The iron gates loomed before me like the entrance to hell.

I collapsed against them, Papa's weight finally too much for my shaking legs. The metal was cold and unforgiving beneath my palms as I gripped the bars, my father's blood mixing with rain and mud on my hands.

"Marcus!" My voice cracked, raw from screaming. "Marcus, please!"

Movement in the packhouse. Lights flickering on in windows. Faces appearing behind glass, then quickly disappearing. No one wanted to be seen helping the Omega and her traitor father.

But I saw him—Marcus Webb, the Head Healer, standing in the doorway with his medical bag already in hand. His face was pale, conflicted. He took one step forward.

"Marcus, please." I pressed my face against the bars, tasting rust and desperation. "He's dying. You have to—"

"Stop."

The voice came from above. I looked up through the rain and saw him on the second-floor balcony. Luca. My mate. The man my father had trained from a boy into an Alpha.

Brittany stood beside him, holding an umbrella over his head. They were dry. Comfortable. Safe behind their walls while we bled in the mud.

"Luca." His name tore from my throat. "Please. I'm begging you. Just let Marcus through the gates. That's all I'm asking. Please."

Papa's breathing rattled beneath me, each exhale weaker than the last. The bond between us was a fraying rope, and I could feel every strand snapping.

Luca's eyes met mine. For one desperate second, I thought I saw something flicker there—recognition, maybe. Regret. But then his face hardened into stone.

"Marcus." His Alpha tone rolled across the courtyard like thunder. "You will not move from that doorway."

I watched Marcus freeze mid-step, his body going rigid under the command. His medical bag slipped from his fingers and hit the ground with a dull thud.

"No." The word came out broken. "No, you can't—"

"Guards." Luca's voice was calm. Measured. Like he was discussing the weather instead of condemning a man to death. "The gates remain locked. Resources are for loyal pack members, not the families of terrorists."

Terrorists. He kept using that word. Kept painting us with that lie until everyone believed it.

"He trained you!" I screamed up at him, my voice shredding. "He taught you everything you know! He was loyal to this pack for thirty years!"

"And his daughter tried to murder me." Luca's tone didn't change. "Actions have consequences, Evelynn. You should have thought about that before you planted those bombs."

Brittany leaned closer to him, whispering something that made her smile. The umbrella tilted, and for a moment I saw her face clearly. She wasn't just satisfied. She was triumphant.

This was what she wanted. What they both wanted.

"Luca." Papa's voice was so faint I barely heard it over the rain. "Please. Not... Evie. She's... innocent."

Even dying, he was trying to protect me.

Luca looked down at the man who'd been like a father to him, and his expression didn't change. "The gates stay closed."

Then he turned his back and walked inside. Brittany followed, the umbrella disappearing into the warm, dry packhouse. The balcony door clicked shut with a sound like a coffin closing.

I looked down at Papa. His eyes were still open, still focused on my face. Blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth.

"I'm sorry." My tears fell onto his cheeks, mixing with the rain. "I'm so sorry, Papa. This is my fault. All of this is—"

"No." His hand found mine, his grip so weak I barely felt it. "Not... your fault. Never... your fault."

The bond between us flickered. Dimmed.

"Don't leave me." I pressed my forehead to his, my whole body shaking. "Please don't leave me alone with them. I can't do this without you. I can't—"

"Strong." His thumb brushed across my knuckles one last time. "My... strong girl. Love... you."

The light in his eyes went out like a candle in the wind.

The bond snapped.

And I screamed.

The sound that tore from my throat wasn't human. It was animal. Primal. The howl of a wolf who'd lost everything and had nothing left to lose. It cracked my voice, shredded my vocal cords, and echoed across the packhouse grounds like a curse.

Behind the windows, faces appeared again. Watching. Witnessing. Doing nothing.

I held Papa's body against the iron gates and screamed until I had no voice left. Until the rain washed away my tears and his blood and any last shred of hope I'd been clinging to.

When I finally fell silent, the packhouse was dark again. Everyone had gone back to their warm beds and their safe lives.

