Eloise POV:

The Central Administration Center was neutral ground. It was a sleek glass building where wolf law met human bureaucracy.

I sat in the private waiting room, checking my watch. Twenty-nine minutes.

Had I made a mistake? Alphons Woodward was a myth, a nightmare used to scare pups into behaving. He didn't do blind dates. He destroyed packs.

The elevator chimed.

The air in the room changed instantly. The oxygen seemed to be sucked out, replaced by a heavy, oppressive pressure. This was Aura.

The doors slid open.

He walked in, and my world tilted on its axis.

He was huge. Over six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders that strained against his charcoal suit. His hair was dark as a raven's wing, and his eyes...

His eyes were liquid gold.

When his gaze locked onto mine, I didn't just see him. I smelled him.

It hit me like a physical wave. Rain on hot asphalt. Deep, ancient pine forests. And something smoky, like a wood fire in winter.

Mate.

My inner wolf screamed it. She didn't just growl; she howled, clawing at my ribs, desperate to get to him.

Alphons froze mid-step. His nostrils flared. A low rumble started in his chest, a sound so primal it made the glass table vibrate.

He crossed the room in two strides.

I stood up, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

He stopped inches from me. The heat radiating from his body was intense. He reached out, his large hand hovering near my face.

"Mine," he growled.

It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact. A decree.

"Yours," I whispered, the word slipping out before I could stop it.

His fingers brushed my cheek.

Zap.

A shockwave of static electricity snapped between us, loud enough to hear. My knees buckled. He caught me, his arm wrapping around my waist like a steel band.

The touch was intoxicating. It felt like coming home after a long, cold war.

"You are the latent one?" he asked, his voice rough, as if he was restraining a beast. "Bowers' daughter?"

"I was," I managed to say, drowning in his scent. "Now, I am just Eloise."

"No," he said, pulling me flush against his hard chest. "Now, you are Eloise Woodward."

He didn't ask for explanations. He didn't ask about Holden. He turned to the stunned clerk sitting behind the glass partition.

"Papers," Alphons barked.

The clerk scrambled, dropping a pen in his haste. "Y-yes, Alpha King. Right away."

We signed the documents in a daze. My hand shook as I wrote my name next to his. The ink was barely dry before he took the paper, folded it, and placed it in his pocket.

"The marking," he murmured, leaning down to sniff the sensitive spot where my neck met my shoulder. "I want to claim you. Now."

My breath hitched. "Not here. Not like this."

He pulled back, his golden eyes swirling with lust and violence. He took a deep breath, visibly reigning in his wolf.

"Patience," he muttered to himself. "She is not prey."

He took my hand. "Come. We go to your home. You will pack."

"My home?"

"You live with me now," he said simply. "The Bowers Pack is no longer your concern."

We drove to my private villa on the outskirts of the territory in his matte black SUV. The silence wasn't awkward; it was charged, heavy with unspoken promises.

When we arrived, I saw a familiar car in the driveway.

Holden.

He was banging on my front door. He looked disheveled, frantic.

"Eloise! Open this damn door!" he shouted.

Alphons growled low in his throat. I put a hand on his arm.

"Let me," I said. "I need to do this."

Alphons looked at me, assessing. Then he nodded. "I will be right behind you."

I stepped out of the car.

Holden spun around. "Finally! Where have you been? I've been calling you for an hour!"

He marched toward me, ignoring the massive figure emerging from the driver's side.

"Jaidyn is sick, Eloise. Really sick. The healers say she needs blood from a compatible donor to stabilize her wolf. You have the same blood type. You need to come with me."

I stared at him. The audacity was breathtaking.

"You left me at the altar," I said, my voice cold. "And now you want my blood for your mistress?"

"She's not a mistress! She's family!" Holden yelled. He tried to use his Alpha Voice on me. "I command you to get in the car!"

It was a pathetic attempt. His voice washed over me like a weak breeze. It had no power.

"No," I said.

"What did you say?" He stepped closer, raising a hand as if to grab me.

A shadow fell over him.

Alphons stepped into the light. He didn't speak. He simply released a fraction of his Aura.

The air crushed down. Holden choked, his eyes bulging. He stumbled back, his knees hitting the pavement.

"Brother," Alphons said. The word sounded like a curse.

Holden paled. "Alphons? What... what are you doing here?"

"Collecting my wife," Alphons said.

Holden looked between us, confusion warring with fear. "Wife? But... Eloise is my..."

"Your what?" Alphons took a step forward. "You rejected her. You abandoned her. You left a diamond in the mud to chase a piece of glass."

Alphons wrapped an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. The scent of him—power and pine—washed away the smell of Holden’s desperation.

