Janette POV:

The scream that tore from my throat didn't sound human. It was the raw, guttural sound of a wounded animal dying in a trap.

I found her in the herb garden.

She wasn't planting. She was lying face down in the dirt, her basket overturned like a spilled omen.

"Mom!" I fell to my knees, skidding through the mud, grabbing her shoulders to turn her over.

Her skin was gray. Her lips were stained a dark, unnatural violet. The smell of Wolfsbane was so potent it made my eyes water and my throat close up.

"No, no, no," I sobbed, shaking her limp form. "Wake up. Please, Mom, wake up!"

I pressed my ear to her chest. Silence. The heart that had loved me when no one else did had stopped beating.

"What is this racket?" Garrison’s voice cut through my grief like a lash.

He stood on the patio, coffee cup in hand, looking down at me as if I were a pest.

Keyla was beside him, wrapped in a silk robe that I recognized. It was mine. The one I had worn on my wedding night.

"She's dead!" I screamed at him, my voice cracking. "My mother is dead!"

Garrison walked down the steps, his face pale but irritatingly composed. He knelt beside the body, checking for a pulse with clinical detachment.

"Wolfsbane," Keyla said, covering her nose with a delicate hand. "Disgusting. Why would the Pack Healer have such a dangerous poison on her? Unless..."

She let the sentence hang in the air, poisonous and sweet.

"Unless what?" I snarled, my vision blurring with red rage. "You did this! She found out about you!"

"Janette!" Garrison snapped. "Control yourself."

"She killed her!" I lunged at Keyla, my fingers curling into claws, ready to tear that stolen robe from her skin.

"Enough!"

Garrison used the Alpha Voice. It hit me like a physical blow to the chest, a crushing weight that slammed me into the earth, knocking the air out of my lungs. I collapsed into the dirt beside my mother’s body, gasping, unable to lift my head against the sheer gravity of his command.

"Look at this," Keyla said, pointing to my mother’s apron pocket. She reached in and pulled out a small vial with theatrical precision. "Pure Wolfsbane extract. It looks like she was brewing it. Maybe she made a mistake. Or maybe... she was planning to use it on the Alpha."

"Liar!" I tried to scream, but the Alpha Command held my throat shut like an iron collar. I could only make a strangled whimpering sound.

"This is serious," Garrison said, looking at the vial. He looked at my mother’s corpse with a cold detachment that broke whatever was left of my heart. "We cannot have a scandal. If the Council finds out the Healer was brewing poison..."

"We should bury her quickly," Keyla suggested softly, leaning into him. "To protect the pack's reputation. And Janette's."

"Do it," Garrison said. He stood up, wiping his hands on his pants as if to clean off the contagion of my grief. He looked down at me. "Get her out of here. She's hysterical."

Two warriors dragged me away. I watched my mother’s body get smaller and smaller, leaving trails in the dirt until she was gone.

*

The funeral was a sham. No honors. No pack howl. Just a quick burial in the corner of the cemetery reserved for traitors and outcasts.

I stood by the grave, rain soaking my black dress to my skin. I felt hollow. The pain was so great it had transcended suffering and become a numb void.

Keyla walked up to me as the last shovel of dirt was thrown onto the cheap pine box.

"She shouldn't have gone to the cabin," Keyla whispered, staring at the headstone. "Curiosity kills the cat. Or the wolf, in this case."

I didn't look at her. I stared straight ahead. Inside me, something was burning. A heat that started in my marrow and spread outward. It wasn't the fever of sickness. It was the cold, hard steel of hatred.

"You will pay," I said. My voice was flat, dead.

Keyla laughed. "With what army? You have no allies. You have no family. And soon, you will have no mate."

She was right.

Two days later, I was summoned to the Alpha’s office.

Garrison sat behind his desk. The Elders were lined up against the wall like a firing squad. Keyla was sitting in the corner, looking triumphant.

"Janette," Garrison began, not meeting my eyes. "The pack is in a fragile state. The merger with the Dixon pack is the only way to secure our borders and our economy."

