Kacie POV:

"Arrest her."

The words hung in the sterile hospital air. Two pack Enforcers, large wolves with stone faces, stepped forward.

"Cedric, you can't be serious," I said, backing up until my hospital gown brushed the cold wall. "I need to heal. I just lost a child."

"You are a danger to the pack," Cedric said, his voice devoid of any warmth. "You conspired with Rogues. That is treason. The punishment is death, Kacie. Be grateful I am only imprisoning you."

He nodded to the Enforcers. One of them pulled out a pair of handcuffs.

They weren't steel. They glinted with a dull, white sheen.

Silver.

"No," I gasped. "Cedric, please. Silver will burn me. It stops the healing. I'm already bleeding internally!"

"Maybe the pain will help you reflect on your sins," he said.

The Enforcer clamped the cuffs onto my wrists.

Sizzle.

Smoke rose from my skin. The smell of burning flesh filled the corridor. I screamed, my knees buckling. It felt like acid was being injected directly into my veins. The silver suppressed my wolf, locking Serenity away in a cage of agony.

They dragged me through the hospital. Pack members watched, whispering, pointing. I was the traitor. The child-killer.

They didn't take me to the police station. They took me to the Moon Estate's dungeon. It was a damp, lightless basement carved into the bedrock beneath the house.

They threw me into a cell and slammed the iron bars shut.

"Enjoy your stay," the Enforcer grunted, leaving me in the dark.

I crawled to the corner, cradling my burning wrists. The pain was constant, a high-pitched scream in my nervous system.

I lay there for hours, shivering on the dirty straw.

Eventually, the elevator hummed. Footsteps approached.

It was Carol. She stood outside the bars, looking down at me like I was a cockroach.

"You should know," she said, smoothing her skirt. "Since you have proven yourself unfit and traitorous, the Elders have annulled your marriage rights. Cedric will marry Jayden as soon as her health permits. To restore the pack's luck."

"Good," I rasped, my voice barely audible. "Let her have him."

"You will rot here until you die," Carol smiled.

She left.

I closed my eyes. The rune on my chest was burning hotter than the silver. I pulled down the collar of my gown to look at it in the dim light.

3 Days.

I had three days left. I wasn't going to rot here. I was going to leave. Not just the pack, but this world.

"Just hold on, Serenity," I whispered to the silence. "We're almost free."

Kacie POV:

The dungeon had no windows, but my body knew time was passing. Not by the sun, but by the countdown etched into my flesh.

My jailer was a brute named Brutus, a wolf loyal to Jayden. For two days, he had brought me "food." It was a bowl of gruel that smelled sharp and bitter.

Wolfsbane.

I knew it. He knew I knew it.

"Eat up, traitor," he laughed, kicking the bowl through the bars.

I didn't eat it. But the fumes alone were enough to make my head spin. The silver cuffs had turned my wrists black and necrotic. My womb, still unhealed from the miscarriage, throbbed with a dull, persistent ache.

On the third day, I collapsed. My body finally gave out. I convulsed on the floor, foam gathering at my mouth.

When I woke up, I was back in a hospital bed, handcuffed to the rail.

Cedric was sitting in a chair next to me. He was reading a file.

"You are stubborn," he said, not looking up. "Starving yourself won't make me forgive you."

"I wasn't starving myself," I whispered. "Your guard was poisoning me."

Cedric slammed the file shut. "Brutus is a loyal soldier! Stop lying! Why can't you just admit what you did?"

"Because I didn't do it."

He stood up, looming over me. "I want to save you, Kacie. Despite everything, I feel the bond. But you make it impossible. Just submit. Admit your guilt, pledge loyalty to Jayden as the new Luna, and I will let you live in the servant's quarters."

"Become a servant to the woman who killed my child?" I looked at him with pity. "You truly are lost, Cedric."

He growled, frustrated, and stormed out of the room to cool off.

A minute later, the door creaked open. Jayden slipped in. She looked healthy, glowing even. She was wearing my blue velvet dress.

She didn't speak out loud. She tapped her temple.

Mind-Link: You look terrible, Kacie.

Her voice in my head was smug, oily.

Mind-Link: I just wanted to tell you... I knew.

I looked at her. Knew what?

Mind-Link: I knew you were pregnant. I could smell it weeks ago. Why do you think I arranged the rooftop meeting? I needed to make sure Cedric made a choice before you started showing. And he chose me.

My breath hitched. "You monster," I said aloud.

Jayden giggled. "Who is he going to believe? The traitor in cuffs, or his savior?"

She leaned in close, her perfume choking me. "Die quickly, Kacie. I want to redecorate the master bedroom."

She left before Cedric returned.

When Cedric came back, I was staring at the ceiling, calm. The rage was gone. The sorrow was gone. There was only the countdown.

24 Hours.

"Cedric," I said.

He looked at me, wary.

"I want to make a deal."

"What kind of deal?"

