The lock on Marcus Sullivan's office safe clicked open at 2:47 AM.

Isla's hands shook as she pulled the heavy door wide, the stolen access card having granted her entry to the Alpha's private wing. The safe's interior light illuminated stacks of documents, leather-bound ledgers, and a single manila folder marked with red ink: Project Sight.

Her wolf whimpered, sensing danger in those two words.

Isla pulled the folder free. The paper felt obscenely normal beneath her fingertips—just standard office stock, nothing to indicate it contained the kind of secrets that shattered worlds. She flipped it open.

The first photograph stole the air from her lungs.

Tommy. Sweet, gentle Tommy with his amber eyes and shy smile. But this wasn't the Tommy she remembered. This Tommy lay on a surgical table, his face slack and lifeless, his chest marked with precise incision lines. Medical instruments gleamed in the background. A date stamp in the corner: three years ago. The same week Orion's surgery had been scheduled.

Isla's vision blurred. She flipped to the next photo with trembling fingers.

Close-up shots of Tommy's eyes. Those beautiful amber eyes flecked with gold, the ones that had lit up whenever she brought him books to read. Someone had photographed them from multiple angles, documenting the color match with clinical precision. Notes in the margins: "Perfect donor match. Proceed with extraction."

The folder slipped from her hands, papers scattering across Marcus Sullivan's expensive carpet. Isla lunged for the trash bin beside the desk and vomited, her body rejecting the truth her mind couldn't process.

They hadn't just let Tommy die. They'd murdered him. Harvested him like he was nothing more than spare parts.

And Orion—

Isla retched again, bile burning her throat. Every time Orion had looked at her with those restored eyes, every time he'd gazed at her with what she'd desperately wanted to believe was love, he'd been seeing her through Tommy's stolen sight.

Her brother's eyes in her mate's face.

The door to the office opened.

Isla's head snapped up. Dr. Elena Blackwood stood in the threshold, still wearing her white coat, her face pale as death in the dim light from the hallway.

"I knew you'd come here eventually," Elena whispered. "I've been waiting."

Isla pushed herself upright, her legs unsteady. "You did this. You killed him."

"Yes." The word fell like a stone. Elena stepped into the office and closed the door behind her, leaning against it as if she needed the support. "Marcus Sullivan came to me three years ago. Said his son needed a transplant. Said they'd found a donor."

"Tommy wasn't a donor. He was a child."

"I know." Elena's voice cracked. "I know what he was. I know what I did."

Isla crossed the space between them in three strides, her wolf surging forward with a snarl. She grabbed Elena by the collar of her coat, slamming her back against the door. "Then why? Why would you—"

"Because they had my daughter!" Elena's composure shattered. Tears streamed down her face, her words tumbling out in a desperate rush. "Marcus threatened her. Said if I didn't perform the extraction, if I didn't keep it quiet, they'd make sure she had an 'accident' during her next border patrol. She's only nineteen, Isla. She's my only child."

Isla's grip loosened. She stepped back, her wolf torn between rage and a terrible understanding.

"I've been living in hell for three years," Elena continued, sliding down the door until she sat crumpled on the floor. "Every time I see you, every time I treat you, I see what I've done. I see Tommy's face. I see the bond killing you because of the monster I helped create."

The room fell silent except for Elena's ragged breathing.

Isla stared down at the scattered photographs, at Tommy's lifeless face frozen in time. Her wolf keened, a sound of pure grief that had no voice.

"I need your help," Isla heard herself say. The words came from somewhere cold and distant, a part of her that had survived the fall and was already planning the climb back up. "As penance."

Elena looked up, hope and fear warring in her expression. "Anything."

"I need to die." Isla met the healer's eyes. "Not really. But everyone needs to believe I'm dead. Can you do that?"

Elena was quiet for a long moment, her medical mind clearly working through possibilities. "There's a procedure. High-risk. We'd sever the mate bond surgically—it would trigger cardiac arrest. I could revive you after, but the pack would believe you died on the table. It's dangerous, Isla. You might not wake up."

"I'm already dying." Isla gestured to the photographs on the floor. "At least this way, I choose how."

Elena pushed herself to her feet, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "When?"

"Tomorrow night. After the pack gathering." Isla's voice was steady now, her decision made. "I want them all to see me reject him first."

Elena nodded slowly. "I'll prepare everything."

Isla bent down and gathered the photographs, sliding them carefully back into the folder. Evidence. Proof. Justice for Tommy would come, but first, she needed to survive.