And I was alone in the mud with my father's corpse, locked outside the gates of the only home I'd ever known.

The shovel broke on the third hour.

I stared at the splintered handle in my hands, then at the shallow grave I'd managed to scrape into the forest floor. Not deep enough. Nowhere near deep enough. But my palms were raw and bleeding, my nails torn down to the quick, and I had nothing left.

Nothing.

I knelt beside Papa's body, wrapped in the thin gray dress they'd given me when they stripped my Delta uniform. Omega rags. It was all I had to offer him. No ceremony. No pack witnesses. No words of honor for a man who'd served thirty years.

Just me and the dirt and the silence where my wolf used to be.

I lowered him into the earth as gently as I could, my arms shaking with exhaustion. His face was peaceful now, the pain finally gone. I wanted to say something. Anything. But my throat was still raw from screaming at those iron gates, and the words wouldn't come.

So I just covered him with dirt, handful by handful, until he disappeared.

When I finally stood, the sun was setting through the trees. Golden light filtered through the leaves, painting everything in shades of amber and rust. Beautiful. The world had no right to be beautiful when everything inside me was ash.

I walked.

I didn't know where I was going at first. My feet just carried me deeper into the forest, away from the packhouse, away from the fresh grave, away from everything. The burns on my skin pulled with each step. My ribs ached. My deaf ear rang with that constant high-pitched whine.

Good. The pain was good. It meant I was still here, still feeling something other than the hollow emptiness where my wolf used to live.

The trees thinned. The ground sloped upward, rocky and steep. I recognized this path. Moon Cliff. The highest point in Silver Moon territory, where young wolves came to howl at the full moon and feel closer to the Goddess.

I'd come here with Papa once, years ago. He'd pointed out the river far below, the way it carved through the jagged rocks like a silver ribbon. "Respect the cliff," he'd said. "It's beautiful, but it doesn't forgive mistakes."

I reached the edge and looked down.

The drop was dizzying. Hundreds of feet of empty air, then sharp rocks and churning white water. The river roared so loud I could hear it even through my damaged ear. The sound was almost soothing. Constant. Unchanging. Honest.

I stepped closer.

The wind whipped my hair back from my face, cool and clean. It smelled like pine and rain and freedom. No more scrubbing floors. No more Alpha Commands crushing my throat. No more watching Brittany smile while my world burned.

Just peace.

I closed my eyes and felt the void pulling at me, patient and inevitable. One step. That's all it would take. One step and gravity would do the rest.

No more pain.

No more grief.

No more me.

I leaned forward, my toes curling over the cliff's edge. The wind caught my dress, making it billow around my legs. For a moment, I felt weightless. Free.

I let go.

My feet left solid ground—

—and a hand clamped around my wrist like an iron shackle.

The world spun. I slammed backward into something solid and warm, the impact driving the air from my lungs. But that wasn't what made me gasp.

It was the shock.

Golden electricity exploded through my body where skin met skin, racing up my arm and detonating in my chest like lightning. Not pain. Not exactly. It was too intense for pain, too overwhelming, too—

Alive.

Deep in the hollow space where my wolf used to be, something stirred. A flicker. A spark. The faintest whisper of a presence I thought I'd lost forever.

Mate.

The word echoed through my mind in a voice that wasn't quite mine, wasn't quite hers, but was somehow both.

I looked up.

Mismatched eyes stared down at me—one gold, one silver, both burning with an intensity that made my breath catch. The man holding me was massive, easily a head taller than any wolf I'd ever seen, with shoulders broad enough to block out the sunset. Dark hair fell across his forehead, and his jaw was set in a hard line.

But it was his scent that made my knees weak.

Cedar and smoke and something wild and ancient that called to the broken pieces of my soul.

"Let go," I whispered, my voice cracking.

His grip tightened. "No."

That single word carried so much authority, so much absolute certainty, that for a moment I forgot how to breathe.

His other hand came up to cup my face, his thumb brushing across my scarred temple with a gentleness that didn't match his fierce expression.

"I've got you," he said, and his voice was rough velvet, a command and a promise wrapped into one. "And I'm not letting go."