The lingering burn of wolfsbane still scratched at the back of my throat, a constant reminder of the tea party two days ago. I had survived only because I vomited the poison up the moment they left me gasping on the grass, followed by a desperate dose of charcoal I kept in my hidden medical kit. But I was weak. My wolf was barely a whisper in my mind, curled into a tight, trembling ball.

Yet, here I was, smoothing down my skirt, clutching a small crystal jar like a lifeline.

Today was the former Luna’s birthday. Dante’s mother, Evelyn Crawford, had always looked at me with cold disdain, her eyes tracking my every mistake. But I knew she suffered from terrible arthritis in the winters. For the past month, I had spent every spare second brewing a salve of crushed willow bark, wintergreen, and rare moon-blooms I’d gathered near the pack borders. It was a masterpiece of herbalism, a soothing balm that could take away her pain when modern medicine failed.

*Maybe,* a foolish, desperate part of me thought, *maybe if I show her I can be useful, if I show her I care, Dante will see me again. Not as a placeholder, but as Dalia.*

I walked into the grand ballroom, keeping my head down. The room glittered with chandeliers and diamonds, the air thick with the scent of expensive perfume and champagne. Paige was there, of course, seated at the high table next to Dante and Evelyn. She wore a dress of shimmering gold, looking every bit the Luna she was born to be.

I approached the high table, my heart hammering against my ribs. The conversation died down as I stepped forward.

"Happy Birthday, Luna Crawford," I said, my voice trembling slightly. I held out the jar. "I know the cold weather hurts your joints. I made this for you. It needs to be applied twice a day, and—"

"You made it?" Evelyn interrupted, her lip curling. "An Omega's home remedy?"

"It works," I promised, stepping closer. "Please, just smell the moon-blooms. It's very soothing."

I twisted the lid open, anticipating the sweet, floral release of the rare flowers.

Instead, a pungent, wet stench blasted into the air.

The smell of rotting garbage, sulfur, and decaying meat filled the space between us instantly. I froze, staring down at the jar. The pearlescent cream I had made was gone. In its place was a dark, sludge-like compost, teeming with something that looked like maggots.

Gasps rippled through the hall. Evelyn recoiled, covering her nose with a silk napkin.

"I... I didn't..." I stammered, looking frantically from the jar to the table.

My eyes locked on Paige. She was sipping her champagne, her eyes dancing with malicious delight over the rim of the glass. Beside her elbow, I saw a faint smudge of silver glitter—the same glitter that was now dusting the rim of the jar in my hands.

*She swapped it.*

"You insolent little wretch!"

The slap came before I could breathe. Evelyn’s hand connected with my cheek, the sound cracking through the silent ballroom like a whip. My head snapped to the side, the jar slipping from my fingers and shattering on the marble floor. The stench intensified.

"You dare?" Evelyn shrieked, standing up. "You bring filth to my table? You try to mock me in front of my pack?"

"No!" I cried, clutching my stinging cheek. "It was swapped! I made a salve, I swear! Paige, she—"

"Enough!"

Dante’s voice was a thunderclap. He rose from his seat, his Alpha aura flooding the room, suffocating and heavy. He didn't look at the jar. He didn't look at the glitter on Paige’s arm. He looked only at me, and his eyes were voids of darkness.

"You have shamed this family for the last time, Dalia."

He rounded the table, grabbing my upper arm in a grip that bruised instantly. He didn't drag me out the back way. He marched me through the center of the ballroom, parading my humiliation past the sneering faces of the pack elders and high-ranking wolves.

"Dante, please, listen to me!" I begged, struggling against his iron hold. "Smell it! You can smell the difference! It’s compost! I wouldn't do that!"

He didn't speak. He shoved me out the double doors and into the cold night air, dragging me across the grounds toward the stone structure that loomed on the hill—the Moon Temple.

It was a sacred place, usually reserved for prayer and reflection. But tonight, the cold stone floor looked like a torture chamber.

