Elena POV:

I tried to scramble back, but the cage was too small.

Sophia thrust the silver dagger through the gaps in the bars. She didn't aim for my tongue. She aimed for my arm, which was raised to protect my belly.

Shkth.

The blade buried itself deep into my forearm.

"Ahhh!"

The pain was unlike anything else. Silver doesn't just cut; it cauterizes and poisons simultaneously. It disrupts the magical biology that keeps us alive.

Sophia yanked the dagger out.

Blood sprayed onto the concrete. But it wasn't the bright red of a normal human or a low-level wolf.

It was dark. Almost black, with shimmering flecks of gold in it.

*It was the blood of the Alpha Prime bloodline. But Sophia, blinded by her own prejudice and the dim lighting of the dungeon, didn't see the gold. She only saw the darkness.*

*"Black blood?" Sophia gagged, stepping back. "You really are rotting from the inside out. Disgusting."*

She grabbed a pouch from her belt-powdered silver-and dumped the entire contents onto my open wound.

"Purify the evil!" she shrieked.

My body convulsed. The silver entered my bloodstream, racing toward my heart.

My vision went white.

The connection to my womb... it was fading. The frantic kicking of the baby had slowed down to a weak flutter.

*Baby... stay with me,* I prayed to the Moon Goddess. *Take me. Take my life. Just let him live.*

Sophia, satisfied with her work, turned and strutted out of the dungeon, leaving the door slightly ajar.

I lay in a pool of my own strange, dark blood. The cold was creeping up my legs.

"Mommy..."

I hallucinated. I saw a little boy with Damien's eyes and my silver hair, standing just outside the cage. He was crying.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to the empty air. "I'm so sorry."

Heavy boots crunched on the floor.

I didn't have the energy to look up. I just waited for the final blow.

"Holy Moon Goddess."

The voice was deep and unfamiliar.

A Warrior, dressed in the pack's patrol uniform, stood there. He looked at the blood, then at me. His nose twitched.

I was dying. My scent was fading. But underneath the smell of blood and rot, my true scent-the scent of the White Wolf-was leaking out because I was too weak to maintain my disguise.

It was a scent of pure power, of ancient royalty.

The Warrior's knees buckled. He didn't know why, but his wolf instincts were screaming at him to submit.

He tapped his earpiece.

"Alpha," the Warrior said, his voice trembling. "The prisoner... the Rogue. She's bleeding out. There's... there's too much blood."

*He shone his flashlight on the puddle beneath me. The beam caught the metallic sheen.*

*"Alpha, her blood... it has gold in it. It's shimmering."*

I could hear Damien's voice through the Warrior's earpiece. It was tinny and distant.

*"Don't be an idiot, Marcus. It's probably just the silver dust reflecting. She's trying to distract us from Victoria. Leave her."*

"But Alpha," Marcus stammered. "She smells... she smells like..."

"That's an order!" Damien roared.

Marcus looked at me. He looked at my swollen belly, which was now terrifyingly still.

Wolves cherish children. It is our most fundamental law. To let a pup die is a crime against nature.

Marcus gritted his teeth.

"Forgive me, Alpha," he muttered.

He grabbed the lock of the silver cage. He didn't have the key. He shifted his hand into a partial wolf claw, groaning as the silver burned him, and ripped the door off its hinges with brute strength.

He scooped me up.

I was limp in his arms.

"Stay with me," Marcus grunted, running toward the exit. "I'm taking you to the Pack Hospital."

The movement jostled me. Pain flared, keeping me tethered to consciousness by a thread.

We burst out of the basement into the cool night air. The moon was high and full. It mocked me.

Marcus ran faster than a human vehicle, his wolf speed eating up the distance to the medical center.

"We made it," he panted, kicking open the double doors of the hospital. "Help! We need a doctor!"

Silence answered him.

The lobby was empty. The reception desk was abandoned.

"Where is everyone?" Marcus yelled.

I let out a weak, dry cough. "Victoria..."

"What?"

"They are all... with Victoria," I whispered.

Damien had stripped the entire hospital of staff to attend to one woman, leaving me and his unborn son to die in the dark.

Elena POV:

Marcus didn't give up. He ran through the empty corridors, kicking open doors until he found a lone doctor in the archives room.

