The glass shattered against my elbow, sending a spiderweb of pain shooting up my arm, but I barely felt it. The only thing I could feel was the phantom tether in my chest, pulling me toward the nursery. Toward Thea.

Rain lashed against my face as I scrambled through the broken window of the Omega quarters, dropping onto the muddy grass below. My surgical scar—the jagged line where Alessia had stolen my wolf—burned like fire, but I forced my legs to move. I ran around the side of the Pack House, the bass of the party music thumping against the walls like a second, cruel heartbeat.

They were celebrating. While my baby was dying, they were popping champagne.

I burst through the side service entrance, dripping wet and bleeding. Two Delta guards were stationed at the bottom of the servants' stairs. They stepped forward, blocking my path, their faces impassive.

"Omega Isabelle," one grunted. "You are confined to quarters."

"Get out of my way!" I screamed, clawing at the Alpha command that used to be in my voice. It came out as a desperate, human shriek. "She’s dying! Thea is dying!"

They didn't move. They were following Rhys’s orders.

Desperation clawed at my throat. I had no wolf, no voice, no authority. But I still had the bond. The mate bond, tattered and rejected, still existed deep in the marrow of my bones. I closed my eyes, gathering every scrap of pain, every ounce of terror, and I hurled it into the void where Rhys used to be.

*Rhys!* I screamed into the mental link, the effort making my nose bleed. *Rhys, listen to me! Thea is dying! Help us! Please, just this once, hear me!*

For a heartbeat, the music downstairs seemed to falter in my mind. I felt him. I felt a flicker of confusion, a hesitation on the other end of the line. He heard me. He was there.

*Rhys, please—*

Then, it happened. A wall of ice slammed down between us. It wasn't a drift; it was a violent, deliberate shut-out. He didn't just ignore me; he crushed the connection. I felt the distinct sensation of him turning away, choosing the sweet, fake scent of his mistress over the agony of his mate.

He blocked me.

"No!" I howled, the sound ripping from my chest.

I threw myself at the guards. I didn't fight like a Luna; I fought like a mother. I bit the hand that grabbed my arm. A heavy fist slammed into my side, right over my healing incision. White-hot agony exploded in my gut, doubling me over, but I used the momentum to scramble past them, crawling up the stairs on my hands and knees.

I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

I crashed into the nursery, the door banging against the wall. The room smelled of ozone and scorched sheets—the scent of a shift gone wrong.

"Thea!"

She was on the floor. She must have fallen from the crib in her convulsions. Her tiny body was arching, her back bowing at an impossible angle. Her skin was gray, burning with a heat that radiated across the room.

I scooped her up, ignoring the way her fever blistered my cold, wet skin. "Mommy's here, baby. Mommy's here."

Her eyes were wide open, the gold of her wolf flickering and dying, leaving behind a dull, flat brown. She was shaking so hard her teeth clicked together.

"Hold on," I sobbed, rocking her back and forth. "Don't go. Please, Thea, don't go. Daddy is coming. He's coming."

It was a lie. We both knew it.

Thea’s gaze drifted past me, toward the door, searching for the Alpha aura that should have been there to anchor her. She let out a small, wet breath. Her hand, tiny and trembling, reached up to touch my cheek.

"Daddy?" she whispered.

Then, the tension left her body. The heat vanished in a single, terrifying second, replaced by a stillness that was heavier than the storm outside. Her hand fell from my face.

"Thea?" I shook her gently. "Baby?"

Silence.

Outside, thunder cracked, shaking the house to its foundations. But inside the nursery, the world had ended.

***

I didn't move for hours. I sat on the floor, holding her cold body against my chest, staring at the shadows dancing on the wall. The party music had finally died down. The storm had passed.

The door creaked open.

Light from the hallway spilled in, blinding me. Rhys stood there. He was disheveled, his shirt unbuttoned, a glass of whiskey in his hand. He smelled of expensive cologne and Alessia’s cloying vanilla perfume. He swayed slightly, a goofy, intoxicated grin on his face.

"What is this drama now, Isabelle?" he slurred, squinting into the dark room. "Alessia said you were throwing a tantrum. Why is the baby on the floor?"