Dante threw me inside. I stumbled, scraping my hands against the rough granite.

"Since you cannot learn respect," Dante said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, vibrating Alpha tone, "you will learn submission."

He pointed to the center of the temple floor, directly beneath the open skylight where the moon stared down indifferently.

"**Kneel.**"

The command slammed into my spine. My knees hit the stone with a sickening crack. I gasped, tears springing to my eyes, but the magic of his order locked my muscles in place. I couldn't shift my weight. I couldn't stand.

Dante stood over me, his shadow swallowing me whole.

"**You will not move. You will not eat. And you will not sleep for twenty-four hours.**"

The weight of the command settled over me like a lead blanket. My body went rigid, forced into absolute stillness by the power of his voice. I tried to open my mouth to beg, to scream, but my jaw clamped shut. I was a prisoner in my own skin.

"Reflect on your station, Omega," Dante spat. He turned on his heel and walked away, the heavy wooden doors booming shut behind him.

The silence that followed was absolute.

Minutes turned into hours. The cold from the stone seeped through my thin dress, biting into my bone marrow. My knees began to throb, a dull ache that sharpened into agonizing fire as the circulation was cut off. My weak wolf whimpered, clawing at the back of my mind, desperate to move, to curl up, to run.

But the Alpha command held fast.

I couldn't even shiver. I could only kneel, staring at the closed doors, while tears I couldn't wipe away tracked slowly down my face. The physical pain was excruciating, but it was the silence of the temple that broke me. In the quiet, I realized the truth I had been denying for seven years.

Dante didn't just prefer Paige. He hated me.

And as the moon tracked its slow arc across the sky, witnessing my frozen, silent agony, the love I had held for him began to curdle, turning into something dark and cold, matching the stone beneath my bleeding knees.

The stiffness in my knees from the temple floor hadn't even faded when the summons came. It had been a week of silence, a week where I limped through the servants' quarters like a ghost, avoiding eye contact, nursing the bruises on my soul. But Alpha Dante wasn't finished with me yet.

"Get up," Marcus barked, kicking the door to my small room open. "Alpha wants a training run. He says you’ve grown soft sitting around feeling sorry for yourself."

Soft? I looked down at my hands, raw and chapped from scrubbing floors. I hadn't been soft in years. But I didn't argue. I couldn't. The lingering echo of the Alpha command still vibrated in my bones, a leash I couldn't slip.

I dressed in worn leggings and a thin windbreaker, shivering as I stepped out into the crisp autumn air. Dante was waiting by the edge of the woods, flanked by three of his Delta warriors. He didn't look at me. He was adjusting his gloves, his profile sharp and cruel against the grey sky.

"We're patrolling the northern border," he announced to the group, his voice flat. "There's been rogue activity. We need to flush them out."

My stomach dropped. The northern border was dense, wild territory, known for violent, feral rogues who had lost their minds to the wild. It wasn't a place for an Omega with a weak wolf.

"Dante," I started, my voice barely a whisper. "I can't shift. My wolf is too weak to fight."

He finally turned to me, a smirk playing on his lips. "Who said anything about you fighting, Dalia? You're just here to... observe. Maybe learn what real strength looks like."

We ran in human form. Dante set a brutal pace, crashing through the underbrush with ease while I scrambled to keep up, my lungs burning, branches whipping against my face. Every time I stumbled, Marcus would shove me forward, laughing as I hit the dirt.

We reached a clearing near the jagged rock line that marked the end of pack lands. The air smelled wrong here—sour, like old blood and wet fur. Rogues.

Dante held up a hand, signaling the warriors to stop. He looked at me, his eyes gleaming with a terrifying idea.

"You know, rogues are scavengers," he said casually. "They go for the weakest link. The injured. The slow."

I took a step back. "What are you saying?"

"Stand there," he pointed to the center of the clearing. "Don't move."

