**[Theodore]**

Air. I needed air.

My lungs seized, forcing a ragged gasp past my lips as my body arched off the mattress. It wasn’t a gentle waking. It was a collision. Two souls, separated by death and a decade of silence, slammed into one another with the force of a freight train.

Machines around me beeped frantically, a chaotic symphony to match the pounding in my skull. I wasn't just Theodore Allen, the Lycan King who had slept for years. I was Keith Mason. I was the boy who drowned. I was the man who had been murdered by his own blood.

My hands clawed at the silk sheets, tearing through the fabric. The strength in these fingers was terrifying, alien, and absolute. I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the vertigo, but when I snapped them open, the room was bathed in a strange, dual light.

"Your Majesty!" A voice cried out from the corner. "He's awake! Get the Council!"

I ignored the flurry of healers rushing toward me. I clutched my chest, my claws digging into the skin over my heart. The pain wasn't physical. It was a hollow, aching void that screamed one name.

*Nora.*

I could feel her. Not as a memory, but as a living, breathing wound. She was in pain. She was breaking.

A low growl vibrated in my chest, shaking the very foundation of the room. My reflection in the glass partition across the room caught my eye—irises of molten gold, rimmed with a sharp, piercing silver.

"I am coming," I rasped, the voice deep and thunderous, carrying the weight of a King and the rage of a lover scorned. "Hold on, Nora. I am coming."

***

**[Nora]**

I sat on the edge of my narrow bed, staring at my hands. They were scrubbed raw, pink and stinging, but I could still smell it. The ash. The varnish. The scent of Keith’s soul burning in the fireplace upstairs.

My room, a small guest quarters on the first floor usually reserved for visiting Deltas, felt like a prison cell. The walls were grey, the furniture sparse. It was fitting, I supposed. I was the Luna in title, but a prisoner in reality.

The door creaked open without a knock. I didn't flinch. I was too empty to be startled.

Selene breezed in, her heels clicking sharply against the hardwood. She held a stack of fresh linens, though we both knew the Omegas usually handled the laundry.

"Just checking in, Luna," she said, her voice dripping with that fake, sugary concern that made my wolf bristle. "Vincenzo wants the house spotless for the meeting tonight. No more... clutter."

She walked past me to the bed. I shifted away, pressing my back against the cold wall. I didn't want her touching me. I didn't want her scent—cloying roses and deception—anywhere near my safe space.

"I can change my own sheets," I whispered, my voice hoarse.

"Nonsense," she chirped. With a swift, practiced motion, she lifted the corner of my mattress. Her hand lingered there for a fraction of a second too long, a quick shuffle of paper against fabric, before she smoothed the new sheet down. "There. All fresh."

She straightened up, smoothing her skirt. Her eyes landed on me, cold and predatory. "You should get ready, Nora. The Alpha hates it when you're late."

She left as quickly as she had arrived, leaving behind a silence that felt heavier than before. I frowned, looking at the corner of the bed she had touched. My wolf whined, a low sound of unease, but before I could investigate, the front door of the pack house slammed shut with a force that shook the floorboards.

"NORA!"

The roar was deafening. It wasn't just a shout; it was an Alpha command fueled by fury.

My heart slammed into my throat. Before I could even stand, my bedroom door flew open, hitting the wall with a crack that splintered the wood. Vincenzo stood there, his chest heaving, his face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated hate.

"You traitorous bitch!" he screamed.

He crossed the room in two strides. I didn't have time to beg. I didn't have time to speak. His hand tangled in my hair, yanking my head back so hard I saw stars.

"Vincenzo, please!" I shrieked, clutching at his wrist as he dragged me off the bed. I hit the floor hard, my knees scraping against the wood, but he didn't stop. He dragged me like a sack of garbage, out of the room and into the hallway.

"Get off me! What did I do?" I cried, scrambling to get my footing, but he was too fast, too strong.

"You know exactly what you did!" he roared, hauling me toward the main meeting hall.

The double doors were already open. The entire pack was there—Betas, Gammas, Elders, even the Omegas. Hundreds of eyes turned to watch as their Alpha threw their Luna onto the center rug like a broken doll.

I gasped for air, pushing myself up on trembling arms. My scalp burned, and tears blurred my vision. I looked up to see Vincenzo standing over me, holding a sheaf of papers.

"I tolerated your weakness," Vincenzo bellowed, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "I tolerated your barren womb. I even tolerated your disrespect for my mate!"

He threw the papers at me. They fluttered down like white feathers, landing all around me. I grabbed one, my hands shaking. It was a map. A detailed map of the pack’s northern patrol routes, with handwritten notes in the margins. Notes that looked terrifyingly like my handwriting.

"But I will not tolerate treason!" Vincenzo pointed a shaking finger at me. "I found these under her mattress! She has been communicating with rogues! She plans to sell our patrol routes to the Southern rebels in exchange for my head!"

A collective gasp ripped through the hall. Growls erupted from the warriors, low and threatening.

"No," I whispered, staring at the map in horror. "No, I didn't... I would never..."