"I know," I said.

"Keyla's father has made... conditions," Garrison continued, shuffling papers to avoid looking at me. "He will not merge with a pack whose Luna is... weak. And whose mother was a suspected poisoner."

"So you're casting me out," I said.

"It's for the good of the pack," Garrison said, trying to sound noble. "But I am not heartless. I have arranged a marriage for you."

I blinked, the absurdity of it stinging. "A marriage?"

"Alpha Sterling of the Black Rock Pack has agreed to take you," Garrison said. "In exchange for mining rights."

Alpha Sterling. He was sixty years old. He had buried four wives, all of whom died under "mysterious circumstances." He was known for his cruelty and his perversions.

Garrison wasn't just rejecting me. He was selling me to a butcher to buy mining rights. I was nothing more than currency to him.

The heat inside me flared. It was agonizing. My bones felt like they were vibrating against my skin.

"I see," I said. I didn't cry. I didn't beg. The Janette who begged for crumbs of affection had died in the garden with her mother.

"You accept?" Garrison looked surprised. He had expected a scene, tears, pleading.

"I accept my fate," I lied.

Because I wasn't going to Black Rock. And I wasn't staying here.

I looked at Garrison, really looked at him, and realized the bond was already dead. He had killed it with a thousand cuts of indifference.

"Set the ceremony," I said, my voice devoid of emotion. "Let's get it over with."

Janette POV

The Great Hall was suffocatingly packed. Every wolf in Silver Lake was there to witness the spectacle: the public execution of a weak Luna's status.

I stood in the center of the circle. Dressed in a simple white shift, stripped of all jewelry, I looked less like a Luna and more like a sacrificial lamb.

Garrison stood on the dais. He looked majestic in his Alpha furs, but shadows clung to his eyes. Maybe a sliver of conscience remained, or maybe he just didn't like the political optics of discarding his Fated Mate.

Keyla stood to the side, clad in a crimson dress that clashed violently with the solemnity of the room. She was practically vibrating with anticipation, her smile predatory.

The Elder struck the ceremonial gong. The sound reverberated through the hall, instantly silencing the murmurs of the pack.

"Janette Meyers Gardner," Garrison’s voice boomed, amplified by the acoustics of the hall. "You have failed to uphold the duties of Luna. Your bloodline is weak. Your family is tainted."

The crowd murmured in agreement. I kept my chin high, refusing to cower. I focused on the burning sensation igniting in my chest. It was getting harder to ignore. My inner wolf was thrashing, not in sorrow, but in pure, unadulterated rage.

"For the survival and prosperity of the Silver Lake Pack," Garrison continued, stepping down from the dais to stand directly before me.

Here it came. The words that would sever our souls.

"I, Garrison Gardner, Alpha of the Silver Lake Pack, reject you, Janette Meyers Gardner, as my mate and Luna."

The pain hit me instantly.

It wasn't a metaphor. It felt as though a physical hook had been driven into my heart and was now being wrenched out through my ribs. I gasped, doubling over, clutching my chest. The bond, that golden thread I had tried so hard to nurture, snapped with a violent, psychic backlash.

My knees hit the stone floor with a sickening thud. I couldn't breathe. It felt like I was bleeding out, though there was no blood to be seen.

Garrison stumbled back, clutching his own chest. He looked pale, his composure cracking for a split second. The bond cut both ways. He was feeling the loss of his other half, the rejection of the Moon Goddess’s gift.

But he recovered quickly, straightening up and masking his agony.

Silence filled the hall. They were waiting for me to beg. To cry. To refuse the rejection, which would leave us in a painful limbo.

I forced myself to stand. My legs shook violently, threatening to give way. Sweat poured down my back.

I looked Garrison dead in the eye.

"I, Janette Meyers Gardner," my voice rasped, then gained steel. "Accept your rejection."

*SNAP.*

The final tether broke. The emptiness that followed was vast and cold, like stepping out of a warm house into a blizzard. But it was also... liberating.

I turned my back on him.

