I woke to the smell of rust and stone.

My throat was on fire. Every breath scraped like broken glass. I tried to speak, to call for help, but nothing came out except a wet, rasping wheeze that made my eyes water.

The dungeon. I was in the pack dungeon.

I pushed myself upright, my body screaming in protest. Bandages wrapped tight around my neck, already stained rust-brown. My hand went to my stomach—still there, still rounded. The pup. My pup was still alive.

Footsteps echoed down the stone corridor. Heavy. Deliberate.

Xander appeared outside the iron bars, his face carved from granite. Behind him, Bella clung to his arm, her eyes red-rimmed and puffy. The perfect picture of a traumatized mate.

"You're awake." His voice was flat. Empty.

I tried to speak. Tried to tell him what really happened. But only that horrible rasping sound emerged, and pain exploded through my ruined throat.

"Don't bother." He gripped the bars, his knuckles white. "Bella told me everything. How you attacked her out of jealousy. How you tried to kill her because you couldn't accept that I chose my true mate over a replacement."

I shook my head frantically, pointing at Bella, then at my throat. She did this. She did this.

"My wolf sensed it," Xander continued, and something flickered in his eyes. Pain. Confusion. "The pup. You're carrying my pup."

Bella's grip on his arm tightened. "Xander, please. She's dangerous. She tried to kill me. Who knows what she'll do to—"

"The pup stays alive." His voice cracked like a whip. "That's my blood. My heir."

Hope flared in my chest. He would protect us. He had to.

"You'll remain here," he said, and that hope shattered. "For your safety and everyone else's. The dungeon is the only place I can guarantee you won't try something else."

I grabbed the bars, shaking them. Tried to scream. Only silence and agony.

"Once the pup is born," Xander continued, his gaze sliding away from mine, "Bella will raise it as her own. You'll be exiled. Sent to the Rogue lands where you belong."

Bella's smile was small. Victorious.

I sank to my knees, my hands still gripping the cold iron. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.

"It's mercy, Norah." Xander's voice softened, just slightly. "More than you deserve after what you did. Be grateful I'm letting you live long enough to birth my child."

He turned and walked away, Bella tucked against his side, leaving me alone in the dark.

Time became meaningless.

Days bled into weeks. Weeks into months. My belly grew, stretching the thin prison dress they'd given me. The pup moved inside me—small flutters at first, then stronger kicks that made my eyes sting with tears I refused to shed.

They brought me food twice a day. Thin gruel. Stale bread. Water that tasted faintly metallic. I ate because the pup needed me to eat. I drank because the alternative was death.

But I was getting weaker.

The guards who brought my meals wouldn't meet my eyes. Sometimes I heard whispers—about Cal, about how he'd taken a turn for the worse. How he was barely conscious anymore.

I pressed my hands to the stone wall separating the dungeon from the infirmary wing and tried to send him strength through sheer will. Hold on. Please hold on.

One morning, I noticed something in my water cup. A faint shimmer. An oily residue clinging to the sides.

Poison.

Not enough to kill quickly. Just enough to weaken. To sicken.

I thought of Cal's sudden decline. Of the infirmary's water supply, connected to the same pipes that fed the dungeon.

Bella.

She was killing us both. Slowly. Carefully. Making it look natural.

Rage burned through the fog of exhaustion. I couldn't let her win. Wouldn't let her take my brother and my pup.

I had to get out.

The lock on my cell was old. Rusty. The guards were lazy, confident that a pregnant Omega posed no threat. During meals, I palmed a spoon—bent and tarnished, but metal.

Every night, after the last guard check, I worked at the lock mechanism. Scraping. Prying. My fingers bled. My shoulders ached. The pup kicked against my ribs as if urging me on.

Weeks passed. The lock loosened, bit by bit.

Then one night, I heard it—the distant sound of howls. Alarms. Shouting.

A Rogue attack.

The guards ran past my cell, weapons drawn, leaving the dungeon corridor empty.

I grabbed the spoon and jammed it into the lock one final time.

Something clicked.

The door swung open.

I stood on shaking legs, one hand on my swollen belly, and stumbled toward the infirmary wing.

Toward Cal.

Toward freedom.

The world was burning.

Smoke choked the air as I stumbled through the pack house corridors, my arms wrapped around Cal's skeletal frame. He was barely conscious, his head lolling against my shoulder, his breathing shallow and wet. Each step sent pain shooting through my swollen belly, but I couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop.

Explosions rocked the building. Glass shattered somewhere behind us. Wolves howled in rage and pain—the Rogues had breached the inner defenses.

This was Bella's doing. I knew it in my bones. The timing was too perfect. The chaos too convenient.

"Norah." Cal's voice was a thread of sound. "Leave me."

"Shut up." I kicked open the service exit, and cool night air hit my face. The forest stretched before us, dark and endless. Freedom. Maybe.

I dragged him down the back steps, my legs screaming. The pup kicked hard against my ribs, as if protesting the jostling. I'm sorry, I thought. I'm so sorry.

