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.

Erica POV:

Three days passed in a blur of recovery. My body was healing at a rate that baffled the nurses, knitting bone and tissue together overnight. I knew it wasn't normal, but I didn't question it. I needed to be strong.

I woke up to the rhythmic beeping of a machine. My throat felt like I had swallowed a handful of razor blades. The lingering taste of metallic poison coated my tongue.

I wasn't dead. The waiter had saved me.

I opened my eyes. Anthony was standing by the window, checking his watch. He didn't look relieved. He looked annoyed.

"Finally," he said, not turning around. "The doctor said it was just a severe allergic reaction. You always were dramatic."

"It was Wolfsbane," I rasped. My voice was a broken whisper.

"Don't be ridiculous," Anthony snapped, turning to face me. "Why would there be Wolfsbane in the pack house kitchen? It was probably just bad shellfish. Stop trying to frame Bianca for your weak constitution."

I stared at him. The man I had loved for years. The man whose child I had just removed from my body so it wouldn't be murdered by him. He was blind. Willfully blind.

"Where is my bag?" I asked. "The velvet bag."

"I don't know," he waved a hand dismissively. "The cleaners probably took it. Listen, Erica. The coronation is tomorrow. I don't want you making a scene. You stay here until—"

"My grandmother's ashes were in that bag!" I screamed, sitting up. The movement tore at my abdominal stitches, but I didn't care.

"It was just dust," Anthony said coldly. "Get over it."

I ripped the IV out of my arm. Blood trickled down my skin, but the pain was nothing compared to the panic rising in my chest.

I pushed past him. He didn't stop me; he just sighed like I was a tantrum-throwing toddler.

I ran down the hallway. My wolf senses were dull, but I knew where Bianca would be. The VIP suite. The best room in the hospital.

I burst through the double doors.

Bianca was sitting up in bed, looking the picture of health. She was filing her nails. On the bedside table, next to a vase of roses, sat my velvet bag.

She smiled when she saw me. It was a predator's smile.

"Looking for this?" she asked, picking up the bag.

"Give it to me," I growled.

Her eyes flashed. Suddenly, her voice echoed in my head.

It's pathetic, really, she Mind-Linked me. You actually thought you could win? I poisoned the food in college. I poisoned your soup today. And Anthony still chose me.

"You admit it," I said aloud, my hands shaking.

Who is going to believe a latent wolf over the future Luna? she projected, her mental voice dripping with amusement. You are nothing, Erica. Just like this old hag.

She stood up and walked to the open window.

"No," I whispered. "Bianca, don't."

She held the bag over the ledge. We were on the fourth floor. The wind was howling outside.

Oops, she linked.

She turned the bag upside down.

A grey cloud puffed out into the air. My grandmother. The woman who raised me when my parents died in the border wars. The only person who ever loved me.

The wind caught the ash. It swirled for a second, a grey ghost in the sunlight, and then it was gone. Scattered into nothingness.

A primal scream tore from my throat.

I didn't think. I didn't care about rank or laws. I launched myself at her.

My fingers curled into claws. I slammed into her, knocking her back against the window sill. I wanted to tear her throat out with my human teeth if I had to.

"Help!" Bianca shrieked, instantly going limp. "She's killing me!"

Strong arms grabbed me from behind.

It wasn't one person. It was two.

Anthony and Emmanuel had rushed in. They hauled me off her.

"She's crazy!" Bianca sobbed, sliding to the floor and curling into a ball. "I was just getting some fresh air and she attacked me!"

"Murderer!" I screamed, thrashing in their grip. "She threw her! She threw Grandma!"

"Enough!" Anthony roared.

He didn't use the Alpha Command, but his aura exploded outward. It was a physical wave of dominance. It hit me like a sledgehammer.

My knees buckled. I stopped fighting, not because I wanted to, but because the air had been sucked out of the room by his power.

I looked at the empty velvet bag on the floor.

My soul felt like it had been ripped in two.

I looked up at Anthony. His eyes were hard. Cold. There was no love there. There never had been.

I stopped screaming. I went completely still.

"She's gone," I whispered.

Anthony released me, looking at me with disgust. "You have lost your mind, Erica."