The rain battered against the stone walls of the Pack House, echoing the hollow ache inside my chest. It had been exactly three years. Three years since the rogue attack that turned my life into a waking nightmare. Three years since I held the cold, tiny body of my daughter, Kiara, and screamed until my throat bled.

Today, the pack was silent, respectful of the Alpha’s mourning—or so I thought. I clutched the small velvet box containing the only thing I had left of her: a silver locket. I wanted Bennett to go with me to the gravesite. As the Alpha and my Chosen Mate, he should have been by my side. But he wasn’t in his office, and he wasn’t in our bedroom.

"Council meetings," he had told me this morning, his eyes failing to meet mine. "I’ll be busy all day, Carmen. Go pay your respects alone."

I wiped a stray tear from my cheek and turned down the west wing corridor, intending to leave through the back garden. But as I passed the Beta’s quarters, my steps faltered. The air here was usually sterile, smelling of cleaning supplies and Beta Victoria’s faint, floral perfume. Today, however, the hallway was thick with a different scent.

It was unmistakable. *Rain and Pine.* Bennett’s scent.

My heart hammered against my ribs. Why would Bennett be in Victoria’s room? And why was his scent so heavy, so agitated, mixing violently with the cloying, artificial sweetness of vanilla?

I stepped closer to the heavy oak door. It was cracked open just a fraction, a sliver of darkness peering out. I meant to knock, to ask if the meeting had moved here, but a voice from inside froze the blood in my veins.

"You need to calm down, Bennett. The pack will smell your distress."

It wasn’t Victoria. It was a man’s voice. Low, familiar, and laced with guilt. My brother, Mateo.

"Calm down?" Bennett’s voice was a growl, vibrating through the wood. "It’s the anniversary, Mateo. The whole pack is on edge. If anyone looks too closely at the logs from that night…"

"They won’t," Mateo interrupted, his tone pleading. "I buried the patrol reports deep. No one knows we diverted the warriors."

I stopped breathing. My hand hovered over the door handle, trembling.

"I still see her face, Bennett," Mateo whispered, his voice cracking. "Kiara. She was my niece. We left her car defenseless. We let the rogues hit them just to clear the route for Victoria’s extraction."

The world tilted on its axis. A high-pitched ringing filled my ears, drowning out the storm outside. It wasn’t an accident. The rogues hadn’t just gotten lucky.

Bennett let out a harsh sigh. "It was a strategic choice. Victoria is the Beta. She carries the pack's financial secrets. Carmen… Carmen is just a Chosen Mate. Her wolf is weak. And the pup…"

"Don't say it," Mateo hissed.

"The pup was collateral damage," Bennett finished coldly. "To save the woman I actually need."

Everything inside me shattered. The grief that had weighed me down for three years instantly ignited into a white-hot inferno of rage. My dormant wolf, silent for so long, didn’t stir, but my human soul screamed for blood.

I didn’t think. I didn’t plan. I slammed my palms against the door, throwing it open with every ounce of strength I possessed.

"You monster!" I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat.

The scene before me was a tableau of betrayal. Bennett was sitting on the edge of the bed, his shirt unbuttoned. Victoria was behind him, her hands massaging his shoulders, her smirk faltering only for a second. Mateo stood by the window, his face draining of color as he saw me.

"Carmen," Mateo gasped, taking a step forward. "It’s not—"

"You killed her!" I lunged toward Bennett, my fingers curled into claws, desperate to tear the skin from his face. "You sacrificed my baby for *her*?"

Bennett didn’t flinch. He didn’t look remorseful. He looked annoyed. As I rushed him, his eyes flashed a brilliant, terrifying crimson. The air in the room instantly grew heavy, crushing, as his aura expanded to fill the space.

"**Submission!**"

The Alpha Command hit me like a physical blow. It was a supernatural weight that bypassed my will and seized my muscles. My knees buckled, slamming hard against the floorboards. My jaw clamped shut, choking off my scream. I fought against it, tears streaming down my face, but my body betrayed me, forcing me into a crouch, my head lowered against my will.