Behind us, someone shouted. "There! The Omega—she's escaping!"

Gamma Ryan. Of course.

I plunged into the trees, half-carrying, half-dragging Cal. Branches tore at my face. Roots tried to trip me. My prison dress was soaked with sweat and blood—the bandages on my throat had come loose, and I felt warm wetness trickling down my neck.

Cal's weight was impossible. He was dying. Had been dying for months while Bella slowly poisoned him. But he was all I had left.

"Border," I rasped, the word shredding my ruined vocal cords. "Just... border."

Paws thundered behind us. Wolves in pursuit. I didn't look back.

The forest thinned. Through the trees, I saw it—the highway. The clean black asphalt that marked the edge of Blood Moon territory. Beyond it lay the neutral zone, the diplomatic corridor that led to Paris. To the Lycan King's domain.

Safety. Maybe.

If I could just reach it.

My legs gave out twenty feet from the tree line. I crashed to my knees, still clutching Cal. The pup shifted inside me, a rolling wave of movement that stole my breath.

"Norah Bishop!" Ryan's voice rang through the forest. "Stop! Alpha's orders—you're not to leave pack lands!"

I looked at Cal. His eyes were closed. His chest barely moved.

I looked at the highway.

Then I made my choice.

I shoved him. Used every ounce of strength left in my body to push my brother across the invisible line, over the asphalt, into neutral territory. He rolled twice and lay still on the far shoulder.

Safe. He was safe.

Ryan burst from the trees, three other enforcers flanking him. Their eyes glowed in the darkness. Behind them, I caught glimpses of Rogue wolves—gray and mangy, their coordination too perfect to be coincidence.

"Don't make this harder," Ryan said, advancing slowly. "The Alpha wants you back. Wants his pup safe."

I tried to stand. Tried to cross the border myself.

My body betrayed me. My legs buckled. I collapsed onto the asphalt, half on pack land, half in neutral territory. My vision swam. The pup kicked frantically, and I felt something warm and wet between my thighs.

No. Not now. Please not now.

Ryan reached for me—

And headlights blazed to life.

A motorcade materialized from the darkness like something out of a dream. Three sleek black vehicles, moving fast. Too fast. They screeched to a halt in a semicircle around us, their high beams turning night into day.

Ryan froze. The other enforcers backed up, their wolves suddenly uncertain.

Because everyone knew those vehicles. Everyone recognized the silver crest emblazoned on their doors.

The Lycan King's royal guard.

A door opened. A man stepped out—tall, broad-shouldered, moving with the kind of lethal grace that made my wolf instincts scream danger even though I'd never successfully shifted. His eyes swept the scene: me, bleeding and pregnant on the asphalt. Cal, unconscious in neutral territory. The Blood Moon enforcers, frozen in place.

Those eyes—ancient gold, burning with power—locked onto mine.

And something inside me, something I'd thought was broken beyond repair, suddenly sparked to life.

My wolf. After all these years of silence, I felt her stir.

"Mine," she whispered, her voice weak but certain. "Ours."

The man's nostrils flared. His expression shifted—shock, recognition, something fierce and possessive.

He moved toward me, and Ryan stepped forward to intercept.

"Your Majesty," Ryan said carefully. "This is a pack matter. The woman is—"

"In neutral territory." The man's voice was quiet. Absolute. "Under my protection."

He knelt beside me, and his scent hit me like a physical force—pine and winter storm and something wild and ancient. My wolf whimpered. Yearned.

"Easy," he murmured, and his hand touched my face with impossible gentleness. "I've got you."

I tried to speak. To warn him about the pup, about Bella, about everything. But my ruined throat produced only that horrible rasping wheeze.

His jaw tightened. His eyes flashed pure gold.

"Who did this to you?" Not a question. A promise of violence.

I couldn't answer. Could only grip his arm as another contraction hit, as my body tried to expel the pup weeks too early.

His gaze snapped to my belly. Understanding dawned.

"Get the healer," he barked. "Now."

The royal guards moved with military precision. Someone lifted Cal. Someone else was wrapping a blanket around my shoulders.

Ryan tried one more time. "Your Majesty, the Alpha will want—"

"The Alpha," the Lycan King said softly, "can come grovel at my gates if he wants her back. But he'll have to go through me first."

He lifted me as if I weighed nothing, cradling me against his chest. I felt his heartbeat—steady, strong, alive.

"What's your name?" he asked.

I mouthed it. Norah.

"Norah." He said it like a prayer. Like a vow. "I'm Santiago. And I swear on my crown—no one will ever hurt you again."

The world tilted. The motorcade's interior was soft and warm. Cal was beside me, breathing. Alive.

Santiago's hand found mine, his fingers lacing through my bloody ones.

And as we pulled away from the border, away from the burning pack house and the wolves who'd tried to destroy me, I felt something I hadn't felt in three years.

Hope.