“Alpha. She took our child from us. There’s no price for that?”

He just put Isabella behind him. Sighed.

“Evelyn. She did it for her mission. My first heir has to be hers.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll make it right.”

The next day, I found out what “making it right” meant.

He locked her in the North Wing.

For a few days.

That was it.

The next four pups all ended the same way. Isabella was always involved.

Five pups. Five.

And every time, Kaelen brushed it off like it was weather.

He once told me, full of regret: “Evelyn, if only you’d been carrying a girl this time.”

A girl wouldn’t have been a threat to Isabella’s heir.

Even now, all he could say was:

“After Isabella delivers, I’ll make her reflect. She’ll atone for our pup.”

The bitter laugh in my chest barely stayed down.

Right then, my parents shoved the door open and burst in, faces tight.

“Alpha—something’s wrong. Isabella’s wolf is acting up again!”

Kaelen’s face changed. He grabbed my hand on instinct, trying to pull me up.

The pack healers had said it once: only Silver Moon bloodline wolf-blood could quiet Isabella’s wolf when she went into a fit. And in all of Blackwood territory, only one person carried that bloodline.

Me.

So every time she had an episode, I was the one who had to go.

But this time—I was the one running out of time.

I didn’t have it in me to care whether anyone else made it through the night.

I pulled my hand out of his. The only thing left in my voice was exhaustion.

“Alpha. I’m not going.”