"Dante, no—"

"**Stay.**"

The command slammed me into place. I stood frozen in the center of the clearing, a sitting duck. Dante and the warriors melted back into the shadows of the tree line, masking their scents. They were using me. I was the bait.

A low growl rumbled from the rocks.

Panic clawed at my throat. I strained against the command, tears blurring my vision, but my feet were rooted to the earth. A massive, mangy wolf emerged from the shadows, its fur matted with filth, yellow eyes locked onto me. It sniffed the air, drool dripping from its jaws. It smelled my fear. It smelled prey.

*Run,* my inner wolf screamed, curled into a terrified ball in my mind. *Run, Dalia!*

But I couldn't.

The rogue lunged.

I screamed as teeth tore into my forearm, the force of the impact knocking me to the ground. Pain exploded white-hot up my shoulder. The rogue snarled, shaking its head, trying to drag me further into the clearing. I kicked out, sobbing, waiting for Dante. Waiting for the Alpha who had sworn to protect his pack.

Nothing happened.

Through the gaps in the trees, I saw him. He was leaning against an oak, arms crossed, watching. He wasn't rushing to save me. He was watching the blood soak my sleeve with the detached interest of a scientist observing a lab rat.

"Help me!" I shrieked, the rogue's jaws clamping tighter, grinding against bone.

Only then, with a bored sigh, did Dante push off the tree. He shifted mid-air, a massive black wolf exploding from his clothes. He hit the rogue with the force of a freight train, snapping its neck in one fluid motion. The rogue went limp, dropping my arm.

Dante shifted back, naked and unbothered, wiping a speck of blood from his chest. He looked down at me, clutching my mangled arm in the dirt.

"Pathetic," he sneered. "You didn't even try to shift. Marcus, get her back to the healer. If she bleeds out on the carpet, my mother will be furious."

***

The healer had stitched me up with rough, impatient hands, giving me nothing for the pain. I sat in the hallway outside the Alpha's office, cradling my bandaged arm, feeling the fever of infection already starting to prickle my skin. I needed to ask Dante for permission to rest for a few days. If I didn't, Marcus would have me scrubbing floors by dawn.

The door was slightly ajar. I raised my hand to knock, but Paige's voice floated out, stopping me cold.

"...honestly, Dante, it's getting embarrassing. She trails after you like a kicked puppy. It smells like desperation in here."

I froze. Through the crack, I could see them. Paige was sitting on the edge of his mahogany desk, running her fingers through his hair. Dante was leaning back in his chair, eyes closed, looking relaxed. Happy.

"Don't worry, my love," Dante chuckled, a sound that was dark and rich. "The Omega is breaking. Did you see her today? She let a rogue chew on her arm because she was too scared to move."

"Why don't you just banish her?" Paige pouted. "Send her to the rogues for real."

Dante opened his eyes, and the cruelty in them made my blood run cold. "Where's the fun in that? If I kick her out, she's just gone. But this... watching the hope die slowly? Watching her realize she's nothing? It's entertainment, Paige. Besides, a few more weeks of this, and she'll be begging to leave on her own. It's much cleaner if she quits."

He pulled Paige down for a kiss, his hand sliding up her thigh.

I didn't knock. I didn't breathe. I backed away slowly, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The pain in my arm vanished, replaced by a clarity so sharp it cut.

He wasn't confused. He wasn't conflicted. He was enjoying this. Every tear I shed, every bruise I nursed, was food for his ego and entertainment for his true mate.

I walked back to my room, the silence of the hallway heavy around me. I didn't cry. I was done crying. I looked at the small, hidden loose floorboard under my bed where I kept my secret stash—a few dollars, a map, and a small vial of dark liquid Wren had given me months ago.

*"For when there is no other way,"* she had said.

I touched the cool glass of the vial. Dante wanted me to break. He wanted me to beg. But he had underestimated one thing: a wolf with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous creature of all.