Alexia POV

I spent the next two weeks existing as a shadow.

Every moment I wasn't on my hands and knees scrubbing floors or being paraded out to play for Jacob, I was plotting. I studied the Pack patrol routes until I knew every gap in their shift changes. I hoarded survival funds, slipping the meager coins I found in couch cushions into the lining of my shoe.

Most importantly, I practiced.

I mastered the ancient breathing techniques I’d scoured from forbidden Lycan texts hidden in the library's dustiest corner—techniques designed to mask one’s scent.

My talent, the "Moon Singer," wasn't just about music. It was about vibration. It was about frequency. If I could hum a melody to soothe a feral wolf, I could also tune my body’s frequency to make them look right through me.

Tonight was the night. Not the night I left, but the night I said goodbye to the last shred of hope.

It was the "Pack Contributors Gala." A pretentious title for a party where Jacob and Kassandra could be worshipped by the masses.

The ballroom was suffocating, thick with the cloying scent of expensive perfume and the heavy, iron tang of roasted prime rib. Crystal chandeliers dripped artificial light onto the silk dresses of the high-ranking wolves.

I stood in the corner, wearing a simple black dress I had sewn myself from cast-offs. It was clean, but against the sea of designer silk, it screamed *servant*.

Kassandra stood in the center of the room, her arm looped through Jacob’s. She was glowing, encased in a crimson gown that hugged her curves, diamonds sparkling at her throat. She looked like a Luna. She acted like a Luna.

"To Kassandra!" an Elder toasted, raising his champagne flute. "For her tireless dedication to organizing the Pack’s finances!"

The crowd cheered. I gripped my own hands behind my back to stop them from shaking. Kassandra hadn't organized a single receipt. I had balanced the ledgers. I had reconciled the accounts until three in the morning because she claimed she was "bad with numbers."

Jacob beamed at her, pride radiating off him in arrogant waves.

*Smile, Alexia,* Jacob’s voice intruded into my mind, a mental violation that made me flinch. *Don't embarrass us by looking like a funeral mute.*

I forced the corners of my mouth up. It felt like stretching dry, cracking clay.

Kassandra whispered something to Jacob, giggling. Then, she turned her gaze toward me. It wasn't a kind look. It was the look of a predator toying with a wounded mouse.

She unhooked her arm from Jacob and glided toward me. The room went silent, the crowd cleaving apart like the Red Sea for a false queen.

"Miss Bell," Kassandra said, her voice dripping with synthetic honey. She took my hands. Her palms were damp. "We were just discussing the new music hall Jacob is building for the Pack. I told him, 'Who better to design the acoustics than our little Alexia?'"

Murmurs of approval rippled through the crowd.

"It would be an honor for you to serve me... I mean, the Pack, in this way," she corrected herself with a smirk.

"The Pack needs your talent," Jacob added from behind her. He didn't ask. He stated. "You will do it."

I looked at them. The entitlement was suffocating. They wanted my brain, my talent, my soul, but they treated the vessel that carried them like trash.

"And," Kassandra continued, her eyes gleaming with malice, "I was thinking. That old moonstone pendant you wear? The dusty one? It would make such a lovely centerpiece for the hall's entrance. A symbol of... sacrifice."

My hand flew to my neck. The moonstone was the only thing I had left of my mother. It wasn't just a rock; it was a conduit for my White Wolf lineage, a secret hum against my skin that they couldn't even perceive.

"No," I said.

The silence in the room shattered. An Omega saying no to the Alpha's favorite?

Kassandra’s smile faltered. *Jacob,* she whined through the open *Mind-Link*, broadcasting her voice so the nearby Betas could hear. *She’s being difficult. It’s just a rock.*

*Give it to her, Alexia,* Jacob commanded via the link, his mental voice heavy with pressure. *Don't make a scene.*

I looked at Jacob. Then I looked at Kassandra.

"It was my mother's," I said, my voice quiet but steady. "It is not for the Pack. And it is certainly not for you."

I ripped my hand from Kassandra’s grip.

"How dare you?" a Beta female hissed from the side. "You selfish Omega. Kassandra does everything for us!"

"Ungrateful wretch," another muttered.

I felt the familiar sting of tears, hot and sharp, but I refused to let them fall. Not tonight.

I walked past Kassandra, straight to the grand piano on the dais.

"What is she doing?" someone whispered.

I sat down. I didn't play a soothing melody this time. I didn't play a lullaby to calm their beasts.

I played a storm.

My fingers crashed onto the keys. I poured every ounce of my pain, my rejection, and my hidden power into the music. The melody was discordant, sharp, and terrifyingly beautiful—a sonic weapon. It sounded like the howling of a thousand wolves dying in winter.

The glasses on the tables rattled and cracked. The chandeliers shivered violently overhead.

The wolves in the room covered their ears, whining in agony. The frequency hit their inner beasts, forcing them to submit, not to an Alpha, but to the raw, vibratory power of nature.

For ten seconds, I held the entire Obsidian Pack captive with nothing but sound.

Then, I stopped.