"Liar!" Selene stepped forward from the crowd, her face a mask of shock and disappointment. "I saw you hiding them, Nora. I tried to cover for you, hoping I was wrong, but... how could you?"

"I didn't!" I screamed, looking around at the faces of the people I had grown up with. "She planted them! Selene planted them!"

"Enough!" Vincenzo’s Alpha aura slammed down on me, forcing my face into the carpet. The pressure was immense, crushing my lungs. "You have betrayed this pack. You have betrayed me. And you will pay."

The accusation hung in the air like a guillotine blade, sharp and final. I stared at the map in Vincenzo’s hand, the red ink of the patrol routes blurring through my tears. It was a lie. A meticulously crafted, evil lie.

"Alpha," a gravelly voice broke the stunned silence of the pack hall. Elder Marcus Whitmore stepped forward, his brow furrowed deeply. He was one of the few who remembered the pack before Vincenzo’s reign of terror. "These are grave accusations. But surely... the Luna? To sell us out to rogues? We should investigate the source before—"

"The source was under her mattress, Marcus!" Vincenzo roared, his spit flying as he turned on the Elder. His chest heaved, his Alpha aura pulsing in erratic, violent waves that made the air thin. "Are you questioning my judgment? Are you questioning the safety of this pack?"

Marcus dipped his head, backing down. "No, Alpha. Of course not."

Vincenzo turned back to me. I was still on my knees on the rug, the rough fibers digging into my skin. I looked up, trying to find a shred of the man who shared Keith’s face, but there was only a monster.

"I didn't do it," I choked out, my voice barely a whisper. I forced myself to look him in the eye. "Vincenzo, you know I would never hurt the pack. This is Selene. She—"

The blow came out of nowhere.

The back of his hand connected with my cheekbone with the force of a sledgehammer. The sound—a wet, sickening crack—echoed off the stone walls. My head snapped to the side, and I tasted the sharp, metallic tang of copper as my lip split against my teeth. I collapsed sideways, the room spinning in a nauseating tilt.

"Silence!" he bellowed. "You do not speak her name! You do not speak at all!"

He loomed over me, breathing hard. "You are a traitor, Nora Stone. You have forfeited your title. You have forfeited your rights."

He looked out at the gathered crowd, his voice booming with theatrical authority. "I will not execute her today. No, I want the other Alphas to see what happens to traitors. I want the Council to witness justice at the Summit."

A murmur of agreement rippled through the room—fear, mostly. They were terrified of him.

"Take her to the Silver Cellar," Vincenzo commanded, wiping his hand as if touching me had dirtied him. "Let the metal leach the treason out of her blood."

Two warriors grabbed my arms. I didn't fight. I couldn't. My head was pounding, blood dripping from my chin onto the pristine floor. As they dragged me away, I caught a glimpse of Selene standing in the shadows of the archway. She wasn't smiling anymore. Her face was blank, cold, watching my destruction with the detachment of a scientist observing a dying insect.

***

The Silver Cellar was a relic from a darker time, a dungeon beneath the pack house designed specifically to break a wolf’s spirit. The moment the heavy iron door slammed shut, plunging me into darkness, I felt it.

The air tasted like battery acid.

I crawled into the corner, trying to keep my skin from touching the walls, but the space was cramped. My shoulder brushed against the bars of the inner cage. A hiss of searing flesh filled the silence, followed by the smell of burning hair and skin.

I screamed, scrambling back to the center of the cold stone floor. The silver. The entire cell was lined with it. Pure, concentrated silver that acted like radioactive poison to our kind.

"Please," I whimpered to the darkness. "Please, just kill me."

Minutes turned into hours. Or maybe days. Time had no meaning here. The silver in the air was suffocating my wolf. Usually, I could feel her presence in the back of my mind—a source of warmth and strength. Now, she was silent, curled into a tight ball, fading. My healing ability, already slow from years of malnutrition, had stopped completely. The cut on my lip throbbed, swollen and hot.

I shivered violently, the cold seeping into my marrow. This was it. This was how I died. Not in a blaze of glory, but rotting in a dungeon, framed for a crime I didn't commit, by a man who wore the face of my true love.

My vision began to gray at the edges. My breathing grew shallow, each inhale a struggle against the weight on my chest. I closed my eyes, and for the first time in five years, I didn't try to fight the darkness. I welcomed it. I pictured Keith. I pictured him standing in the sun, holding that guitar, smiling that crooked smile that used to make my heart race.

*I’m coming, Keith,* I thought, my mind sluggish. *I’m finally coming home.*

The static in my head, the wall that had been there since the day Keith died, suddenly shifted.

It wasn't a sound. It was a sensation. Like a dam breaking. Like a sudden intake of breath after being underwater for a decade. The silence in my mind shattered, not with noise, but with presence. Massive. Ancient. Overwhelming.

A voice, deep as the ocean and vibrating with a power that made my very soul tremble, echoed through the bond I thought was dead.

*"Hold on, my love."*

My eyes snapped open in the pitch black. The voice wasn't Vincenzo’s. It wasn't the weak, broken whisper of my own thoughts. It was rich, commanding, and laced with a terrifying, beautiful rage.

*"I have returned."*