Erica POV:

Two days later.

The procedure was scheduled for this morning. I had one night left in the apartment I used to call home.

The Lycan, whose name I still didn't know, had driven me back. He hadn't said a word, but his presence was a shield against the world. He waited in the car downstairs. I could feel his golden eyes watching the building.

I walked into the penthouse apartment. It was dark.

I clutched the small velvet bag in my hand. It contained the amulet with Grandma's ashes. It was heavy, warm, and the only thing I had left.

"You're late," a sickly sweet voice said.

The lights flicked on.

Bianca was sitting on the sofa. My sofa. She was wearing one of Anthony's shirts, her bare legs draped over the armrest.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, my voice trembling with exhaustion.

"Marking my territory," she smirked. She stood up and walked toward me. She smelled of expensive perfume and rot. "Anthony gave me the key code. He said I could redecorate."

"Get out," I said.

"Make me," she challenged.

Suddenly, she threw herself backward, crashing into the coffee table. She let out a piercing scream.

"Help! Anthony! She's attacking me!"

The bedroom door flew open. Anthony stormed out, his chest bare, wearing only sweatpants.

He saw Bianca on the floor, clutching her arm, and me standing over her.

He didn't ask questions. He didn't look at my tear-stained face or my wet clothes.

"Kneel!"

The Alpha Command slammed me into the floorboards again. My chin hit the wood hard. I tasted blood.

"She tried to hit me, Ant!" Bianca sobbed, squeezing out fake tears. "She's jealous! She's crazy!"

"You are a rabid dog," Anthony growled, walking over to me. He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me up. "I think you need a time-out."

"No," I gasped, panic rising in my throat. "Anthony, please. Not the closet."

He knew. He knew about my claustrophobia. He knew that when Bianca framed me in college, the other students had locked me in a janitor's closet filled with silver dust for six hours. It was where my wolf had gone into a coma.

"You need to learn your place," Anthony said coldly.

He dragged me down the hallway. I clawed at his arm, but he was an Alpha. I was nothing.

He opened the door to the storage closet. It was tiny, unventilated, and dark.

He threw me inside.

"Anthony, please!" I screamed. "I can't breathe in there! Please!"

"Think about what you've done to my Luna," he said.

The door slammed shut. The lock clicked.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

My breath hitched. The walls felt like they were closing in. The air grew hot and stale instantly.

Let me out! Let me out!

I pounded on the door until my knuckles bled.

"Anthony!" I shrieked.

Outside, I heard Bianca giggle. "Oh, Ant, you're so strong. Come back to bed."

"Let her rot for a bit," Anthony's muffled voice replied.

Footsteps faded away.

I slid down the door, curling into a tight ball. My chest heaved, but no air seemed to enter my lungs. The phantom smell of silver dust filled my nose.

My mind started to fracture.

I clutched the velvet bag with Grandma's ashes to my chest.

"I hate them," I whispered into the darkness.

The love I had held for Anthony, the confusion I felt for Emmanuel... it all curdled. It turned black and thick.

In the silence of that closet, something inside me shifted. Not my body—my wolf was still asleep. But my soul.

The weak, pleading Erica died in that darkness.

I sat there for hours, staring at nothing, listening to the silence of the pack that had abandoned me.

When I get out of here, I thought, my eyes dry and burning. I will burn this pack to the ground.

Erica POV:

The door opened at dawn.

Light blinded me. I didn't move. I sat huddled in the corner, my eyes adjusting painfully.

Emmanuel stood there. He was fully dressed in a tailored suit. He looked at me with a strange expression—guilt masked by annoyance.

"Get up," he said. "You smell like fear. It's pathetic."

I stood up slowly. My legs were stiff. I walked past him without a word.

"We have errands," he said, checking his watch. "Anthony is busy with the Council. I have to take you to the boutique."

"Why?" My voice was a rasp.

"The Luna's entourage needs to match," he said. "You're going to be a flower attendant."

I stopped and looked at him. "You want me... the ex-girlfriend you just cheated on and exiled... to be a flower girl at your brother's wedding to my bully?"

"It's about image, Erica," Emmanuel sighed, grabbing my arm. "It shows unity. If the 'victim' supports the couple, the rumors about Bianca die. Now come on."

He dragged me to the car.

We arrived at the pack's exclusive boutique. The windows were filled with silk and lace.

Inside, Bianca was standing on a podium. She was wearing the Moonlight Silk gown. It was a shimmering, pearlescent fabric that was reserved only for the Luna. It hugged her curves perfectly.

"Oh, look who the cat dragged in," Bianca sneered, looking down at me from the mirror.

The shop assistants, all Omegas, rushed to adjust Bianca's train. They ignored me completely.

"Put this on," Emmanuel said, tossing a hideous, shapeless grey dress at me. "Maid's cut."

I took the dress. I didn't argue. I went to the changing room.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were hollow. My skin was pale. I looked like a ghost.

I put on the grey dress. It scratched my skin.

When I came out, Bianca laughed. " perfect. You finally look like what you are. A servant."

She twirled, the Moonlight Silk flowing like water. "Do I look like a Queen, Emmanuel?"

"You look stunning, Luna," Emmanuel said, bowing his head.

I felt nothing. No jealousy. Just cold detachment.

Back at the apartment, I started packing. Not clothes. I was destroying things.

I took the photo of us from the mantle—me and Anthony, from before the corruption. I took a lighter to the corner. I watched his smiling face curl and turn to ash.

"Dramatic," Emmanuel said. He had followed me into the bedroom.

He sat on the bed—the bed where he had tricked me. He patted the space beside him.

"Come here, Erica."

I didn't move.

