I adjusted my silver gown over my swollen belly, the fabric stretching uncomfortably across my nine-month pregnant form. The grand hall of Gabriel's pack house buzzed with activity as wolves from allied packs mingled, celebrating another successful territory expansion. My hand instinctively went to the moonstone necklace that hung at my throat—Gabriel's gift when he'd first declared me his mate.

A mate. What a beautiful, sacred word in our world.

I smiled softly, watching Gabriel across the room. His tall, commanding presence drew every eye as he shook hands with the Alpha of the Northern Ridge Pack. My chest swelled with pride. From a small group of rogues to one of the most powerful Alphas in North America—and I had helped him achieve it all. Every resource from my father's Silvermoon Pack, every alliance I'd brokered, every sacrifice I'd made had been worth it for the empire we were building together.

For our pup.

I caressed my belly, feeling a strong kick against my palm. Any day now, our heir would arrive.

"Sophia." Victoria's voice sliced through my thoughts like a cold blade.

I turned to face her, forcing a polite smile. Victoria Hayes, the daughter of Alpha Valerius from the Crimson Ridge Pack. She'd been hovering around Gabriel since we'd formed an alliance with her father's pack three months ago.

"Victoria," I acknowledged with a slight nod, the movement causing a wave of dizziness. I'd been feeling weak all day, but I couldn't miss this ceremony. It was too important to Gabriel.

"These heels are killing me," she complained, gesturing to her stilettos. "I've been standing for hours greeting these boring Alphas."

I noticed Gabriel watching us from across the room, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Perhaps you should sit down," I suggested, uncomfortable with her proximity.

"No, I have a better idea." A smirk twisted her lips as she stepped forward. "I need to rest my feet."

Before I could react, Victoria placed her foot directly onto my swollen belly, pressing down with deliberate force.

Pain exploded through me, sharp and blinding. I gasped, unable to even scream as I felt something tear inside me. My knees buckled, and I collapsed to the marble floor, clutching my stomach.

Warm liquid pooled between my legs, soaking through the silver fabric of my gown. Blood. So much blood.

"My pup," I whispered, horror washing over me as pack members scattered in shock. "Gabriel!"

Through the haze of pain, I saw him standing frozen, his eyes locked with Victoria's. He didn't rush to me. He didn't move at all.

Darkness claimed me then, mercifully pulling me under.

* * *

Three days later, I walked slowly up the steps to the pack house, my body still weak from the loss of our pup. The pack healer had finally released me, though she'd warned me to rest. But I needed to see Gabriel. He hadn't visited me once during my recovery.

Surely, he was devastated too. Perhaps too broken to face me.

I pushed open the heavy oak doors, the familiar scent of home washing over me. But something was different—another scent lingered in the air. Victoria's perfume.

Following the sound of low voices, I made my way to the main hall. I stopped dead in the doorway, my heart shattering into a thousand pieces.

Gabriel stood by the fireplace, his arms wrapped intimately around Victoria's waist. Her head rested against his chest, their bodies fitting together as if made for each other. His fingers stroked her hair tenderly—the same way he used to touch mine.

"Gabriel?" My voice came out as a broken whisper.

They broke apart, but not with guilt—with annoyance.

"Sophia." Gabriel's voice was cold, devoid of any warmth. "You should be resting."

"What is this?" I gestured between them, tears blurring my vision. "Our pup just died, and you're—"

"Always the drama queen." Victoria rolled her eyes.

I stepped forward, rage building inside me. "You killed my pup!"

Gabriel's face hardened. With a swift movement, he shoved me backward with his Alpha power, the force of it slamming me against the wall.

"You're ruining the mood," he snarled, his Alpha tone cutting into me like physical blows. "Victoria is my true mate. She always has been."

I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.

"But the bond—" I clutched the moonstone at my throat.

"There was never a mate bond, Sophia." His laugh was cruel, mocking. "You were convenient. Your father's resources, your connections—they built my empire. You were never anything but a tool."

Victoria's triumphant smile burned into my soul as Gabriel's words destroyed everything I thought I knew about us. About love. About destiny.

And in that moment, something inside me changed. The last remnant of the loving, trusting she-wolf I had been died alongside my pup.

In her place, something colder was born.

I sat alone in the darkness of my chambers, the room Gabriel had assigned me after I was discharged from the pack healer's care. Not our bedroom—a guest room tucked away in the east wing, as far from the pack's activities as possible. Out of sight, out of mind. Like damaged goods to be hidden away.

