I woke to the sound of my phone exploding with notifications. The soft glow of the screen illuminated the unfamiliar walls of the Silverfang guest cabin as I reached for it, my heart sinking before I even read the first message.

Boston's jacket still draped over me, carrying his scent—pine and winter—but it couldn't shield me from what I found. A pack-wide mind-link broadcast had gone out in the early hours of the morning. Evan's voice, smooth and practiced, filled my head as I clicked play.

'It pains me to have to share this,' his voice echoed in the broadcast, dripping with false sincerity. 'But last night, our pack healer, Eve Davis, abandoned a dying Omega. When I begged her to use her healing essence to save Selena's life, she refused. She watched as Selena writhed in agony, claiming there was no illness, when any healer worth their salt would have tried to help.'

My stomach twisted as Selena's voice joined in, weak and trembling. 'I never meant to hurt anyone. I just wanted to be loved. But Eve... she said I deserved to suffer. That I was stealing her thunder with my illness.'

The lies burned like acid. I pressed my fingers together, trying to steady my breathing as more voices joined the broadcast—wolves I'd healed, wolves I'd cared for. All repeating the same twisted narrative. All believing the worst of me.

I threw on Boston's jacket and rushed outside, the crisp morning air biting at my skin. The Silverfang grounds were quiet, but I could feel the weight of judgment pressing down from the neighboring Moonveil territory. Pack bonds hummed with gossip and condemnation.

The door to the main pack house opened, and Boston emerged, his face grim. He held up his phone, showing me a series of medical records—records I'd never seen before, documenting a 'wolf illness' that didn't exist.

'Evan forged these,' Boston said, his voice low and controlled. 'He's presented them to your Alpha as evidence.'

I felt the ground shift beneath me. 'My father—'

'Is trying to fight for you.' Boston's eyes met mine, steady and unwavering. 'But the pack elders have already made their decision.'

As if on cue, my father's voice came through my phone, strained and tired. 'Eve, it's done. The Alpha has suspended you from your healer duties pending an investigation. I'm sorry, sweetheart. I tried to make them listen, but...'

The line went dead. I stared at the phone, numb. In one night, I'd lost everything—my mate, my ceremony, my discovery, and now my profession. The pack I'd served for years had turned against me based on lies.

'They can't do this,' I whispered, my voice breaking. 'I've given everything to the pack.'

Boston stepped closer, his presence solid and reassuring. 'They can, and they have. But it's not the end.'

I looked up at him, seeing the determination in his eyes. 'What do you mean?'

'We fight back.' He held out his hand. 'I'll help you get the evidence you need. We'll expose them both.'

I hesitated, my fingers hovering over his. This wasn't just about clearing my name anymore. This was about justice—and revenge.

'How?' I asked, my voice steadier now.

A slow, dangerous smile spread across Boston's face. 'I know where they parked that ambulance. And I know Selena was bleeding when she staged that fall.'

Understanding dawned. 'Blood. Evidence of the virus.'

'Exactly.' His eyes met mine. 'Are you ready to fight?'

I took his hand, feeling the warmth of his skin against mine. 'I was never the one who started this war. But I'll finish it.'

As we walked toward the border, I felt something shift inside me—grief hardening into resolve, pain crystallizing into purpose. Evan and Selena had taken everything from me. But they'd forgotten one crucial detail: they'd left evidence behind. And I was still the best healer in three territories. Blood didn't lie. And neither would I.

The blood sample turned black at 2:47 in the morning.

I watched it happen through the portable scope Boston had sourced from the Silverfang healer's kit—a slow, creeping darkness spreading through the reagent solution like ink dropped into water. My hands were steady. My chest was not.

I'd spent the last four hours cross-referencing the traces we'd collected from the ambulance against every pathogen index in my field journal. Wolf illness presented in shades of amber and rust. Fever-rot ran copper. Bone-sickness went pale gray.

Black meant something else entirely.

I set down the dropper and pressed my fingertips together, the way I always do when I already know the answer and I'm just deciding how to hold it.

Forbidden rogue virus. Native to deep Lycan territory. Highly contagious. Transmitted through blood, saliva—and mate marks.

The last part hit me like a fist to the sternum.

Mate marks.

I sat back in the chair and stared at the ceiling of the small Silverfang lab, the single overhead light buzzing faintly above me. Selena had been carrying this virus when Evan marked her. Which meant the moment his teeth broke her skin, the pathogen crossed over. The mate bond—the sacred, Moon Goddess–given connection that Evan had used to destroy my life—had become the mechanism of his own infection.

He'd betrayed me, stolen my future, and sentenced himself to death. All in one night.

I didn't feel satisfaction. Not yet. What I felt was the cold, clinical clarity of a healer who has just diagnosed something irreversible.

I wrote it all down in my field journal, every reaction, every measurement, every cross-reference. Then I closed the cover and held it against my chest for a long moment in the dark.

---

The next evening, Boston found me on the Silverfang border path just before sunset, my jacket zipped against the autumn chill. He didn't ask what I was doing there. He just fell into step beside me, his hands in his pockets, his presence a quiet wall between me and the rest of the world.

We both saw Evan at the same time.

He was standing just past the tree line on the Moonveil side of the border, and the first thing I noticed was the color of his skin. Pale. Slightly waxy. A faint sheen of sweat at his temples despite the cold air. The virus was already moving through him. He didn't know it yet—or maybe he did, and that was why he'd come.

'Eve.' His voice carried across the border, smooth and practiced, but with a new edge underneath it. Desperation dressed up as authority. 'I need to talk to you. Alone.'

Boston didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stood there, and the weight of his Beta aura settled over the tree line like a low pressure front.

I stepped forward. 'Say what you came to say.'

Evan's jaw tightened at Boston's presence, but he pushed through it. 'I made a mistake. With Selena—I want you to understand, I didn't choose her over you. I marked her out of pity. She was suffering, and I—' He stopped, recalibrated. 'You're my true Luna, Eve. You always were. Come back to Moonveil. We can fix this.'

I looked at him for a long moment. The man I'd given years to. The man who'd memorized the details of my Luna dress so he could put it on someone else. The man who'd pressed my throat against a glass cabinet and called it love.

'You look pale,' I said.

He blinked. 'What?'

'Slightly sweaty. Elevated temperature, I'd guess, though I'd need a reading to confirm. The fatigue will get worse before you notice the other symptoms.' I tilted my head. 'You should see a healer. Oh—wait. You had me suspended.'

His expression cracked. 'Eve, this isn't—'

'I, Eve Davis, healer of the Moonveil Pack,' I said, my voice dropping into the formal cadence I'd rehearsed exactly once, alone in the lab at 3 a.m., 'reject you, Evan Watson, ranked wolf of the Moonveil Pack, as my mate. Completely. Permanently. Without condition.'

The words landed like a blade. I felt the bond snap—a sharp, hollow ache through my chest that I'd been bracing for. It hurt less than I expected. It hurt less than watching him choose her.

Evan flinched as if I'd struck him. His Alpha tone surged, reflexive and desperate. 'You don't mean—'

'I do.' I turned away from him and found Boston's arm, looping mine through his. His forearm was solid and warm under my hand, and he didn't say a word—just covered my fingers with his and held them steady.

We walked back toward the Silverfang grounds without looking back.

Behind us, I heard Evan call my name once more. Then silence.

Tomorrow was the herb unveiling. Tomorrow, I would walk into that ceremony hall with everything I needed to end this.

Tonight, I let myself breathe.