"Get off my property," I told Holden. "I am not your fiancée. I am not your donor. And if you ever try to command me again, I will rip your throat out."

I didn't know where the violence came from. Maybe it was the King beside me. Maybe it was the wolf waking up inside.

Holden scrambled to his feet, terrified. "You're making a mistake, Eloise! She's dying!"

"Then let her die," I said, turning my back on him.

I walked toward the door, Alphons at my side. I felt a thrill of dark satisfaction.

But as I keyed in the code, I didn't see the look on Holden’s face. It wasn't just fear anymore. It was the twisted, desperate look of a man who had nothing left to lose.

Eloise POV:

The morning sun felt like a lie. It was bright and cheerful, completely at odds with the darkness brewing on my doorstep.

Alphons had left early for a council meeting—something about rogue movements on the northern border.

"I'm leaving two of my elite Delta guards at the gate," Alphons had said, kissing my forehead. "Do not open the door for anyone but me. I'll be back by noon to move your things."

I was packing a box of books when the doorbell rang.

I checked the security feed. It was Jaidyn.

She stood there, not in a wheelchair, not looking pale. She was wearing a tight red dress, checking her reflection in my window. She looked perfectly, infuriatingly healthy.

Rage, hot and sudden, flared in my chest.

I opened the door, confused as to why the Deltas hadn't stopped her. Maybe they were patrolling the perimeter?

"You made a miraculous recovery," I said, leaning against the frame.

Jaidyn jumped, then composed herself. A sickly sweet smile plastered onto her face. "Oh, Eloise. You know how it is. The healers gave me a boost. But I'm still so fragile."

"Cut the act, Jaidyn," I snapped. "Holden isn't here."

Her smile dropped. Her eyes, usually wide and innocent, narrowed into slits.

"You think you've won, don't you?" she hissed. "Because you ran crying to the big, bad King?"

"I think I dodged a bullet," I corrected. "You can have Holden. He's weak. You deserve each other."

"I don't want Holden," she laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "I want the title. I want the power. And you... you're just a beta bitch standing in my way."

She stepped forward, invading my personal space. She smelled wrong. Underneath the expensive perfume, there was that scent again—rot. But it wasn't sickness. It was corruption.

"Get off my porch," I warned.

"Make me."

I reached out to shove her back. My fingers barely grazed her shoulder.

"Ahhh!" Jaidyn threw herself backward.

It was a performance worthy of an Oscar. She flew off the porch steps and landed in the grass, screaming as if I had poured acid on her.

"Help! She's killing me!"

"Jaidyn!"

Holden burst from the bushes.

"Where are the guards?" I shouted, backing up.

Two men in black tactical gear emerged from the tree line. Mercenaries. One of them wiped a bloody knife on his pant leg. They had ambushed Alphons' men.

He didn't hesitate. He didn't ask questions. He charged at me, his eyes flashing red.

"Kneel!" he roared.

This time, he put everything he had into the Alpha Command.

I wasn't a wolf yet. I didn't have a rank. The command hit me like a physical blow to the stomach. My legs locked up. I couldn't breathe. I slumped against the doorframe, paralyzed.

"You vicious monster!" Holden screamed, spitting in my face. "She came here to apologize, and you attack her?"

"She... faked..." I gasped, fighting the invisible weight crushing my lungs.

"Save it!" Holden signaled to the mercenaries. "Grab her."

"Holden, you can't," I wheezed. "Alphons..."

"Alphons isn't here!" Holden grabbed my hair, yanking my head back. "And by the time he finds you, you'll be begging for forgiveness."

He pulled something from his pocket. A collar.

It gleamed with a dull, menacing luster. Silver.

Pure silver is poison to us. It burns the skin and cuts off the wolf from the human host. It blocks the Mind-Link.

"No," I whispered.

He snapped it around my neck.

The pain was instantaneous. It felt like a ring of fire searing into my flesh. I screamed, but the sound died in my throat as my energy was sucked away. My connection to the world, to the pack, to Alphons, vanished.

Static. Just static and pain.

They dragged me to a van. As they shoved me inside, I saw Jaidyn standing up. She brushed the grass off her dress, smirking at me. She blew Holden a kiss as he climbed in beside me.

"Where are we going?" I managed to rasp, the silver burning my vocal cords.

"Somewhere quiet," Holden said, looking at me with cold, dead eyes. "Somewhere you can think about what you've done to my family."

The van sped away.

I tried to reach out with my mind. Alphons! Alphons, help me!

Nothing. The silver collar acted like a Faraday cage for the soul. I was alone.

We drove for hours. When the van finally stopped, the air smelled damp and metallic.

They dragged me down a flight of stone stairs. A dungeon. This was the old Callahan estate, abandoned years ago.

Holden threw me into a cell. The bars were coated in silver dust.