Three days had passed since I'd walked in on Gabriel and Victoria's intimate embrace. Three days of isolation, of tears that had finally run dry, leaving nothing but a hollow ache in my chest where my heart used to be. Where my pup used to grow.

I pressed my palm against my now-flat stomach, the emptiness there a cruel reminder of everything I'd lost. The moonstone necklace that had once hung proudly around my neck now lay shattered in the corner where I'd thrown it after Gabriel's cruel revelation.

"There was never a mate bond, Sophia."

His words echoed in my mind, cutting deeper each time. How could I have been so blind? So foolish?

I shifted on the bed, wincing at the lingering pain in my body, when my elbow knocked against something hard tucked between the mattress and headboard. Frowning, I reached back and pulled out a small tablet—one of the devices our pack used for the internal communication network.

Someone had forgotten it here. Or perhaps it belonged to whoever had stayed in this room before me.

My fingers trembled as I powered it on, the screen illuminating my tear-stained face in the darkness. I hadn't been allowed access to the pack's communication system since my return from the healer's. Gabriel had claimed it was to help me rest, but now I understood—he was isolating me, cutting me off.

To my surprise, the tablet still had active credentials stored. I navigated through the system, muscle memory guiding my fingers from the countless times I'd managed communications for Gabriel's growing empire. For our future, I'd thought.

A notification caught my eye—archived mind-link logs. Gabriel, as Alpha, had his private mind-links automatically archived for security purposes. A system I'd implemented myself to protect him from rival packs.

Something cold and determined settled in my chest as I opened the archive.

There they were. Hundreds of private mind-link conversations between Gabriel and Victoria, dating back months—long before he'd allowed her to destroy our future with a single, cruel step.

I scrolled to the earliest entry, my heart pounding painfully against my ribs.

"She's so pathetically devoted," Gabriel's voice echoed in the transcribed mind-link. "You should see how eagerly she offers up her father's resources. As if she thinks it will make me love her more."

"Does she still believe you're her true mate?" Victoria's response dripped with mockery.

"Of course. I've perfected the act. The moonstone necklace sealed it—she nearly cried when I gave it to her. If only she knew I bought it for you first."

My fingers shook violently as I scrolled through more conversations, each more devastating than the last.

"Her father's alliance with the Eastern packs is the final piece. Once the pup is born, I'll have everything I need. Then we can finally be together properly, my love."

"What about her?"

"She'll have served her purpose. The Silvermoon bloodline through our pup will cement my position. She'll be nothing more than the mother of my heir."

Tears blurred my vision, but these weren't the broken tears of before. These burned like acid, fueled by a rage so pure it felt like fire in my veins.

Every sacrifice, every resource I'd diverted from my father's pack, every alliance I'd leveraged—all of it had been to build a future for a man who had never loved me. Who had been planning all along to discard me once I'd given him what he wanted.

And now, I didn't even have our pup.

I closed my eyes, trying to steady my breathing. The pain was transforming, hardening into something dangerous and cold inside me. I needed help. I needed someone I could trust.

Before I could second-guess myself, I activated the mind-link function on the tablet. There was only one person I could reach out to now.

"Ryan?" I projected my thoughts tentatively, unsure if he would even answer after all this time.

The response was immediate, warm, and tinged with concern.

"Sophia? Is that really you?"

Ryan Matthews, Beta of the Moonveil Pack. My childhood friend. The one who had warned me about Gabriel years ago, whose cautions I had dismissed as jealousy.

As his voice filled my mind, something unexpected happened. A scent—sandalwood and rain—seemed to envelop me, bringing the first moment of comfort I'd felt in weeks.

"I need your help," I whispered into the mind-link, my decision made. "I need to come home."

The moonlight spilled across the clearing at the border between Gabriel's territory and the Moonveil Pack lands. I stood alone, my body still weak, my heart a hollow cavity in my chest. The night air carried the scent of pine and earth, cleansing my lungs of the suffocating perfumes that had filled Gabriel's pack house—Victoria's floral notes that seemed to mark everything as hers now.

I checked my watch. Midnight. He should be here.

A twig snapped in the darkness, and I tensed, my hand instinctively going to my stomach—a habit I couldn't break, protecting a pup that was no longer there. The emptiness of the gesture made my throat tighten.

"Sophia."

Ryan's voice came before I saw him, deep and steady like I remembered. He emerged from the shadows, his tall frame silhouetted against the moonlight. Five years had changed him. The boy I'd grown up with had become a powerful Beta, his shoulders broader, his jawline sharper. But his eyes—those warm amber eyes—remained the same.

