POV: Alois

I hacked the electronic lock on the dungeon door in fourteen seconds.

As a former Gamma-the tactician and strategist of the pack-I knew the security protocols better than the Alpha himself. I had been demoted to the IT department because Clemmie didn't like the way I looked at her.

She was right to be suspicious. I knew a snake when I saw one.

The door hissed open. I sprayed a cloud of "Scent Mask" aerosol over myself. It smelled like chemically synthesized mud and ozone, designed to hide a wolf's natural odor from other predators.

I stepped inside and nearly retched.

The smell of blood was overwhelming.

"Luna," I whispered.

Daria lay on the table. She looked like a broken doll. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, contrasting with the dark red stains soaking the metal beneath her.

I rushed forward, pulling a lockpick from my pocket. My hands shook. Not from fear, but from rage.

I remembered two years ago. I was dying from a Rogue bite that had gone septic. The healers had given up. Daria had come to the infirmary. She sat by my bed for three nights, wiping my fevered brow. She even gave me her own blood for a transfusion when the supplies ran low.

Her blood had burned like fire in my veins, but it healed me in hours.

I owed her my life.

"Alois?" Her voice was a cracked whisper. Her eyes fluttered open. They were glazed with pain.

"I've got you," I said, working the pick into the silver cuffs. "Hold on."

Click.

The cuff sprang open. I freed her hands and feet. The burns on her wrists were deep, the flesh raw and angry.

I scooped her up into my arms. She weighed nothing. It felt like carrying a ghost.

"Leave me," she murmured, her head lolling against my chest. "He will kill you."

"Let him try," I growled.

I carried her out of the cell, moving silently through the corridors. The pack house was quiet. Most of the warriors were at the border, distracted by a fake Rogue sighting I had generated in the system ten minutes ago.

We reached the underground garage. My modified SUV was waiting, the engine idling silently.

I opened the back door and laid Daria gently on the seat. She was shivering violently. Shock was setting in.

"Stay with me, Daria," I said. "We're almost out."

I jumped into the driver's seat and gunned the engine. The tires squealed on the concrete as we shot toward the exit ramp.

Suddenly, a figure stepped out from the shadows, blocking the exit.

It was Marcus, the Beta. The Alpha's second-in-command.

He stood with his arms crossed, his massive frame filling the lane. His nose twitched.

He couldn't smell Daria because of the blood loss and the silver in her system suppressing her wolf. He couldn't smell me because of the masking spray.

But he could smell the fear.

I slammed on the brakes, the car skidding to a halt inches from his knees.

Marcus walked to the driver's side window. He tapped on the glass.

My heart hammered against my ribs. If I shifted now, I would destroy the car and kill Daria. I had to bluff.

I rolled the window down two inches.

"In a hurry, IT boy?" Marcus asked, his eyes scanning the dark interior of the car.

"Server crash at the downtown office," I lied, keeping my voice steady. "Alpha Kaeden will skin me alive if the financial data is lost."

Marcus sniffed the air again. He frowned. "I smell... ozone. And something metallic."

"Cleaning supplies," I said. "Spilled some in the back."

Marcus leaned closer, his eyes narrowing. He looked at the backseat. Daria was covered by a blanket I had thrown over her, but a stray hand was visible.

"What's under the blanket?" Marcus asked, his voice dropping an octave.

I gripped the steering wheel, my knuckles turning white.

"Marcus," I said, dropping the act. "Look at me."

Marcus met my eyes. He saw the desperation there.

"You know what's happening upstairs," I whispered. "You know it's wrong. You have a daughter, Marcus. Would you let Kaeden carve her up for that witch?"

Marcus stiffened. His gaze flicked to the blanket, then back to the gate controls. He had always been loyal, but he wasn't blind. He hated Clemmie as much as I did.

He reached for the door handle, hesitated, and then pulled his hand back.

POV: Alois

"Get her out," Marcus breathed, his voice barely audible. "Before I remember my duty."

He stepped back and hit the release button for the gate.

"Thank you," I choked out.

I didn't wait. I slammed the gas pedal. The SUV shot forward, leaving the pack lands behind.

"Alois..." A weak voice came from the back.

"I'm here, Luna. Hang on."

I drove like a madman, weaving through the city traffic. I wasn't taking her to a hospital. Kaeden owned the hospitals. I was taking her to the Black Market.

Dr. Gates ran a clinic in the basement of a laundromat in the slums. He was a human who knew about our world and didn't care about pack laws, only money.

I carried Daria down the narrow stairs. She was limp now. Her breathing was shallow, rapid gasps.

"Gates!" I roared, kicking the door open.

The doctor, a thin man with greasy glasses, looked up from a microscope. He saw the blood and sighed. "I charge double for Alpha messes."

"Just save her," I said, laying Daria on the surgical table.

Gates cut away her dress. He paused when he saw the silver burns. Then he took a blood sample. He ran it through a centrifuge on his desk.