The doctor, a balding man named Dr. Evans, looked up in shock.

"You can't bring her here!" Dr. Evans hissed. "The Alpha gave strict orders. No resources for the Rogue."

"She is dying!" Marcus roared, slamming me onto a gurney. "Look at her!"

Dr. Evans looked at my arm. The black veins were spreading up to my shoulder. He paled.

"Silver poisoning. Stage four." He checked the fetal monitor on the wall. "No heartbeat."

The world stopped.

"Check... again," I rasped, grabbing his lab coat with my bloody hand.

"I'm sorry," Dr. Evans said, his voice shaking. "There is no fetal heartbeat."

A scream built in my throat, but I didn't have the breath to release it. My baby. My little wolf. Gone.

"Save the mother," Marcus commanded. "Put her in the Genesis Pod."

The Genesis Pod was a piece of advanced medical technology reserved only for high-ranking wolves. It accelerated healing by ten thousand percent.

"I need authorization," Dr. Evans said, his hand hovering over the Mind-Link button on the wall. "Alpha Damien..."

*Don't ask him,* I wanted to shout. *He wants me dead.*

But Dr. Evans pressed the button.

"Alpha, the Rogue is in critical condition. The fetus is... deceased. I need permission to use the Genesis Pod to save her life."

The speaker on the wall crackled.

We could hear sounds in the background. Cheers. Laughter. The cry of a newborn baby.

Damien's voice came through, sounding breathless and elated.

"I have a son! A healthy boy!"

"Alpha?" Dr. Evans prompted. "The Rogue?"

"Stop bothering me with her drama," Damien snapped. "She's a wolf. She'll heal. Save the power for Victoria's recovery. She's exhausted."

Click.

He hung up.

He chose Victoria's fatigue over my life. He celebrated a bastard child while his true son lay dead in my womb.

Marcus looked at the floor, ashamed. Dr. Evans looked at the blank monitor.

I lay there, feeling the cold embrace of death.

But more painful than the death was the sound coming through the thin walls. The VIP delivery suite was right next door.

I could hear Damien cooing.

"You did so well, my love. He's perfect. He will be the strongest Alpha."

My heart shattered.

Not metaphorically. I felt the physical snap of the Mate Bond.

Usually, the bond only breaks if one partner rejects the other or dies. My wolf, broken by grief and the silver poison, let out one last, mournful howl inside my head.

*Goodbye, Elena.*

Then, she vanished.

The silence that followed was absolute. I was alone. No wolf. No baby. No mate.

I stared at the ceiling tiles. A single tear of blood rolled down my cheek.

I had one card left to play.

I moved my tongue to the back of my mouth. There was a false molar there, implanted when I ran away from home five years ago.

I bit down hard. *Crunch.*

A tiny signal was released. It would bounce off a satellite and hit a receiver in the Sterling Family estate, thousands of miles away. *My father had portals primed for this exact frequency. He would be here in minutes.*

It was a distress signal. Code Red. The "I am dying" signal.

My vision tunneled. The beep of my own heart monitor slowed down.

*Beep... beep......... beep..................*

"She's crashing!" Dr. Evans yelled. "Get the defibrillator!"

"It's no use," I thought as the darkness swallowed me. "Let me go."

The last thing I heard was the laughter from the next room, and the long, continuous tone of my own flatline.

Damien POV:

"Look at him, Damien. He has your nose."

Victoria handed me the bundle of blankets. I looked down at the baby. He was red and wrinkly, squalling at the top of his lungs.

I smiled, but it felt forced.

Something was wrong.

Ever since Sophia told me the Rogue had gone quiet, a weird anxiety had been clawing at my gut. I told myself it was just the stress of the prophecy.

I held the baby. I sniffed him.

I frowned.

He smelled like... milk and vanilla. Just like Victoria.

He didn't smell like me.

Usually, an Alpha's pup carries a strong, distinct scent of pine and earth from the father. This baby smelled weak. Like a Beta, or even an Omega.

"Is he okay?" Victoria asked, wiping sweat from her forehead. She looked beautiful, perfect. Not like that dirty Rogue in the basement.

