Alessia POV:

I used to be an artist.

Before the cage, before the silver, I could paint the wind. My grandmother told me I had the "sight." I could see the colors of a wolf's soul.

Now, my hands trembled as I tried to hold a glass of water. The nerve damage from the silver cuffs was deep.

I checked the time. Two days left until the boat. I just had to survive forty-eight hours in this house without killing anyone.

I walked downstairs. I needed food. The prison fed us nutrient paste that tasted like wet cardboard. I craved an apple. Just a simple, red apple.

Laughter drifted from the dining hall. The crystal chandelier was lit, casting a warm, golden glow that I hadn't seen in years.

My mother, Isabella, was there. My father, Marco. My older sister, Giuliana. And in the center, sitting on a velvet cushion like a queen, was Chiara.

She looked healthy. Her skin was glowing, her hair shiny. For someone with a "cracked spiritual core," she looked remarkably vibrant.

Dante was sitting next to her. His eyes looked slightly glassy, pupils dilated, as if he were running on autopilot.

I walked into the room. The laughter died instantly.

My mother wrinkled her nose. "What is that smell?"

"It smells like antiseptic and rust," Giuliana sneered. "And low-grade wolf."

It was the scent of the Silver Prison. It clung to my pores.

"I'm hungry," I said, my voice flat.

"The kitchen staff will prepare a plate for you," my father said, not looking me in the eye. "Eat it in your room. We are celebrating Chiara's recovery month."

Chiara looked at me with wide, innocent eyes. "Oh, Alessia! You're back! I'm so sorry I couldn't visit. The doctors said the negative energy of the prison would shatter my core."

"It's fine," I said.

Chiara suddenly gasped, clutching her chest. A sweet, cloying scent filled the room. It was pheromones. She was releasing a synthetic distress signal, mimicking a heat.

Dante's head snapped toward her. The biological instinct of an Alpha to comfort a distressed female took over.

"It hurts, Dante," she whimpered. "I'm too weak to peel this grape."

Dante, the fearsome Alpha of the Blood Moon, the man who could crush a skull with one hand, picked up a grape. He carefully peeled the skin and fed it to her lips.

A sharp pain ripped through my chest.

It was the Mate Bond.

Seeing my mate serve another female triggered a primal rejection in my biology. My inner wolf, who had been comatose for seven years, stirred. She let out a low, mournful whine.

*Mine?* she asked weakly.

*No,* I told her. *Not ours.*

Dante paused. He rubbed his chest, frowning. He felt it too. The pull. The magnetic snap of the bond trying to connect us.

But he looked at me-gaunt, smelling of prison, wearing rags-and then he looked at Chiara. He blinked hard, shaking his head as if trying to clear a fog.

He shook his head, clearing the feeling, and turned back to the grape.

I turned to leave. I couldn't watch this.

"Where are you going?" my mother snapped. "Show some respect to the Alpha."

"I am showing respect by not vomiting on the table," I said.

My mother stood up, her face twisting in rage. She spoke in the Ancient Tongue, the old language of the first lycans, assuming I was too stupid or too "Omega" to understand.

*"Kala'ni ro ta,"* she hissed. *Soulless waste of blood.*

The room went silent. They thought I didn't know the high dialect. They thought I was just the spare part, the genetic mistake.

I stopped. I turned around slowly.

I looked my mother dead in the eye. The air around me seemed to drop ten degrees.

*"Ni'ka la so'ra, ma'ti,"* I replied in perfect, fluent Ancient Tongue. *The blood you waste is the blood that saved you.*

My mother's jaw dropped. My father dropped his fork. Dante froze, his eyes widening in shock.

The Ancient Tongue was reserved for high-ranking wolves and scholars. An Omega shouldn't know it. An Omega shouldn't be able to speak it with such perfect accent.

I didn't wait for their reaction. I walked out the front door, into the night.

It was my twenty-fifth birthday. The day a wolf fully matures.

No one had remembered.

I walked to the edge of the garden. The moon was full and bright. I looked up at it, and for the first time in seven years, I felt a spark of heat in my belly.

It wasn't the heat of a mate. It was the heat of something older. Something white.

My inner wolf didn't just whine this time. She howled.

*

Alessia POV:

I found refuge in a greasy spoon diner on the edge of town. It was run by a human named Sal. Humans were better than wolves sometimes. They didn't care about hierarchy or pheromones. They just cared if you could scrub a grill.

I was scrubbing the grease trap, the harsh chemicals burning my nose, but I preferred it to the smell of the manor.

"You okay, kid?" Sal asked, flipping a burger. "You look like you fought a lawnmower."

"I'm fine, Sal."

The bell above the door chimed.

The atmosphere in the diner changed instantly. The air became heavy, thick, and hard to breathe. The humans stopped eating, looking around nervously, sensing a predator even if they couldn't see one.

It was Alpha pressure.

I didn't turn around. I kept scrubbing.

"Alessia."

Dante's voice was right behind me.

I rinsed the sponge and turned. He was wearing a black trench coat that cost more than this entire building. He looked out of place among the vinyl seats and ketchup stains.

He placed a small white box on the counter.

"Coconut cake," he said. "From the bakery on 5th. It was your favorite when you were ten."

I looked at the box. I remembered that cake. I remembered saving my allowance for weeks to buy a slice for him when his father died.

"I'm not ten, Dante. And I don't eat sugar anymore. My stomach can't handle it."

"It's just a peace offering," he said, pushing the box toward me. "Chiara... she didn't mean to upset you yesterday. Her medication makes her emotional."

"Is that why you're here? To apologize for your mistress?"

"She's not my mistress," Dante growled. "She is my responsibility. I owe her my life."

I froze. My hands gripped the edge of the sink.