"Rot here for a while," he spat. "Maybe when you're humble, we'll talk."

He slammed the gate shut. The lock clicked.

I lay on the cold stone floor, the collar eating into my neck. I closed my eyes, fighting the darkness threatening to swallow me.

I had to survive. I had to hold on.

Because when my King found out about this... the world would burn.

Eloise POV:

Time lost its meaning in the dark. It could have been hours; it could have been days. The only constant was the burning ring of silver around my neck and the gnawing hunger in my belly.

The silver was doing its job. It was suppressing my healing, making me feel human and frail. My skin was pale, clammy with a fever sweat. Yet, in the deepest recesses of my mind, beyond the static of the collar, I felt a strange, rhythmic pulsing. Like a distant drumbeat.

Footsteps echoed down the corridor.

"Wakey, wakey, Princess."

Jaidyn stood on the other side of the bars. She held a tray of food—a burger that smelled divine to my starving senses.

She placed it on the floor, just out of my reach.

"You look terrible," she said cheerfully.

I pushed myself up to a sitting position, leaning against the damp wall. "And you look... like a cheap fake."

Her smile twitched. "You still have a mouth on you. I thought the silver would have broken you by now."

"Why are you doing this?" I asked. "You have him. You won."

"I haven't won until you're gone," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "You think I don't know? The Bowers bloodline. The rumors of the White Wolf."

My heart skipped a beat. "That's a myth."

"Is it?" She tilted her head. "Holden is an idiot. He thinks you're just a beta. But I can smell it on you. That latent power. It's disgusting. It's too pure."

She stepped closer to the bars.

"Watch this," she said.

Her eyes shifted. Not to the amber of a normal wolf, but to a murky, sickly yellow. Her hand contorted. Bones cracked and reshaped.

Fur sprouted. Claws elongated.

She shifted her hand into a wolf's paw.

I gasped. "You... you can shift. You told everyone your wolf was dying! You told Holden you couldn't transform!"

"I lied," she grinned, shifting her hand back to human form. "Men are so easy to manipulate when you play the victim. Holden thinks I'm a fragile flower. He'd do anything to protect me."

"He's going to find out," I said.

"Who's going to tell him? You?" She laughed. "You're never leaving this cell, Eloise."

She reached through the bars, grabbing my hair. She yanked my face against the cold silver metal.

I cried out as the silver burned my cheek. But as the metal seared my skin, the distant drumbeat in my head grew louder. A flash of white light, visible only to me, sparked behind my eyelids.

"I'm going to take everything from you," she hissed. "Your status. Your life. And maybe, once you're dead, I'll go comfort that King of yours."

Fury, hot and white, exploded in my chest.

I wasn't a warrior. I wasn't an Alpha. But I was done being a punching bag.

My hand found a loose piece of rusted iron on the floor, a remnant of some old shackle.

I didn't think. I swung.

The jagged metal sliced across her forearm.

"Aaaagh!" Jaidyn shrieked, letting go of my hair and stumbling back. Blood, dark and red, welled up on her arm.

"You bitch!" she screamed.

Heavy boots pounded down the stairs.

"Jaidyn!"

Holden appeared. He took in the scene: Jaidyn clutching her bleeding arm, me holding a bloody piece of iron, panting like a wild animal.

"She attacked me!" Jaidyn wailed, tears instantly springing to her eyes. "I brought her food, and she tried to kill me!"

Holden looked at me. His face contorted with a rage that was terrifying to behold.

"I warned you," he growled.

He unlocked the cell door.

"Holden, look at her arm!" I shouted, backing away. "She healed! Look how fast it's clotting! She's not sick!"

But he wasn't listening. He was blind to everything but her tears.

He stormed into the cell. He grabbed me by the throat, lifting me off my feet.

"You hurt my mate," he snarled.

"She's... lying..." I choked, clawing at his hands.

He threw me against the wall. My head cracked against the stone. Stars exploded in my vision.

"You want to act like a rogue?" Holden yelled. "Then I'll treat you like one."

He turned to the guard outside. "Crank up the voltage on the collar."

"Sir, that could kill her," the guard hesitated.

"Do it!"

The guard pressed a button on a remote.

CRACK.

Electricity surged through the silver collar. It wasn't just pain; it was like being dipped in lava. Every nerve ending in my body caught fire. My muscles seized.

I fell to the floor, convulsing. I couldn't scream. My jaw was locked.

Through the haze of agony, the white spark returned. It wasn't just a flicker this time. It was a cold, soothing presence wrapping around my heart, keeping it beating when the electricity tried to stop it.

I focused on Jaidyn's smirk. I held onto it.

I will not die, I promised myself as the darkness crept in. I will live. And I will make you pay.