He didn't smell it yet. The death. The drugs Alessia had pumped into him masked everything.

I didn't look at him. I just smoothed Thea’s hair, over and over.

Rhys stumbled forward, annoyance rolling off him in waves. "I’m talking to you. Put her back in the crib. You’re spoiling her."

He reached down to grab Thea’s arm. His fingers brushed her skin.

He froze. The glass slipped from his hand, shattering on the floorboards, splashing amber liquid near my knees.

"Thea?" His voice sobered instantly, the Alpha command trying to assert itself. "Thea, wake up."

She didn't move.

Rhys fell to his knees. He snatched her from my arms, shaking her limp body. "What did you do?" he roared, turning on me, his eyes wild with panic and confusion. "What did you do to her?"

"I called you," I whispered, my voice dead. "I screamed for you."

"Liar!" He clutched Thea to his chest, but he wasn't comforting her; he was hoarding her, as if he could squeeze the life back into her lungs. "You didn't call! I would have known!"

"You blocked me," I said, looking right into his eyes. "You felt me, and you blocked me to go back to her."

Guilt flashed across his face—a quick, ugly thing—before it hardened into rage. He couldn't accept it. He couldn't be the villain in his own story.

"No," he snarled, standing up with Thea’s body, towering over me. "This is your fault. Her blood was weak. She got those defective genes from you. If you hadn't been so hysterical, if you hadn't panicked..."

He backed away from me, looking at our daughter’s corpse with a mixture of horror and disgust. "She was weak stock. Just like her mother."

The morning sky was the color of a fresh bruise, swollen and purple with unshed rain. The entire Silverclaw Pack had gathered on the main lawn, a sea of black umbrellas and hushed whispers. They were waiting for the funeral procession to the Hallowed Grounds, the sacred white stone garden where our ancestors slept under the Moon Goddess’s watch.

But we weren’t going to the garden.

I stood alone, separated from the crowd by two Delta guards. I wore no black veil, only my ragged Omega uniform. My arms felt impossibly light without the weight of my daughter in them. Thea was in the center of the clearing, inside a plain pine box that looked more like a crate for shipping vegetables than a coffin for an Alpha pup.

Rhys stood on the porch, looking down at us. He wore his ceremonial Alpha blacks, but his face was grey, his eyes glassy and vacant. Alessia stood right beside him, her hand resting possessively on his forearm. She was wearing white—a stark, insulting contrast to the mourning pack. She leaned up, whispering something into Rhys’s ear. Her lips brushed his lobe, and I saw his jaw tighten.

He stepped forward, clearing his throat. The pack fell silent.

"There will be no procession to the Hallowed Grounds today," Rhys announced. His voice was flat, devoid of the rich timber that used to make my wolf purr. It sounded mechanical.

A ripple of shock went through the crowd. Even the guards beside me shifted uncomfortably.

"Thea..." Rhys paused, his gaze flickering to the pine box and then quickly away, as if looking at it burned him. "The child failed the shift. She succumbed to her own biological inadequacy. Our laws are clear. Only those who live as wolves may sleep with the wolves."

"She was two!" I screamed, the sound tearing from my raw throat. "She was your daughter!"

"She was weak stock!" Rhys roared back, the Alpha command slamming into me like a physical blow, forcing me to my knees in the wet grass. "She proved she did not have the strength to carry the Silverclaw blood. To bury her with the heroes of this pack would be an insult to their memory. It would show our enemies that we honor failure."

Alessia nodded solemnly, wiping a fake tear from her dry cheek. "The Alpha is right," she projected her voice, smooth as poisoned honey. "We must be strong. We must purge the weakness to protect the pack."

Rhys gestured to Marcus, a burly Delta warrior who stood by the coffin. Marcus looked down at his boots, shame radiating off him. "Take it to the Wasteland," Rhys ordered. "Bury it with the others."

It. He called her *it*.

The world tilted on its axis. The Wasteland wasn't a cemetery. It was a dumping ground at the edge of the territory, a muddy ravine where we threw the bodies of executed Rogues, diseased livestock, and traitors who had been stripped of their rank. It was a place of rot.

"No," I whimpered, scrambling to my feet. "Rhys, please! Don't do this!"