"Pathetic," Victoria drawled. She stepped out from behind Bennett, smoothing her silk robe. The scent of vanilla was suffocating now, choking me. She walked over to where I knelt, paralyzed by the Alpha tone, and looked down at me with cold, amused eyes.

"Bennett," I tried to whimper through my locked teeth, pleading with my eyes. *How could you? She was your daughter.*

Bennett stood up, buttoning his shirt, refusing to look at me. "Get her out of here, Mateo. She’s hysterical."

Victoria laughed softly, a cruel, tinkling sound. She stepped over my prone legs to stand beside Bennett, resting her hand possessively on his chest. "See, Bennett? I told you. A wolf that goes dormant from a little trauma is useless to you. She can’t even stand in the presence of her Alpha. She’s not a Luna. She’s barely a pet."

I stared up at them from the floor, unable to move, unable to speak, as the man I loved and the woman he chose over our daughter looked down on me with nothing but contempt.

The mud sucked at my boots, heavy and cold, as if the land itself was trying to hold me back. I didn't care. I scrambled up the slippery embankment of the pack border, my breath coming in ragged gasps. The Council. I just had to reach the neutral grounds. If I could show them what I knew, if I could scream the truth about Bennett and Mateo to the world, justice would finally come.

But the forest was never silent for an Alpha’s wife.

"Luna, stop!"

Three large grey wolves emerged from the mist, blocking the path. They were patrol warriors, boys I had watched grow up. Their ears were flattened against their skulls, their eyes filled with apology, but they didn't move.

"Let me pass!" I screamed, my voice raw. "Bennett is a murderer! He killed Kiara!"

They flinched, but before they could respond, a shadow fell over me. The scent of rain and pine—once my comfort, now my nightmare—suffocated the air. A hand clamped onto my upper arm, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.

"My poor Carmen," Bennett’s voice was smooth, dangerously calm. He didn't look at me; he looked at the patrol wolves. "She’s having an episode. The grief… it’s finally broken her mind."

"I am not crazy!" I thrashed against his grip, but without my wolf, I was nothing more than a fragile human against a monster. "He let the rogues in! He sacrificed our daughter!"

Bennett shook his head sadly, sighing for the benefit of the onlookers. "See? She’s delusional. Take her back to the house. High security protocols. She is a danger to herself."

I was dragged back to the Pack House not as a Luna, but as a prisoner. The pity in the eyes of the pack members as we passed was worse than their scorn. They didn't see a victim; they saw a broken woman who had lost her mind along with her pup.

Bennett threw me into our bedroom and locked the heavy oak door from the outside. I pounded on the wood until my knuckles bled, but silence was my only answer.

Hours bled into one another. I sat curled in the corner, staring at the empty spot where Kiara’s crib used to be before we moved it to the nursery. I felt hollow. My inner wolf was a void, a dark cavern that hadn't echoed with a growl in three years.

Then, a sharp pain spiked in my temples. It wasn't a sound, but a feeling—slimy and intrusive.

*Poor, wolfless Carmen.*

Victoria. She was projecting a mind-link. Even with my wolf dormant, the pack bond allowed high-ranking members to force their voices into my head. I clamped my hands over my ears, but you can’t shut out a mental intrusion.

An image flooded my mind, vivid and cruel. It was a memory, or perhaps something happening right now. Bennett and Victoria were standing in the center of Kiara’s nursery. The soft yellow wallpaper was peeling. They were laughing.

*"This room has the best light,"* Victoria’s mental voice purred, layering over the image. *"Bennett said I could gut it. Imagine, Carmen. Your dead brat’s room turned into my walk-in closet. I need somewhere to put all the gifts he buys me."*

"Get out of my head!" I screamed into the empty room.

*"A wolfless Luna is a stain on this pack,"* she hissed, the image fading into a headache. *"Do us all a favor and let the grief finish the job."*

I didn't sleep that night. Rage kept me warm.