*"He's... quiet," I muttered. I leaned closer, inhaling deeply, searching for the Alpha spark.*

*Nothing.*

*The realization hit me like a bucket of ice water. The prophecy said the "first wolf born" would inherit the fortune. But this child... he felt empty. Ordinary.*

*"Victoria," I said slowly. "Why doesn't he smell like the Pack?"*

*Before she could answer, a pain shot through my chest.*

It wasn't a heart attack. It was worse. It felt like someone had reached into my ribcage and severed a vital artery with a dull knife.

I gasped, nearly dropping the baby.

"Damien?"

I fell to my knees. The room spun. My inner wolf, who had been strangely silent all day, suddenly threw back his head and howled in agony.

*GONE. SHE IS GONE.*

"Who?" I choked out.

The door to the suite burst open. My Beta, Samuel, stood there. His face was pale as a sheet.

"Alpha," Samuel said. "You need to come. Now."

I handed the baby to a nurse and staggered to my feet. The pain in my chest was throbbing in time with my heartbeat.

I followed Samuel into the hallway. He led me to the adjacent room. The room reserved for the dying.

Dr. Evans was pulling a white sheet over a body.

The smell hit me.

Blood. Silver. And... fading rain and dark chocolate.

My scent. Mixed with hers.

"No," I whispered.

I pushed past Samuel and ripped the sheet back.

It was Elena.

Her skin was grey. Her lips were blue. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing, glassy and vacant.

"She... she's cold," I said, touching her cheek. It was like touching marble.

"Time of death, 11:42 PM," Dr. Evans said softly. "Cause of death: Acute silver toxicity leading to cardiac arrest."

"Wake up," I commanded. I poured my Alpha aura into her. "Elena, get up! Stop acting!"

Nothing happened. The Alpha Command doesn't work on the dead.

"The baby?" I asked, my voice trembling.

Dr. Evans shook his head. "Stillborn. The silver killed him hours ago."

My knees hit the floor.

"But... she was just a Rogue," I muttered, trying to make sense of the hole in my chest. "She wasn't my mate. She couldn't be."

"We ran a DNA test," Dr. Evans said, handing me a tablet.

I looked at the screen.

*Paternity Test: Positive.*

*Mate Compatibility: 100% - True Mate.*

The tablet slipped from my fingers and shattered on the floor.

I had killed them. I had ordered her to hold the baby in. I had denied her medical care. I had let my sister poison her.

"ARGHHHHHH!"

I screamed. I grabbed Elena's shoulders and shook her. "Come back! I command you! I reject your death! I reject it!"

*The air in the room suddenly warped. The pressure dropped, popping my ears.*

*A swirling vortex of blue energy tore open in the center of the room. A Portal.*

*"Secure the target!" a voice shouted.*

Four figures in tactical gear rappelled *out of the rift*. They moved with a speed that wasn't human. They were Elites.

"Get away from her!" I growled, shifting my hands into claws.

One of the soldiers raised a hand. He didn't hold a gun. He held a staff made of black obsidian.

He slammed the staff on the ground.

A shockwave of pure magic blasted me backward. I slammed into the wall, pinned by an invisible force.

"Who are you?" I choked out.

A man in a bespoke suit stepped through the *portal*. He had silver hair and eyes that glowed with a terrifying, ancient power.

He looked exactly like Elena.

He didn't look at me. He looked at the body on the bed.

"My daughter," he whispered. His voice broke.

He gestured to the soldiers. "Take her. And the child."

"You can't take her!" I yelled, struggling against the magic. "She is my pack member! My property!"

The man turned to me.

The pressure in the room increased a thousand times. It wasn't just Alpha Command. It was Alpha Prime Command.

I was forced flat onto my belly, my face pressed into the broken glass.

"Your property?" The man's voice was ice. "She was the Princess of the Sterling Dynasty. And you, Damien Blackwood, have just declared war on the entire werewolf race."

He turned away. The soldiers lifted Elena's body.

Wait.

As they lifted her, I saw something. Her finger twitched.

Just a fraction of a millimeter.

Was she alive? Or was it just a muscle spasm?

Before I could shout, the man with the staff threw a vial onto the floor. Purple smoke exploded, filling the room.

When the smoke cleared, they were gone. *The portal had collapsed.* The bed was empty.

Only the bloodstain remained on the sheets.