"Look," he said, his voice softening. He pulled a small velvet box from his pocket. "I know things are... messy. But I got you these."

He opened it. A pair of silver earrings. Cheap cubic zirconia. The metal was likely plated, safe for wolves but insulting.

"I can take care of you," he murmured, his eyes darkening with lust. "Even in the Mining District. I can visit. You were... good. Responsive."

He stood up and walked toward me. He reached out to touch my face.

I smelled him.

Underneath his cologne, underneath his musk... I smelled her. Bianca's perfume. It was all over his hands.

He had been with her. While I was locked in the closet. While Anthony was asleep.

My stomach lurched. Bile rose in my throat. It wasn't morning sickness. It was pure, physical revulsion.

I slapped his hand away.

"Don't touch me," I hissed.

Emmanuel's eyes narrowed. He sniffed the air.

"You smell different," he said slowly. "Your hormones... are you..."

He looked at my stomach.

"It's stress," I lied quickly, relying on my medical training. "Gastritis. My cortisol levels are through the roof because you people are torturing me."

"Hmm," he grunted, unconvinced. "You look pale."

"I spent the night in a closet," I snapped. "I'm going to throw up."

I ran to the bathroom and locked the door. I turned on the tap to mask the sound.

I looked at my reflection.

"One more day," I whispered. "Just survive one more day."

Erica POV:

The clinic was in the shady part of the human district. I couldn't go to the pack hospital; the records would be seen by Anthony.

I paid in cash. The doctor was human, discreet, and didn't ask questions.

When it was over, I felt a hollowness in my womb that echoed the hollowness in my heart. The potential life was gone. I had saved it from a lifetime of shame and danger, but the grief was a heavy stone in my chest.

I walked back to the pack lands, moving slowly. My body ached. I was bleeding. But strangely, the pain was duller than it should have been. A faint, humming warmth in my veins seemed to be knitting me back together faster than humanly possible.

I entered the pack house dining hall. It was mandatory attendance for the pre-coronation lunch.

The long table was set with silver and crystal. Anthony sat at the head. Bianca was on his right. Emmanuel was on his left.

I took the seat at the far end, near the kitchen doors.

"Erica," Bianca called out, her voice ringing through the silent hall. "You look terrible. Are you sick?"

"Just tired," I muttered, staring at my soup.

"You should eat," she said, smiling sweetly. "The chef made your favorite. Mushroom stew."

A servant placed a bowl in front of me. It smelled... off.

But I hadn't eaten in twenty-four hours. My body was weak from the surgery. I needed strength to escape tonight.

I took a spoonful.

It tasted metallic. Spicy.

My throat closed up instantly.

I dropped the spoon. It clattered loudly against the china.

I grabbed my throat. Air. I couldn't get air. My tongue swelled, filling my mouth.

Wolfsbane.

It wasn't just an allergy. Wolfsbane was deadly to wolves, even latent ones. It paralyzed the respiratory system.

I fell off my chair, crashing to the floor. I convulsed, my heels drumming against the wood.

"Oh my god!" Bianca shrieked. "She's choking!"

Anthony stood up abruptly. "What is happening?"

"Help..." I wheezed, my vision tunneling. "Poison..."

I pointed a shaking finger at Bianca.

Bianca gasped, clutching her chest. "Oh! My heart! I feel faint! The stress!"

She slumped sideways into Anthony's arms.

"Bianca!" Anthony roared. He looked at me, writhing on the floor, turning blue. Then he looked at Bianca, who was fluttering her eyelashes.

"Medic!" Emmanuel shouted, but he didn't move to help me. He was looking at Bianca.

"The antidote!" Anthony barked at a guard. "Get the epi-pen from the emergency kit!"

The guard ran back with a single syringe.

I reached out my hand. Please. I'm dying.

Anthony grabbed the syringe. He looked at me. Our eyes locked. I saw hesitation.

"Ant, I can't breathe!" Bianca whimpered.

Anthony made his choice.

He turned away from me and jammed the needle into Bianca's thigh.

"There," he soothed her. "You're okay. You're okay."

I watched them. The darkness was creeping in from the edges of my vision.

Emmanuel walked over to me. He nudged my convulsing body with the toe of his expensive Italian shoe.

"Stop acting, Erica," he sneered. "You're just trying to ruin the lunch. It's pathetic."

He turned his back on me.

"Let's get Bianca to fresh air," Anthony ordered.

They picked her up. They walked out of the dining hall.

They left me there. On the floor. Dying.

My heart stuttered. One beat. Two beats. Silence.

This is it, I thought. This is the end.

"Miss!"

A pair of hands grabbed me. It was a waiter. A young, nervous Beta boy.

"Stay with me!"

He reached into his own pocket and pulled out a crinkled, cheap epinephrine pen—something all low-level wolves carried because they couldn't afford pack healthcare.

He stabbed it into my leg.

Adrenaline surged through my system. My lungs spasmed, sucking in a harsh, whistling breath.

I coughed violently, expelling the poison and bile.

I lay there, gasping, tears streaming down my face. The burning in my veins subsided too quickly. That strange warmth was back, fighting the poison, metabolizing it with impossible speed.

The waiter held my hand, his face pale. "They left you," he whispered, shocked. "The Alpha... he just left you."

"Yes," I rasped, my voice sounding like broken glass.

I looked at the empty door where the Holden brothers had carried their precious, fake Luna.

The last thread of attachment snapped. The Erica who loved them was dead. The Erica who wanted their approval was dead.

I wiped the vomit from my mouth.

"Thank you," I told the waiter.

I forced myself to stand up, my legs shaking uncontrollably.

I wasn't going to the Mining District. I wasn't going to just disappear.

I was going to survive. And then, I was going to make them pay in blood.