"Wait," Garrison called out. "The guards will escort you to your room. You leave for Alpha Sterling's territory at dawn."

I didn't answer. I walked out of the hall, the crowd parting for me like the Red Sea. I saw Keyla’s smile falter. She had wanted to see me broken. Instead, she saw me standing.

Back in my room, I moved with frantic precision.

I didn't pack clothes. I didn't pack jewelry. I went to the loose floorboard under my bed and pulled out the stash I had hidden since Mom died.

Her grimoire. A map. And a small vial of liquid that smelled like rotten eggs and sulfur.

*Scent-masking potion.* An old, dangerous recipe I had brewed in secret.

I drank it in one agonizing gulp.

It burned like acid going down. I gagged, clutching my throat, tears pricking my eyes. Within seconds, I felt my scent—the smell of vanilla and jasmine that identified me—evaporate. To any wolf, I would smell like nothing. Like a ghost.

I threw open the window. The storm outside was raging, thunder shaking the house to its foundations. Perfect. The rain would wash away my tracks.

I climbed out onto the trellis. The wind whipped my hair into my face, blinding me momentarily.

I hit the ground and ran.

I didn't run toward the main road. I ran toward the Forbidden Forest. The territory of the Rogues.

It was suicide. Or it was freedom.

I ran until my lungs burned. I ran until the lights of the pack house were swallowed by the darkness.

Suddenly, a searing pain shot through my spine. It was a thousand times worse than the Rejection.

I fell into the mud, screaming. My bones were shifting. They were breaking and reforming with audible cracks.

It wasn't supposed to happen. I wasn't eighteen. I had already shifted years ago.

But this was different. This wasn't my normal, small brown wolf. This was something ancient. Something massive.

My skin felt like it was tearing apart at the seams.

*Let me out,* a voice roared in the cavern of my mind. Not a whisper. A command.

*

Back at the pack house, Garrison was staring out the window. He rubbed his chest absently. The pain wasn't going away. In fact, it was getting worse—a deep, gnawing wrongness that settled in his marrow.

"She's gone," he whispered to the empty room.

He tried to reach for her scent, to track her within the house. But there was nothing. It was as if she had ceased to exist.

Panic, cold and sharp, spiked in his heart.

Janette POV

Pain wasn't just a sensation; it was my entire world.

I lay face-down in the churning mud, the rain pelting my skin like icy needles, yet inside, I was burning alive. My spine arched, cracking audibly as the vertebrae fought to rearrange themselves. My fingers clawed into the earth, elongating, the nails splitting and hardening into razor-sharp talons.

Usually, a Shift took seconds. This had been going on for minutes. It felt less like a transformation and more like my body was being dismantled by a clumsy giant, only to be hammered back together wrong.

"Help," I croaked, but it came out as a guttural growl.

Through the curtain of rain, I heard footsteps. Heavy. Deliberate. Not the frantic patter of a deer, but the stalking rhythm of a predator.

A Rogue.

I tried to scramble up, but my legs wouldn't work. My femurs snapped with a sickening pop, reshaping instantly. I collapsed with a cry of agony that tore through my raw throat.

A figure emerged from the shadows of the trees.

He was huge. Even in human form, he towered over six feet, his shoulders broad enough to block out the lightning. He wore tattered combat pants and a dark tactical vest that had seen better days. His hair was wet, plastered to his skull, black as a raven's wing.

But it was his eyes that froze me. They were silver. Molten, liquid silver.

He stopped ten feet away. He didn't attack. He sniffed the air, looking confused.

"You have no scent," he said. His voice was deep, vibrating in his chest like distant thunder. "But you are Shifting."

"Go... away," I gasped.

Another wave of pain hit me. My jaw unhinged with a wet tear.

The man stepped closer. He didn't look malicious. He looked... concerned?

"You're fighting it," he said, kneeling beside me without hesitation. "Don't fight it. The White Wolf demands blood and bone. You have to break to become her."

*White Wolf?*

How did he know?

"It hurts," I sobbed, my voice warping into a whine.