"I will sign the confession," I lied. "I will admit to everything. I will annul the marriage. I will disappear from your life."

Cedric's shoulders relaxed. Relief washed over his face. "Okay. Good. That is... the right choice."

"But I have one condition."

"Name it."

"Tomorrow night. Take me to the Starlight Ferris Wheel. At midnight."

"The amusement park?" Cedric frowned. "Why?"

"It's where we had our first date," I said. "Before you knew who I was. Before the drugs, before the politics. Just... take me there one last time. Let me see the moon from the top. Then I will sign."

He hesitated. He looked at my broken body, the silver burns, the hollow eyes.

"Fine," he said. "Tomorrow night. But after that, you are gone."

"Yes," I closed my eyes, a faint smile touching my lips. "Gone."

Kacie POV:

The sun rose on my final day. It didn't look any different from the sun on any other day, but to me, it felt like a spotlight on a stage where the play was about to end.

I stood in front of the mirror in the hospital bathroom. My skin was pale, almost translucent. But my eyes... they were changing. The brown was fading, replaced by a milky, swirling white. It was the sign of the White Wolf, the ancient bloodline finally surfacing as my human vessel failed.

I put on the yellow sundress I had asked the nurse to fetch from my apartment. It was the dress I wore the day I met Cedric, three years ago. Back when he was just a charming man in a coffee shop, not the Alpha who would break me.

Cedric arrived at noon. He looked relieved, almost happy. He thought he had won. He thought tonight was the start of my submission.

"You look... better," he said, though his eyes lingered on my pale skin with a frown.

"I feel light," I said truthfully. The pain from the silver burns and the miscarriage was fading, replaced by a strange, numbing coldness.

We left the hospital. I asked him to take me to the cheap noodle stand near the university.

"Kacie, we can go to Le Lune," Cedric said, wrinkled his nose at the street food cart. "I can buy out the restaurant."

"No," I said, taking a seat on a plastic stool. "I want this."

We ate in silence. I watched him. I memorized the way his jaw moved, the way his dark hair fell over his forehead. I was saying goodbye to the man I loved, burying him in my memory before I left the man who hated me.

We went to the cinema. A comedy. I didn't laugh. I sat next to him, shivering despite the warmth of the theater.

Cedric tried to hold my hand. His skin was warm, vibrant with life.

I pulled away.

"What's wrong?" he whispered.

"My hands are cold," I said. "I don't want to freeze you."

He sighed, annoyed, but didn't push it.

As the sun began to set, we drove to the amusement park. The Starlight Ferris Wheel loomed against the darkening sky, a giant circle of neon lights.

"We have an hour until midnight," Cedric said, checking his watch. "We can walk around."

We walked. The air smelled of popcorn and diesel. Couples walked past us, their scents mingling-happy, content. I felt a pang of jealousy so sharp it almost brought me to my knees. I would never have that.

Suddenly, Cedric's phone rang.

He looked at the screen. His expression tightened.

"It's the estate," he said.

He answered. I could hear the frantic voice on the other end. It was the housekeeper, but I could hear Jayden screaming in the background.

"Alpha! Miss Jayden... she's in pain! She says her heat is starting early! She needs the suppressants, the special ones only you have the biometric access to!"

Cedric looked at me. He looked at the Ferris wheel. Then he looked back at the phone.

"I..." He hesitated.

"Go," I said softly.

"Kacie, it's 11:30. If I drive fast, I can drop off the meds and be back by midnight. I promise."

"Just go, Cedric."

"Wait for me here," he commanded, his Alpha tone slipping out. "Do not move. We are going up that wheel together."

He turned and ran toward the parking lot. He didn't look back.

I watched him disappear into the crowd.

"You always choose her," I whispered to the wind. "Even at the end."

I stood there alone as the minutes ticked by.

11:45 PM.

11:50 PM.

11:55 PM.

I walked to the operator. I handed him my ticket.

"Just one?" he asked, looking around.

"Just one," I smiled.

I stepped into the swaying gondola. The metal door clanged shut, sealing my fate.

The wheel began to turn. I rose higher and higher, leaving the noise of the ground behind. The city spread out below me like a carpet of diamonds.

My phone buzzed. A text from Cedric.

Traffic. Wait for me. Don't go up yet.

I put the phone on the seat opposite me.

The gondola reached the very top. The apex. I was closest to the moon now. The full moon hung huge and white in the sky, calling to me.

I looked at my wrist. The rune was glowing blindingly bright. The numbers shifted.

00:00:01

00:00:00

A voice echoed in my head, ancient and soothing. Not a Mind-Link. Something older.

Contract fulfilled. Come home, child.

"I'm ready," I said.

My body didn't hurt anymore. I looked at my hands. They were turning into mist. Silver particles of light began to float off my skin, rising like fireflies.

I closed my eyes. I didn't feel fear. I felt... serenity.

The gondola was filled with a blinding flash of white light.

And then, I was gone.