A moment later, the machine beeped. Gates looked at the screen, and his eyes went wide.

"Holy mother of..." he whispered. "Do you know what she is?"

"She is a patient," I barked. "Fix her!"

"Look at the energy reading!" Gates turned the screen to me. The graph was spiking off the charts. "This isn't normal werewolf blood. This is... ancient. White Wolf markers."

He looked at Daria with greedy eyes. "Her organs alone would be worth millions on the black market. Her heart could cure any disease. Her bone marrow could create super-soldiers."

I grabbed Gates by the collar and slammed him against the wall. My canines extended, sharpening into points.

"You want money?" I snarled. "I'll give you something better. I'll give you the patent rights to the synthetic version of her blood. You can be the richest man in the human world. But if she dies, you get nothing but a severed throat."

Gates swallowed hard, his eyes darting between me and the readout. Greed won.

"Okay. Okay! But she needs surgery now. The uterus is ruptured. I... I can't save the pup."

I looked at Daria. A tear slid from her closed eye. She heard him.

"Save the mother," I said, my voice breaking.

Gates got to work. "I have a drug. 'Wolf's Sleep.' It stops the heart for three minutes. Flatlines the monitor. It mimics death perfectly. We can use the tissue from the... from the procedure... to fake a corpse."

"Do it," I said.

Gates injected a clear liquid into Daria's IV.

"I'm sorry, Daria," I whispered, holding her cold hand.

On the monitor, the green line of her heartbeat slowed.

Beep... beep... beep...

Then, a long, high-pitched tone filled the room.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

The line went flat.

"She's under," Gates said, wiping sweat from his forehead. "We have to move fast. If I don't revive her in exactly 180 seconds, she stays dead."

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a notification from the pack network.

Alpha Kaeden has initiated a track on your vehicle.

He knew.

POV: Kaeden

"The surgery was a success, Alpha."

The surgeon walked out of the operating room in the pack hospital, pulling off his bloody gloves.

"Clemmie?" I asked, standing up.

"She is resting. The new heart is beating strong. Her body accepted it immediately."

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. I had done it. I had saved her.

Why did I feel like I wanted to vomit?

I walked to the window, looking out at the moon. It was full tonight.

Suddenly, a pain ripped through my chest.

It wasn't a heart attack. It was deeper. It felt like a giant, invisible hand had reached into my soul and tore a vital cable.

I gasped, falling to my knees, clutching my chest. The fog in my brain didn't just lift; it shattered. The artificial calm that had blanketed me for months evaporated, leaving only raw, bleeding panic.

"Alpha!" Marcus rushed to my side.

Daria.

I reached for her through the Mind-Link. I expected to feel her fear, her anger, or even her silence.

Instead, I found... nothing.

Not a wall. Not a block.

Just a void. An abyss where a connection used to be.

The Mate Bond. It hadn't just faded. It had snapped.

"No," I whispered. "That's impossible."

A Mate Bond only snaps for one reason.

Death.

"Sir," the Head of Security ran into the hallway, looking pale. "We found the Gamma's car. It was abandoned near the river. And... we found this."

He held up a plastic bag. Inside was a piece of fabric. It was the hem of the dress Daria was wearing. It was soaked in blood and singed with silver.

"She's gone, Alpha," the guard said, keeping his head down. "The scent trail ends at the water. She... she must have succumbed to her injuries."

"Liar!" I roared. I grabbed the guard by the throat and slammed him into the wall. "She is faking it! She is trying to run away!"

"Kaeden?"

Clemmie was wheeled out of the recovery room. She looked radiant. Her cheeks were pink. She looked healthier than she had in years.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly.

"Daria," I choked out. "The bond... it's gone."

Clemmie's eyes widened, but she didn't look sad. She looked relieved.

"Oh, Kaeden," she sighed, reaching for my hand. "Don't you see? It's a sign. The Moon Goddess severed the false tie so we could be truly together. She sacrificed herself for us."

I looked at Clemmie. I should have felt love. I should have felt gratitude.

But as I looked at her, the woman I had destroyed my marriage for, I felt cold. The headache was gone, and with it, the strange, obsessive warmth I'd felt for her.

My phone rang. It was an unknown number.

I answered it.

"Who is this?" I barked.

"You don't deserve to know," a distorted voice replied. It was mechanical, deep.

"Where is she?" I demanded. "Where is Daria?"

"Daria is dead, Kaeden," the voice said. It was cold, hard, and filled with a hatred that chilled my blood. "You killed her. You killed your heir. And now, you are going to live with the silence."

"Bring me her body," I commanded, trying to use the Alpha tone, but my voice wavered.

"There is no body," the voice said. "Only ashes. And the curse she left on your soul."

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone. The pain in my chest was dulling now, replaced by a hollow, aching emptiness.

I looked at Clemmie, who was smiling at her new reflection in the window.

And for the first time, I noticed something.

She didn't smell like vanilla anymore. Underneath the hospital antiseptic, she smelled like rot.

And I... I was alone.