Jake POV:

My head felt like it was in a vice. Being near Audrey always triggered these migraines, like a warning bell I couldn't find.

I was in the suite with Jada when the smell hit.

Not Jada’s perfume. Something acrid. Chemical burns. And beneath it... ozone.

"What is that?" I stood up.

"Audrey probably burned dinner. She's useless in the kitchen," Jada said, scrolling through her feed. She was wearing a moonstone necklace I didn't recognize.

"I'm checking."

I followed the scent to the private residence. The door was locked. I kicked it in.

The bathroom door was ajar. Steam and smoke billowed out.

Audrey was hunched over the sink, frantically scrubbing her face and chest. The water in the basin was turning pink and grey. Her skin was angry, red, and blistering.

On the floor, a pile of towels was smoldering, the chemical reaction eating through the fabric.

"What the hell are you doing?" I roared.

Audrey spun around. Half her face was a ruin.

"Jake," she gasped. "The boys... the water guns... it was acid..."

"Liar!" I shouted, the accusation hitting a nerve. "My boys are seven! They were playing! You're burning... what is this? Voodoo? Are you casting spells in here?"

I looked at the smoldering towels. In the mess, I saw the corner of a photograph. Us. Italy. She was destroying the evidence of the past? Or using it for a hex?

"No, please, it burns," she sobbed, reaching for the water.

"Stop acting!" I grabbed her arm. Her skin was fever-hot. "You're hurting yourself to frame my children. That is sick, Audrey."

I dragged her out. She stumbled, dead weight.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Cooling off period."

I hauled her to the basement containment unit. The Silver Cage.

I threw her in. She hit the metal floor and screamed.

"No! Jake! The silver! It stops the healing!" She scrambled away from the bars, clutching her melting face.

"That's the point," I said coldly. "You don't get to heal until you tell the truth. Who put you up to this? Who are you working for?"

"No one!" she wailed.

I hit the button. The cage walls began to contract.

"Confess!"

She curled into a ball, shaking violently. The Wolfsbane was still active, fighting the silver's suppression, tearing her apart at a cellular level.

Then, a whisper. Not spoken, but projected. A Mind-Link.

*Elliot... please...*

The name hit me like a shovel to the chest.

*Elliot.*

A flash of memory. A beach. A man with eyes like a winter storm handing me a drink. *She's the jewel, Jake. Don't drop her.*

"Stop," I whispered.

I slammed the emergency stop.

Audrey was unconscious.

Why did that name make my blood run cold? And why did hearing her call for another man hurt more than the migraine?

Audrey POV:

Pain wasn't a sensation anymore; it was the atmosphere.

I woke up to the cage door groaning open.

"Up," Jake said. His voice was dead.

He dragged me by my hair up the stairs, into the clinic lobby. It was a circus. Staff, patients, and Jada.

Jada held one of the twins. The boy had a small, theatrical bandage on his finger.

"She did it!" Jada shrieked, pointing at me. "She used blood magic! My baby just started bleeding! It's a curse!"

"I didn't..." My voice was a croak.

"Silence!" Jake’s Alpha Command clamped my jaw shut.

"The Pack Law is clear," Jake addressed the room. "Witchcraft against a pup is a capital offense."

"The doctor found hex bags in her office!" Jada lied, burying her face in the boy's neck.

"Since you use your mouth to lie and curse," Jake said, turning to me. He motioned to the head of security.

The guard handed him a device. A silver muzzle. It looked like a medieval torture instrument—a heavy, intricate clamp with internal spikes.

My eyes went wide. "No," I whimpered. "Jake, it's Audrey. Look at me."

He didn't see Audrey. He saw a threat.

Two guards forced me to my knees.

"Hold her."

He stepped closer. I smelled him—rain and pine—corrupted by the lie he was living.

He brought the muzzle to my face.

"This will teach you silence," he whispered.

He clamped it shut.