"I know." He reached out. His hand was large, calloused. He placed it on my forehead.

A jolt of electricity shot through me. It wasn't the stinging rejection I had come to expect, but a warm, humming current that anchored my chaotic soul to the earth.

*The Electric Touch.*

My eyes widened, meeting his silver ones. He froze too, his breath hitching visibly in the cold air.

"Breathe," he commanded softly. "Focus on my voice. Let it happen."

I surrendered. I stopped fighting the pain and welcomed it.

With a sound like a tree snapping in a storm, my body finally gave way. The world tilted, spun, and then—silence.

I stood up.

I was on four legs. But I was tall. My eye level was nearly equal to the man’s chest. I looked down at my paws. They were massive, the size of dinner plates, covered in fur as white as fresh snow.

I felt power. Limitless, intoxicating power. I wasn't the weak Omega anymore. I was a weapon of the Moon Goddess.

The man stared at me, awe etched onto his rugged features. He didn't bow, but he lowered his head in a sign of deep respect.

"Beautiful," he whispered.

I felt dizzy. The Shift had taken everything out of me. The world went gray, and I collapsed.

*

When I woke up, I was in a cave. A fire crackled nearby, casting long, dancing shadows against the stone walls. I was human again, covered by a rough wool blanket.

The man was sitting by the fire, sharpening a knife with a rhythmic *shhhk, shhhk* sound.

I sat up, clutching the blanket tight against my chest. "Who are you?"

He looked at me, the flames reflecting in his metallic eyes. "I'm Alex. And you are a very long way from home, White Wolf."

"I have no home," I said bitterly. "My name is Janette."

"Janette," he tested the name. "You're from Silver Lake. I saw the direction you ran from."

"I was."

"You're a Rogue now," Alex said. He tossed a piece of dried meat to me. "Eat. Your wolf needs protein."

I ate ravenously, the hunger feeling bottomless. "Why did you help me? Rogues kill pack wolves."

"I'm a mercenary, not a monster," Alex said, sheathing his knife. "And when I saw what you were... the legends say the White Wolf brings balance. Or destruction. Either way, I'm not leaving you to die in the mud."

"My pack thinks I'm dead," I said, a plan forming in my mind. "Or they will soon."

Alex raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"I need your help," I said, my voice gaining strength. "I need to disappear. Completely. Can you help me fake my death?"

Alex looked at me for a long moment. The firelight danced in his silver eyes, assessing me not as a victim, but as a potential asset. "I can. I know a cliff drop nearby. We can leave enough blood and torn fabric to convince them you fell and were washed away by the river."

"Why would you do that for me?"

He leaned forward. The electricity hummed between us again, subtle but undeniable.

"Because the Alpha who rejected a White Wolf is a fool," Alex said, a dark grin spreading across his face. "And I hate fools."

We spent the next week preparing. Alex taught me how to fight—not as a wolf, but as a human. He showed me how to use my new speed, how to leverage an opponent's weight against them. He was ruthless in training, knocking me into the dirt until I learned to anticipate the blow, but gentle when he tended to my bruises.

We staged the scene at the cliff. My torn dress. A vial of my blood I had saved.

Word reached the Rogue network quickly. The Silver Lake Pack had found the "remains."

According to the spies Alex kept in contact with, Garrison Gardner was reportedly inconsolable. The bond had vanished completely, confirming my "death." Rumors swirled that he was drowning in guilt, his pack weakening as his mental state deteriorated.

Good. Let him rot.

I stood on the ridge of the Rogue territory, looking down at the distant valley where Silver Lake lay. The wind blew through my hair. I wasn't Janette the Omega anymore.

Alex stepped up beside me. His presence was a warm, solid wall against the cold.

"Ready?" he asked.

I looked at him, then back at the pack that had tried to destroy me.

"No," I said, my eyes flashing silver-white. "Not yet. But when I am... I'm going to burn their world to the ground."

I turned and walked into the shadows with the Rogue, leaving my past dead at the bottom of the cliff.

The Queen would return. And she would bring the storm with her.