But the procession was already moving. Marcus hoisted the small box onto his shoulder with ease—she was so small, so light—and began the trek toward the treeline. Rhys and Alessia followed, and the rest of the pack fell in line, heads bowed in submission.

I ran. I stumbled over roots and slipped in the mud, trailing behind them like a ghost.

The smell hit us before we saw the pit. The stench of decay, wet fur, and sulfur. The Wasteland was a scar on the earth, a deep gully filled with trash and bones. Flies buzzed in thick, black clouds, indifferent to the rain that had started to fall.

Marcus stopped at the edge of a shallow, freshly dug hole. It was barely two feet deep. Muddy water was already pooling at the bottom.

"Do it," Rhys commanded. He stood under a large black umbrella that Alessia held over him, keeping him dry while I was soaked to the bone.

Marcus lowered the box. He didn't do it gently. The mud was slippery, and his grip faltered. The box slid from his hands and landed with a wet thud in the muck.

It landed crookedly.

I pushed past the guards, falling to my knees at the edge of the ravine. My eyes locked on the grave. The box had landed right next to a bloated, gray mound of fur. A coyote. A feral, mangy scavenger that had been shot by patrol last week. Its rotting, open mouth was pressed against the wood of my daughter's coffin. Its dead, cloudy eyes seemed to stare right at me.

My baby. My sweet, innocent Thea, who smelled like milk and sunshine. She was lying in the mud next to vermin.

Something inside me shattered. It wasn't a break; it was an explosion. The last tether of my sanity, the last shred of my love for Rhys, the last instinct of self-preservation—it all snapped.

I didn't feel the rain anymore. I didn't feel the grief. I felt only fire.

My hand went to my boot. The handle of the silver fruit knife I had stolen from the kitchen tray three days ago was cold against my palm.

"You monster," I whispered.

I didn't lunge at Rhys. He was too strong, too guarded. My eyes locked on the white dress. The pristine, spotless white dress that mocked my daughter’s dirty grave.

I moved faster than I had ever moved in my human form. I wasn't running; I was hunting.

"Isabelle, stop!" Marcus shouted, but he was too late.

I crashed into Alessia. The impact knocked the umbrella from her hand, sending it spinning into the mud. We hit the ground, mud splashing up around us. Her eyes went wide with shock, her mouth opening in a silent scream.

"You put her there!" I shrieked, raising the knife. "You killed her!"

I brought the blade down.

I aimed for her heart, but she twisted. The silver blade sliced deep into her upper arm, tearing through the expensive white silk and sinking into flesh.

Blood—bright, hot crimson—sprayed across my face, mixing with the rain.

Alessia screamed, a high-pitched, terrified sound that echoed through the silent woods. "Rhys! She's crazy! Kill her!"

I yanked the knife back for a second strike, my teeth bared in a snarl that required no wolf to understand. I wanted to carve the life out of her. I wanted her to rot in that pit instead of my baby.

The silver blade caught the gray light of the storm, poised for the second strike. I wasn't Isabelle anymore. I wasn't a Luna, or a mother, or a human. I was pure, distilled vengeance. I watched the terror widen Alessia’s eyes, and for a split second, I felt a grim, dark satisfaction.

Then, the air exploded.

"KNEEL!"

It wasn't just a shout. It was an Alpha Command, fueled by pure, unadulterated power. It hit me like a sledgehammer to the chest. Because my wolf had been stolen, because my body was just fragile human bone and sinew now, I had no buffer against the force of it.

My body obeyed before my mind could process the pain. I dropped like a stone.

*SNAP.*

The sound was louder than the thunder. My right knee hit a jagged rock buried in the mud, and the bone shattered. The agony was blinding, a white-hot spike that shot up my thigh and stole the breath from my lungs. I screamed, but the sound was choked off as Rhys unleashed his aura.

It was a crushing weight, heavy and suffocating, pressing me face-first into the filth of the Wasteland. The pressure built inside my skull. My ears popped. Warm, metallic fluid gushed from my nose, mixing with the mud I was forced to inhale.