*Sizzle.*

The silver spikes bit into my cheeks and lips. The metal fused to the skin instantly. I tried to scream, but the sound died in my throat, trapped behind the burning metal.

Tears blurred my vision. The smell of searing flesh filled the lobby.

Jake stepped back, wiping his hands as if he’d touched something filthy.

"Hang her up," he ordered. "Let the Pack see what happens to witches."

The guards grabbed a rope. They tied my ankles.

The world flipped. I was hoisted toward the chandelier.

Blood rushed to my head, throbbing against the burns. I swung there, inverted, a display piece of cruelty.

I looked down at Jake. He was staring up, chest heaving.

*I reject you,* I thought. *I reject this life.*

Deep inside, the White Wolf opened her eyes. She didn't growl. She didn't howl. She detonated.

Elliot POV:

The bond didn't just pull; it screamed.

I was in a boardroom in London.

*Elliot...*

"Out," I said.

"Sir, the merger—"

"I said get out!" My voice cracked the mahogany table. My eyes shifted to pure, glowing mercury.

I didn't take a plane. I took the jet, and then I jumped. Mid-air shift. A massive, slate-grey wolf, the size of a draft horse, hit the tarmac running.

I crossed the border into Jake Foster's territory like a warhead.

I smelled it miles away. Vanilla and moonflowers, turning into the copper tang of agony.

I crashed through the glass doors of the Moonlight Care Center in human form, naked, radiating an Aura so dense it cracked the floor tiles.

"DOWN!"

*The Supreme Alpha's Roar.*

It wasn't a request. It was gravity.

Every wolf in the room dropped. Guards, nurses, Jake Foster. They were pinned to the floor.

And then I saw her.

Hanging like livestock. Her face burned. Her mouth clamped in silver.

My vision went red.

"Cut her down!" I bellowed.

I didn't wait. I leaped, slashing the rope with a partially shifted claw. I caught her.

She was weightless.

I grabbed the silver muzzle. It sizzled against my skin. I didn't care. I ripped it off.

Skin tore. Blood flowed. I bit my own wrist and pressed it to her mouth. *Drink. Heal.*

Her eyes fluttered. One blue, one swollen shut.

"Elliot?" Her mind-link was a ghost.

"I'm here, Little Moon," I whispered, wrapping my trench coat around her.

I stood up. I turned to Jake Foster, who was struggling to lift his head off the linoleum.

"You."

"Who... are you?" Jake gasped, blood leaking from his nose under the pressure.

"I am Elliot Noel. Supreme Alpha of the European Alliance," I said. "And you just tortured my Fated Mate."

Jake’s eyes widened. "Mate? No... she's human. She's my ex."

"She is the White Wolf!"

As if on cue, Audrey convulsed. The suppression broke.

A column of white light blasted through the ceiling. The scent hit us—pure ozone, snow, and ancient power.

Jake froze. The fake pheromones in his nose shattered against the reality of the White Wolf.

"No..." Jake whispered. "That smell... The cherry blossoms... It's her."

I shielded her.

"You lost the right to look at her when you clamped that thing on her face," I spat.

"Wait!" Jake tried to crawl forward. "I didn't know! My memory..."

"Ignorance isn't a defense for sadism," I said. "Start praying, Foster. I'm going to bankrupt you before the sun goes down."

I walked out, leaving him in the wreckage of his own making.

Jake POV:

I watched him take her.

The scent lingered. It was the smell of the memories I couldn't reach.

I reached into my pocket. The divorce papers.

Stuck to the back was another sheet. Old. Yellowed.

A marriage certificate. Tuscany.

Signed: Jake Foster and Audrey Wallace.

At the bottom, two bloody thumbprints. The Seal of Fated Mates.

My wolf woke up. He didn't howl. He screamed.

*WHAT DID YOU DO?* he roared in my skull. *YOU KILLED HER!*

I looked at my hands. The hands that locked the muzzle.

I slammed my head against the floor, and for the first time in five years, I felt the crack in the wall of my mind.