The silence that followed was deafening.

I stood up and faced Jacob. His eyes were wide, his mouth slightly open. He looked... afraid.

"I am not your architect," I said, my voice carrying to the back of the room without a microphone. "I am not your servant. And I am certainly not your Luna."

I looked at the clock on the wall. Midnight. My birthday.

"Happy birthday to me," I whispered.

I turned and walked toward the exit.

"Alexia! Stop!" Jacob roared, the Alpha Command lacing his voice like a whip.

My knees buckled. Agony shot up my spine, a hook trying to drag me to the floor. But I grabbed the doorframe. I bit my lip until I tasted copper.

*No.*

I forced one foot in front of the other, my bones grinding as I broke the Command with sheer will.

I walked out into the cool night air. I didn't look back. I went straight to my room, grabbed the single bag I had packed, and slipped into the darkness of the forest.

The invitation to Vienna was in my pocket. The moonstone was around my neck. And the Obsidian Pack was finally in my rearview mirror.

Alexia POV

Freedom tasted like stale beer and floor peanuts, but I had never tasted anything sweeter.

It had been three weeks since I walked out of the Obsidian Pack, severing the ties that had choked me for years. I hadn't made it to Vienna yet. My savings hadn't stretched as far as I hoped, and the human world was brutally expensive.

I was working in a dive bar on the outskirts of a human town called Grayton, just inches outside the Pack's territory border. It was risky being this close, but I needed the money for a plane ticket.

I sat at the battered upright piano in the corner of the bar. The keys were tacky with spilled spirits, and the E-flat was flat in the literal sense, but the humans didn't care. They tipped me in crumpled dollar bills to play sad songs that matched their cheap drinks.

"Hey, sweetheart, play 'Piano Man' again!" a drunk patron yelled, waving a bottle.

I smiled tightly, my fingers finding the familiar, weary chords of the intro.

The door to the bar opened. A gust of rain and wind blew in, carrying a scent that made my blood turn to ice.

*Rain-soaked pine and ozone.*

Jacob.

The music died under my fingers.

He stood in the doorway, dripping wet, looking violently out of place in his tailored Italian suit among the flannel and denim. His eyes scanned the room and locked onto me instantly.

He didn't look angry. He looked... relieved?

He walked toward me, ignoring the bartender who shouted about a cover charge.

"Alexia," he breathed, stopping right by the piano bench.

I stood up abruptly, putting the piano between us like a shield. "Go away, Jacob."

"I’ve been looking everywhere for you," he said, his voice low and intense. "The Pack... the house is quiet without you. My wolf is restless."

"Buy a white noise machine," I snapped.

He flinched. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a velvet box. He snapped it open. Inside sat a diamond necklace. It was huge, gaudy, and completely devoid of personality.

"I brought you a gift," he said, offering it like a peace offering to a wild animal. "To make up for the... misunderstanding at the party. Come home, Alexia. I’ll make you a Pack Consultant. You can have a salary. A real room."

I looked at the diamonds. They glittered coldly under the neon bar lights.

"A Consultant?" I laughed, a harsh, dry sound. "Is that the corporate title for a Mate you're ashamed of?"

"It's a title," he insisted, desperation creeping in. "You wanted to be useful. You wanted to help the Pack. Remember? You told me once, your dream was to heal our people with your music."

"No, Jacob," I said, leaning in, my voice trembling with suppressed rage. "I told you my dream was to find my family. My *real* family. The White Wolf line. Music was just how I survived waiting for them."

He blinked, confused. He didn't remember. He had rewritten my history to fit his narrative.

"I don't want your diamonds," I said. "I have a plane ticket to Vienna. I'm leaving tomorrow."

Panic flashed in his eyes. "You can't. You're Pack. You're mine."

He reached for my hand. The electricity of the bond sparked, but instead of pleasure, it felt like a chemical burn.

Suddenly, his phone rang. It wasn't a normal ringtone; it was the emergency siren alert used by the Pack.

He froze. He answered it, fumbling and putting it on speaker without thinking.

"Jacob!" Kassandra’s voice shrieked through the speaker, hysterical and high-pitched. "Help me! Rogues! They've breached the perimeter! I'm at the old mill! They're going to kill me!"

The color drained from Jacob’s face. The old mill was only a mile from here.

"Kassandra," he gasped.

He looked at me. For a second, just a second, I saw the conflict. He was here to bring me home. I was his Mate.

"Go," I said coldly.

He didn't even hesitate. He didn't say goodbye. He didn't check if I was safe. He turned and bolted out of the bar, leaving the velvet box on the sticky piano keys.

"Wait!" the bartender yelled. "You didn't pay!"

I watched his taillights disappear into the rain.

Then, a howl ripped through the night air. It wasn't a Pack howl. It was the discordant, jagged howl of a Rogue. And it was close.

Too close.

The window next to me exploded inward.

A massive, mangy wolf crashed through the glass, snarling, foam dripping from its jaws onto the floorboards.

The humans screamed.