"Ryan," I whispered, my voice cracking on his name.

He approached slowly, as one might approach a wounded animal. "I came as soon as I could."

The moment he stepped into the clearing, something extraordinary happened. His scent—sandalwood and rain—washed over me in a wave so powerful my knees nearly buckled. My wolf, dormant and silent since I'd lost my pup, suddenly stirred within me.

*Mate*, she whimpered. *Our mate*.

I gasped, my hand flying to my chest. Ryan froze, his eyes widening as he caught my reaction.

"You feel it too," he said softly. It wasn't a question.

The realization crashed through me like thunder. Ryan Matthews—my childhood friend, the boy whose heart I had broken when I chose Gabriel—was my true mate. Had always been my true mate. The bond I thought I'd shared with Gabriel had been nothing but a cruel illusion, a masterful deception.

But this... this was real. The pull between us was undeniable, a cosmic thread binding us together that I'd been too blind to see.

"All this time," I whispered, tears filling my eyes. "It was you."

Ryan didn't move to embrace me, respecting the space between us, the years of pain and separation. "I knew the day you turned sixteen," he admitted. "But you were so certain about Gabriel..."

"Why didn't you tell me?" The question came out sharper than I intended.

"Would you have believed me?" His gaze was steady, without accusation. "The mate bond can't be forced, Sophia. It has to be recognized by both wolves."

I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of my mistakes crushing down on me. But beneath that weight, something else was growing—a cold, hard determination. Gabriel had stolen years from me, had used me, had cost me my pup. And he had kept me from my true mate.

This wasn't just about revenge anymore. This was about reclaiming everything that should have been mine.

"I need your help," I said, my voice stronger now. "But not just to escape. I want to destroy him."

Ryan's expression darkened, a flash of something primal crossing his features. "Tell me what you need."

* * *

Three nights later, I sat in a small cabin deep in Silvermoon territory, surrounded by my father's most trusted warriors. Maps and documents covered the rough wooden table between us, illuminated by the warm glow of lanterns.

"These are all the supply routes," I explained, tracing my finger along the marked paths. "Gabriel's pack depends on these three main trade lines for everything from food to weapons."

Delta Kross, my father's head of security, nodded grimly. "And you established all of these?"

"Every single one." I pulled out another map. "These are the merchant alliances I brokered using Silvermoon's reputation. They don't know Gabriel—they know me. And here"—I tapped a series of locations—"are the warrior training camps I funded with our pack's gold."

"He built nothing himself," Ryan observed from where he stood beside me, his presence a steady anchor.

"Nothing," I confirmed. "Gabriel's entire empire is a house of cards, and I know exactly which cards to pull."

The warriors exchanged glances, a new respect in their eyes. They had known me as their Alpha's daughter, the girl who had abandoned her pack for love. Now they were seeing something else—the Alpha I was born to be.

"We'll need to move carefully," Delta Kross cautioned. "Gabriel may be a fraud, but he still has power."

"For now," I said, my voice cold with promise.

* * *

The Silvermoon Pack's war room was a sacred space, carved from ancient stone beneath my father's mansion. I had not set foot in it since I was a child, watching in awe as my father conducted the business of our pack.

Now, I stood before him as he sat in his throne-like chair, his silver hair gleaming in the light of the ceremonial fire pit that dominated the center of the room.

"Father," I greeted him, lowering my head slightly in respect.

"My daughter." His voice was like gravel, worn by years of command. "You have returned to us broken, but not defeated."

I met his gaze, seeing the pain there—pain for what I had suffered, for the grandchild he would never know. But there was something else too. Pride.

"I was bound by our laws," he continued. "The mate bond is sacred among our kind. I could not interfere, even when I suspected Gabriel's intentions."

"And now?" I asked.

A slow, dangerous smile spread across my father's face. "Now, there is no mate bond to respect. Now, you are a daughter of the Silvermoon bloodline seeking justice." He rose from his chair, towering and magnificent in his power. "Every resource of our pack is at your disposal. Every alliance, every warrior, every coin."

He extended his hand, and in it lay a silver ring bearing our pack's crest—the symbol of authority that had been my birthright.

"Reclaim your power, daughter," he said, his Alpha tone resonating through the chamber. "And bring this false king to his knees."

As I slipped the ring onto my finger, I felt my wolf stir again, stronger this time. She had been dormant for too long, beaten down by Gabriel's cruelty and my own blindness.

But no more.

The hunt had begun.