"Don't you dare touch her," Rhys snarled. His voice was unrecognizable—distorted by the Alpha tone. He wasn't looking at me as his mate. He was looking at me like I was the rogue vermin rotting in the pit beside us.

Through the haze of pain, I watched him drop to his knees beside Alessia. He ripped a strip of fabric from his ceremonial shirt and bound her arm, his hands trembling with a tenderness he hadn't shown me in years.

"She's insane, Rhys!" Alessia sobbed, pressing her face into his neck. "She tried to kill me! She's feral! Just like her daughter was!"

"I know," Rhys soothed her, stroking her wet hair. Then he turned that cold, dead gaze back to me. I was pinned, unable to lift even a finger against the weight of his dominance.

"You are no longer Luna," he spat, the words landing like stones on my broken body. "You are nothing. You are a disgrace to the air you breathe."

Alessia pulled back slightly, her eyes gleaming with malice despite the blood soaking her sleeve. "The neighbors... the other packs... they need to know," she whimpered, her voice pitched perfectly to trigger his protective instincts. "If she escapes... if she tries to hurt someone else's pup... we have a duty to warn them, Rhys. Release the medical files. Show them she’s mentally unfit."

Rhys didn't hesitate. He didn't even look at the fresh grave of his child. He pulled his waterproof phone from his pocket. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, but I could see the screen glowing in the gloom.

"Done," he said darkly. "I've sent the blast to the regional Alpha network. The medical records of the 'Wolfless Luna.' The diagnosis of Feral Degeneration and psychotic episodes. No pack will harbor you. No one will touch you."

My reputation, my sanity, my future—deleted with a thumb swipe.

"Let's go," Rhys muttered, helping Alessia to her feet. "This place is filthy."

Marcus, the Delta, looked back at me once, his expression twisted with guilt, but he turned away when Rhys barked his name. They walked away. The black umbrellas bobbed in the rain, moving further and further into the grey mist, leaving me alone in the graveyard of traitors.

The crushing aura lifted as they left the perimeter, but the pain in my knee remained, sharp and absolute. I lay there for a long time, letting the rain wash the blood from my face. I should have died. The cold was seeping into my marrow. It would be so easy to just close my eyes and let the hypothermia take me to Thea.

*No.*

The thought was a spark in a dark room. If I died, Alessia won. If I died, Thea was just 'weak stock' forever.

I gritted my teeth and dug my elbows into the sludge. I dragged myself forward. My broken leg dragged behind me, a dead weight of agony, but I didn't stop. Inch by inch, panting, crying out with every movement, I crawled toward the small, crooked mound of earth.

I reached the pine box. The mud was already settling over it.

I didn't pray. I didn't look up at the sky to beg the Moon Goddess for peace. She hadn't saved my daughter. She hadn't saved my wolf. She was either deaf or cruel, and I had no use for her anymore.

I dug my fingers into the wet soil of my daughter's grave. I squeezed my hand into a fist, feeling the dirt grit under my nails, mixing with the blood still dripping from my nose.

"I swear to you, baby," I rasped, my voice sounding like grinding glass. "I won't rest. I won't sleep. I will burn their world down. I will make them feel every second of this fear. I will take everything from them."

It was a blood oath. Ancient. Dark. Binding.

Through the sound of the rain, a low hum cut through the silence. It wasn't the rumble of a pack truck. It was the smooth, expensive purr of a high-performance engine.

I lifted my head, wiping mud from my eyes. A sleek black limousine, long and ominous, was winding its way down the narrow dirt track of the Wasteland. Flags snapped on the hood—silver and blue. The colors of the Lycan Council.

The car stopped ten feet from where I lay. The back door opened.

A polished black dress shoe stepped directly into the mud, indifferent to the filth. Then another. A man stepped out, unfurling a large black umbrella. He was tall, radiating a power that felt different from Rhys’s. It wasn't crushing; it was solid. Like a mountain.

He walked toward me, his face grim and pale in the storm light. He stopped at the foot of Thea’s grave and looked down at me—broken, bloody, and covered in the filth of the dead.

"Finnley," I whispered, the name tasting like a ghost from a past life.

He didn't say a word. He just extended a hand, his gray eyes burning with a silent, terrifying promise of war.