I didn't shift. I couldn't shift in front of humans. I grabbed the only weapon I had—the heavy velvet box Jacob had left behind—and smashed it into the wolf's snout.

But there were more. I could smell them. They weren't just at the mill. They were everywhere.

And Jacob had taken the only car.

Alexia POV

Pain.

It wasn’t just a sensation; it was a universe.

It radiated from my right hand, a white-hot agony that made my vision blur and my stomach churn.

I was lying in a bed. The sharp, chemical sting of antiseptic mixed with the earthy scent of wolfsbane told me I was back in the Obsidian Pack’s infirmary.

I tried to move my hand. I couldn't. It was encased in a heavy cast, elevated on a pillow like a grotesque trophy.

Memories flooded back, violent and disjointed. The bar. The Rogues. The adrenaline spiking in my blood.

I had fought. I had run. I had made it to the edge of the woods near the mill, thinking I could hide in the shadows.

Then I saw him.

Jacob was there. He was fighting three Rogues, protecting Kassandra, who was cowering behind a pile of rubble shaking like a leaf.

I had yelled a warning. A Rogue was flanking him from the blind spot.

Jacob had turned. He saw me. And he saw the Rogue lunging at Kassandra.

He had a choice. A split-second decision that would define our entire existence. Save me from the Rogue closing in on my right, or save Kassandra.

He chose her.

He tackled the Rogue attacking Kassandra. The one attacking me clamped its jaws down on my right hand—my life, my music—and crunched.

I could still hear the sound of my own bones snapping.

I squeezed my eyes shut, hot tears leaking out to dampen the pillow.

"She's awake," a gruff voice said.

I opened my eyes. The Pack Elders were standing around my bed like vultures waiting for a carcass to cool. Jacob was there too, standing by the window, refusing to look at me.

"How is my hand?" I croaked, my throat feeling like it was filled with glass.

The Pack Healer, a kind old man named Doc Evans, looked down, his expression grim. "The bones were... shattered, Alexia. The nerve damage is severe. You will keep the hand, but..."

"Will I play?" I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Doc Evans hesitated. "Not like before. Not professionally."

Silence crashed into the room.

My dream. Vienna. My music. Everything I had worked for, every scale, every hour of practice. Gone.

A sob trapped itself in my throat, burning like acid. I refused to let it out. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

"We need to discuss the situation," Elder Marcus said, stepping forward. He was a stern man who hated anything that disrupted his precious order. "Kassandra has been deeply traumatized by the attack. She needs stability. The Pack needs a strong Luna."

I looked at Jacob. He wouldn't meet my eyes. Coward.

"We have decided," Elder Marcus continued, his voice devoid of empathy, "to officially install Kassandra as the Acting Luna. And... we need the Moonstone. It is a Pack heirloom. It must be worn by the Luna for the protection ceremony."

They wanted to strip me of my title—which I never really had—and take my mother’s necklace to give to the woman Jacob saved while I was being maimed.

"Jacob," I whispered. "Is this your decision?"

He finally looked at me, his eyes swimming with a pathetic mix of regret and resolve. "It's for the Pack, Alexia. Kassandra... she's fragile right now. She needs the symbol of authority to feel safe. I still care about you. I'll take care of you."

"Take care of me?" I laughed, a broken, jagged sound. "You let my hand be crushed."

"It was chaos!" he defended weakly, shifting his weight. "I couldn't save everyone!"

"No," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "You just couldn't save *me*."

I looked at my cast. Then I looked at the Elders.

"I accept," I said.

They blinked, stunned by my compliance. "You do?"

"I, Alexia Bell, reject the title of Luna. I don't want it. It's tainted."

I reached up with my good left hand and unclasped the Moonstone. It felt warm against my skin, pulsing with a faint light only I could see.

"But," I said, holding it tight before handing it over. "I have conditions."

"Conditions?" Elder Marcus scoffed. "You are an Omega."

"I am the victim of your Alpha's negligence," I snapped, my voice gaining steel. "Condition one: You pay for my medical bills. All of them. Including reconstructive surgery if I find a specialist abroad."

Jacob nodded quickly, desperate to alleviate his guilt. "Done."

"Condition two," I continued. "You pay me royalties for every single healing song I composed that you use in this Pack. Retroactively."

"That's absurd!"

Kassandra burst into the room. She was wearing a silk robe, looking perfectly fine, not a scratch on her. She looked like a princess interrupting a funeral.

She marched over to Jacob, clutching his arm, glaring at me. "She's greedy, Jacob! She's trying to bankrupt us!"

"Then stop using my music," I said calmly. "Let the wolves go mad without my lullabies. See how long your 'stability' lasts."

The Elders exchanged nervous glances. They knew the power of my songs. They knew the peace I brought was the only thing keeping the feral instincts at bay.

"Fine," Jacob gritted out. "We will pay."

"Good," I said.

I tossed the Moonstone onto the bedspread. It landed near Kassandra’s hand.

She snatched it up like a greedy child, a triumphant smile spreading across her face.

"Now get out," I said, turning my head away. "All of you. I'm tired."