She pressed the folder against her chest, feeling the weight of her brother's stolen life, and walked out of Marcus Sullivan's office without looking back.

The Grand Hall glittered with crystal chandeliers and the forced smiles of two hundred pack members pretending tonight was a celebration. Isla stood in the shadowed archway, her fingers wrapped around the cold stone pillar, watching Orion command the room with the easy confidence of a born Alpha.

He looked magnificent in his formal suit, his restored eyes—Tommy's eyes—catching the light as he gestured broadly. The pack hung on his every word, their faces turned toward him like flowers seeking the sun.

"Unity," Orion was saying, his voice carrying that supernatural Alpha resonance that made even the strongest wolves want to bare their throats. "That is what makes us strong. That is what separates us from the rogues who lurk in the shadows. We are Blood Moon Pack, and in two weeks, when I take my Luna—"

Isla stepped into the light.

The movement caught Orion's attention mid-sentence. His words died as his gaze locked onto her, and she watched something flicker across his face. Surprise. Confusion. And beneath it all, that familiar flash of obligation.

She looked like a ghost. She knew because she'd seen her reflection before leaving the infirmary—pale skin stretched too tight over sharp bones, dark circles shadowing her eyes, her Luna gown hanging loose where it should have clung. The seamstress's careful alterations couldn't hide what Fading Wolf Syndrome had done to her body.

The crowd parted as she walked forward. Two hundred pairs of eyes tracked her movement across the polished marble floor. She heard the whispers starting, saw Mrs. Hunt rise from her seat with a hand pressed to her chest, watched Chloe's face cycle through shock and something that might have been fear.

Isla stopped three feet from the raised platform where Orion stood frozen.

"Isla," he said, and even now, even in front of the entire pack, her name sounded like a burden. "You should be resting. The healer said—"

"I, Isla Hunt," she interrupted, her voice cutting through his words with crystalline clarity, "reject you, Orion Sullivan, Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack, as my mate."

The silence that followed was absolute.

Orion's face went white. His hand flew to his chest, fingers clawing at the fabric of his shirt as if he could reach inside and hold the bond together by force. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

Isla felt the bond snap.

It wasn't like the slow poisoning of the past three years. This was instantaneous, violent, a metaphysical amputation that tore through her chest and left a gaping wound where the connection had been. Her wolf howled, the sound echoing only in her mind, grief and relief tangled together in a way that made no sense and perfect sense all at once.

Orion staggered backward, his newly restored eyes—Tommy's eyes, always Tommy's eyes—wide with shock and pain. "No. No, you can't—"

"I just did." Isla's legs trembled, but she kept her spine straight. She wouldn't fall. Not yet. Not in front of them.

Marcus Sullivan surged to his feet. "This is unacceptable! You can't reject an Alpha! The ceremony is in two weeks—"

"There won't be a ceremony." Isla turned her gaze to the former Alpha, and she watched him flinch from whatever he saw in her face. "There won't be a Luna. There won't be anything."

The room began to spin.

Isla's vision blurred at the edges, darkness creeping in like smoke. Her wolf was dying—had been dying for months—and the severed bond was the final blow. She felt her knees buckle, felt gravity pulling her down, and distantly she heard Orion roar her name.

Hands caught her before she hit the ground. Dr. Blackwood's face swam into view, her expression professionally concerned but her eyes carrying a message: Trust me.

"Get her to surgery," Elena barked, and suddenly Isla was being lifted, carried through the crowd that pressed in from all sides. She caught glimpses of faces—her mother's horrified expression, Chloe's hand over her mouth, pack members she'd served and cared for staring at her like she was already a corpse.

Orion was shouting something, his Alpha tone trying to command the situation, but Elena ignored him. The operating theater doors swung open, and Isla was laid on the cold steel table under lights so bright they burned.

"Stay with me," Elena whispered, her hands already moving with practiced efficiency. "Just a little longer."

Isla heard Orion's fists pounding on the locked doors. Heard him screaming for them to save her, his voice raw with a desperation she'd never heard before. Three years too late.

Elena's syringe glinted in the surgical lights.

"I'm sorry," the healer breathed, and pressed the plunger.

Isla's heart stopped.

The monitor flatlined, the sound piercing and final, and the last thing she heard before the darkness took her completely was Orion's howl of anguish as her presence vanished from his mind like smoke dissolving into air."