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.

Elena POV:

I woke up drowning.

Thick, warm liquid filled my lungs. I thrashed, panic seizing my chest. I clawed at the surface, breaking through with a gasp.

I wasn't in the ocean. I was in a pool of glowing golden liquid inside a cavern made of ice.

The Sanctum. The Sterling family's private healing spring in the Arctic Circle.

"Easy, Elena. Breathe."

Strong hands grabbed my shoulders. I looked up into the face of my father, Arthur Sterling. The most powerful Alpha in the world.

He looked ten years older than the last time I saw him. His eyes were red.

"Dad?" My voice was a croak. "Where... where is the baby?"

Father's face crumpled. He pulled me into a hug, burying my face in his chest so I wouldn't see him cry.

"We tried, El," he sobbed. "The doctors... the mages... the silver was in his system too long. We couldn't start his heart."

A scream tore out of me. It was worse than the birth. It was the sound of my soul ripping in half.

I pushed my father away and tried to dive back under the water. "Let me die! I want to be with him! Let me die!"

"No!" Father grabbed my wrists. His grip was iron. "Look at me!"

"Why did you save me?" I shrieked, scratching at his arms. "I am empty! I have nothing!"

"You have vengeance!" Father roared.

The word hung in the icy air.

"Vengeance?" I whispered.

"Damien Blackwood killed your son," Father said, his voice dropping to a deadly growl. "He tortured you. He humiliated you. He chose a fake Luna over his True Mate."

He grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at my reflection in the golden water.

My hair, once a dirty blonde, had turned completely white. My eyes were no longer brown. They were glowing violet.

The near-death experience had stripped away the suppressants I had taken for years. My True Bloodline had awakened.

I was the White Wolf. The rarest of all creatures. The symbol of judgment.

"Damien thinks you are dead," Father said. "We left a clone-a magical construct-in that hospital room. He buried it. He is mourning a doll."

"He is mourning?" I let out a dark, broken laugh. "Good."

"Mourning is too easy," Father said. "He needs to lose everything. His pack. His money. His sanity. And you are the only one who can take it from him."

Something clicked inside me. The grief didn't go away, but it hardened. It turned into a cold, heavy stone in my stomach.

I touched my flat belly.

*I promise you, my little one,* I thought. *Your father will pay for every breath you didn't get to take.*

I climbed out of the pool. The golden water sluiced off my naked body. My wounds were gone. My skin was flawless, glowing with power.

"How long have I been asleep?" I asked.

"Six months," Father said, handing me a silk robe. "You needed to heal. While you slept, Damien has been searching for you. He doesn't believe the clone is real. He's going crazy."

"Good." I tied the robe. "I need training, Dad. I forgot how to be a Sterling. I spent too long pretending to be a weak Rogue."

Father smiled. It was a terrifying smile.

"We start tomorrow. Combat. Economics. Politics. And... how to use the Voice."

*

*One Year Later.*

*I stood in the penthouse office of Sterling Global Headquarters in New York. The last twelve months had been a blur of grueling combat drills, high-stakes boardroom takeovers, and mastering the ancient magic of my bloodline. The weak girl who begged in a cage was gone, replaced by something colder. Sharper.*

My reflection in the glass showed a woman I barely recognized. Sharp tailored suit. Stilettos that could double as weapons. White hair styled in a sleek bob.

On the TV screen, a news anchor was speaking.

*"Breaking news: The Blackwood Pack is facing financial ruin. Their main creditor has called in all loans. Alpha Damien Blackwood is desperate for investors."*

I picked up the remote and turned up the volume.

Damien appeared on screen. He looked terrible. Gaunt, unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes. He was holding up a picture.

A picture of me. The old me. The "Rogue" Elena.

*"If anyone has seen this woman,"* Damien pleaded to the camera, his voice cracking. *"Please. She is my Luna. I will pay anything. I just want her back."*

I sipped my red wine.

"Mr. Sterling?" my assistant buzzed over the intercom. "The delegation from the Blackwood Pack is here for the acquisition meeting. They are waiting in Conference Room B."

I smiled. It didn't reach my eyes.

"Send them in," I said. "And tell security to stand down. I want to handle this myself."

I put the wine glass down.

"You want your Luna back, Damien?" I whispered to the screen. "Careful what you wish for."

I walked out of the office, my heels clicking like gunshots on the marble floor.

It was time to go hunting.