The next evening, the lock clicked open. Bennett stood there, dressed in a sharp black suit. The Winter Solstice. I had forgotten. The entire pack would be gathering in the Great Hall to honor the Moon Goddess.

"Wash your face," Bennett commanded, tossing a dress onto the bed. "You will come downstairs, you will stand by my side, and you will smile. If you say one word about 'murder' or 'betrayal,' I will have you sedated and sent to the asylum by morning. Do you understand?"

I dressed in silence. My hands shook as I applied makeup to hide the dark circles. I wasn't doing this for him. I was doing this because I needed to find another way out.

The Great Hall was suffocating. The scent of roasted meat and pine boughs couldn't mask the underlying tension. As I walked in on Bennett’s arm, the chatter died down. I kept my head high, ignoring the whispers. *"Crazy,"* they said. *"Broken."*

"Happy Solstice, Alpha. Luna."

Victoria approached us, holding a glass of champagne. She looked radiant in a crimson gown that hugged every curve, a stark contrast to my pale, hollow features. She smiled at me, a predator toying with a mouse.

"I'm so glad you felt well enough to join us, Carmen," she said, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "It wouldn't be a celebration without you."

She took a sip of her drink, and the movement drew my eyes to her neck. She was wearing a new necklace. It was a simple leather cord, strung with small, jagged white objects.

I frowned, squinting slightly. They looked like bone. Small, irregular chips of bone.

Then, the room stopped spinning. The noise of the party faded into a dull roar.

I knew those shapes. I knew the tiny ridges on the bottom of the central piece. I had kept them in a small glass jar on the mantelpiece for five years. They were Kiara’s baby teeth. The ones that had fallen out just before she died. The ones that had vanished from our room the week after the funeral.

Victoria saw my gaze. She reached up, fingering the small white teeth lovingly.

"Do you like it?" she whispered, leaning in close so only I could hear. "Bennett gave it to me. He said he found them in the trash. He thought they would make a lovely trophy. A reminder that out with the old... means making room for the new."

A sound tore from my throat—not a scream, not a sob. It was a growl. Low, vibrating, and utterly feral. For the first time in three years, the void inside me flickered with a spark of heat. It wasn't my wolf fully awakening, but it was something primal. Something dangerous.

She was wearing my dead daughter’s teeth as jewelry.

I didn't care about the plan. I didn't care about the asylum. I looked at Bennett, who was laughing with an Elder nearby, and then I looked back at Victoria’s smirk.

"Take it off," I whispered, my voice trembling with a violence that frightened even me. "Take it off, or I will cut it off."

"Take it off!"

The scream tore from my throat, raw and bloody. I didn't care about the Solstice. I didn't care about the pack watching. I launched myself at Victoria, my fingers hooked into claws, aiming straight for the gruesome trophy around her neck.

Victoria shrieked, stumbling back in her heels, but she didn't look scared. She looked triumphant. "Alpha! She's crazy! Help me!"

My fingers brushed the cold, jagged surface of Kiara's tooth just before a massive weight slammed into my side. The air left my lungs in a whoosh. I hit the frozen dirt hard, the taste of mud and dead grass filling my mouth.

A low, vibrating growl shook the ground beneath me. I looked up, gasping, into the amber eyes of a massive grey wolf. Bennett.

He didn't look at me with recognition. He looked at me like a rogue. Like a threat. He snarled, his lips peeling back to reveal teeth far sharper than the ones Victoria wore. He snapped his jaws inches from my nose, a clear warning. *Submit.*

The Alpha aura rolled off him in suffocating waves, pinning me to the earth more effectively than his paws. My human body instinctively curled in, exposing my neck in a gesture of surrender I hated myself for making.

*Apologize.*

His voice invaded my mind, heavy and distorted by the wolf's consciousness.

"I..." I choked, tears blurring my vision. "I can't..."

He pressed his paw harder onto my chest, squeezing the air from my ribs. A whimper escaped my lips. The pack was silent, watching their Luna being treated like a feral dog.