"You think you owe *her* your life?" I asked quietly.

"Seven years ago," Dante said, his eyes distant. "When I was poisoned with silver nitrate during the coup. I was dying. My kidneys were failing. Chiara gave me the transfusion. Her blood type is rare. She gave so much she damaged her spiritual core. That's why she's sick, Alessia. She sacrificed her wolf for me."

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to scream until my throat bled.

It wasn't Chiara.

I remembered that night. Chiara had fainted at the sight of blood. I was the one who dragged Dante into the safe house. I was the one who hooked up the tubes. I was the one who lay next to him for six hours, draining my own veins until I went into hypovolemic shock.

My blood healed him because I carry the White Wolf gene. My blood is potent.

My parents had come in when it was over. They saw me unconscious and Dante healing. They swapped us. They put Chiara in the bed and threw me in the cellar to recover. They told me if I ever spoke of it, they would kill Dante.

"Is that the story they told you?" I asked, looking at him with pity.

"It's the truth," he said firmly. "I smelled her scent on me when I woke up."

"Because she doused herself in your cologne while you slept," I muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." I wiped my hands on a rag. "Take your cake, Dante. Go back to your castle."

His phone buzzed. He looked at the screen, and his face crumbled.

"I have to go," he said, panic edging his voice. "Chiara is on the roof of the West Tower. She says she's going to jump."

"Of course she is," I said dryly. "It's Tuesday. She always needs attention on Tuesdays."

Dante slammed his hand on the counter, denting the metal. "She is suicidal! Have you no heart?"

"I had one," I said, looking him dead in the eye. "But I left it in a silver cage."

He glared at me, torn between the pull of the Mate Bond that urged him to stay with me, and the guilt that tethered him to Chiara.

Guilt won.

He grabbed the cake box and threw it in the trash can as he stormed out.

I watched him go. The humans in the diner let out a collective breath.

I walked over to the trash can. I looked at the smashed cake.

That was us. Sweet, nostalgic, and garbage.

*

Alessia POV:

The next morning, I didn't wake up. I was woken up.

My door was kicked open. Giuliana stood there, flanked by two pack warriors.

"Get up," she barked. "Family meeting. Father demands your presence."

I didn't fight. I put on my worn-out jeans and followed them.

They took me to the Alpha's office in the manor. My parents were there. Dante was there, pacing by the fireplace. And Chiara was there, weeping into a silk handkerchief.

"Sit," my father commanded.

I remained standing. "I prefer to stand. The chairs in this house are slippery with lies."

My father slammed his fist on the desk. "Enough of your insolence! We have a crisis."

"Chiara's spiritual core is destabilizing," my mother sobbed. "The doctor says she needs... grounding."

I looked at Dante. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"And what does that have to do with me?" I asked.

"To stabilize her," Dante said, his voice hollow, "I need to give her a Temporary Mark. An Alpha's bite will share my strength with her and heal the cracks in her core."

A mark. Even a temporary one was intimate. It was a claim.

"Go ahead," I said. "Why tell me?"

"Because," Dante said, finally looking at me. His eyes were tortured. "I cannot mark her while I am betrothed to you. The Pack Law forbids an Alpha from marking another while engaged."

Ah. There it was.

"You want me to break the engagement," I stated.

"It is for her life!" Chiara wailed. "I don't want to steal him, Alessia! I just want to live!"

"We drafted the papers," my father said, sliding a document across the desk. "Sign it. Annul the childhood engagement. You were never fit to be Luna anyway."

I looked at the paper. It was my freedom.

I picked up the pen.

"Wait," Chiara said. Her voice changed. It wasn't weak anymore. It was sharp.

She stood up and walked over to me. She picked up a silver letter opener from the desk.

"She needs to mean it," Chiara said, smiling cruelly. She pressed the silver tip against my throat. "Kneel, Alessia. Kneel and swear you give him to me. Submit to your betters."

The silver burned my skin.

Dante stepped forward. "Chiara, that's not necessary-"

"It is!" she screamed. "She hates me! If she doesn't submit, the annulment is void in the eyes of the Moon Goddess!"

Dante looked at me. He took a deep breath. The air in the room grew heavy.

"Alessia," Dante said. His voice echoed with power. It was the Alpha's Command. It was a sonic weapon that forced wolves to obey or suffer immense pain. *"Kneel."*

The command hit me like a physical wave. My knees should have buckled. My head should have bowed.

But nothing happened.

I stood there, blinking.

The Alpha's Command only works on wolves of lower rank.

I looked at Dante. He looked confused. He tried again, harder. *"I command you to kneel!"*

I smiled. It was a cold, terrifying smile.

"No," I said.

I grabbed the silver letter opener from Chiara's hand. The silver sizzled against my palm, but something snapped inside me. A dormant energy surged from my core, rushing to my fingertips. I felt the bones in my hand crack under the strain, then instantly knit back together, stronger than before.

*Snap.*

The metal blade broke in half.

"You want me to cancel the engagement?" I asked. "Fine."

I signed the paper with a flourish.

"But I don't kneel to liars," I said. I looked at Chiara. "And I certainly don't kneel to thieves."

I felt a surge of power in my chest. For a second, just a split second, my aura leaked out. It wasn't the weak gray aura of an Omega.

It was blinding white.

The pressure in the room reversed. My father gasped, clutching his chest. Dante took a step back, his wolf whimpering in confusion. Chiara fell to the floor, terrified by the sheer weight of my presence.

"What... what are you?" Dante whispered.

I pulled my aura back in. I wasn't ready to reveal the White Wolf yet. Not until I was safe in Dominica.

"I'm the mistake you're glad to get rid of," I said.

I threw the broken silver blade at Dante's feet.

"She's all yours, Alpha. Good luck."

*