*Apologize to your Beta. Now.*

"I'm sorry," I sobbed, the words tasting like ash. "I'm sorry, Victoria."

Bennett’s wolf huffed, a sound of derision, and stepped off me. He trotted over to Victoria, nuzzling her hand before retreating to the trees to shift back. Victoria smoothed her dress, looking down at me with a pitying sneer.

"Poor thing," she said loud enough for the crowd to hear. "Grief makes people do ugly things."

I lay in the dirt, too broken to move. I wanted the earth to swallow me whole.

Then, the gravel of the driveway crunched under heavy tires.

The atmosphere shifted instantly. The murmurs of the pack died out, replaced by a sudden, tense silence. Three black SUVs rolled into the clearing, their windows tinted dark as night. They looked like sleek predators amidst the rustic setting of our Pack House.

The lead car’s door opened. A pair of polished black boots hit the ground.

The man who stepped out was tall, with broad shoulders that strained against his dark charcoal suit. But it wasn't his size that made the air in the clearing grow heavy and electric. It was his aura. It rolled off him like a thunderhead, dark and oppressive, tasting of ozone and imminent violence.

Alpha River George.

My breath hitched. I hadn't seen him in years, not since we were children running through these same woods. He had been a boy then. Now, he was a king.

Every wolf in the clearing, including Bennett’s Beta, instinctively dipped their heads, their inner wolves recognizing a predator far higher on the food chain.

River didn't look at them. His gaze swept the area with laser focus until it landed on me.

I knew what I looked like. Mud-stained dress, hair wild, tears streaking my face, kneeling in the dirt.

River’s movement stopped. His pupils blew wide, swallowing the iris until his eyes were almost entirely black. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle feathered in his cheek. For a second, I thought he was going to shift right there and tear the throat out of anyone standing near me.

Then, the mask slammed back into place. He adjusted his cuffs and began to walk toward the gathering, his stride eating up the distance.

I scrambled to my feet, trying to brush the dirt from my dress, shame burning my cheeks. I stumbled toward the drinks table, desperate to hide, to wash the taste of mud from my mouth.

My hands shook so badly I couldn't grip the ladle for the punch.

"Allow me."

The voice was deep, vibrating in my chest like the low hum of a cello. I froze.

River stood beside me. Up close, he was overwhelming. He smelled of deep ocean and cedar wood, a scent so clean and powerful it cut through the stench of my own misery.

I stumbled back, my heel catching on a tree root. I flailed, bracing for another fall.

River’s hand shot out, catching my elbow.

*Zap.*

A jolt of static electricity, sharp and hot, arced between our skin. It wasn't just a static shock. It was a current, traveling up my arm and slamming straight into my heart.

*Thump-thump.*

Deep inside me, in the dark void where my wolf had slept for three years, something stirred. A tiny, phantom warmth. A heartbeat that wasn't my own.

I gasped, looking up at him. River’s eyes were locked on mine, wide and stunned. He felt it too. His grip on my arm tightened, not painful, but anchoring. Like he was the only thing keeping me from floating away.

"Carmen," he breathed, his voice rough.

"Get your hands off her."

The growl came from behind us. Bennett pushed between us, his face flushed with anger and exertion from his recent shift. He reeked of wet dog and pine.

He grabbed my other arm, yanking me away from River. The loss of contact made me physically cold, as if the sun had just gone behind a cloud.

"She is my mate, River," Bennett spat, puffing out his chest, trying to expand his aura to match River’s. It was pathetic, like a candle trying to outshine a bonfire. "And she is unwell. Do not touch her."

River didn't back down. He didn't even blink. He looked at Bennett’s hand on my arm, his lip curling in disgust, before raising his eyes to Bennett’s face.

"She doesn't look unwell, Bennett," River said, his voice dangerously calm. "She looks abused."

The air between them crackled, thick with aggressive pheromones. Bennett gripped me tighter, possessive and cruel, but my eyes were glued to River.

For the first time in three years, I didn't feel alone.