The attic door didn't just open; it slammed against the wall, vibrating with the force of Henry’s rage. I didn't flinch. I was done flinching.

I was carefully folding the last of my plain cotton shirts into my duffel bag when Henry stormed into my sanctuary. His chest was heaving, his tie loosened, the perfect image of an Alpha who had lost control of his narrative. His eyes swept over the room—my room—landing not on me, but on the drafting table in the corner.

It was covered in blueprints. The Western Perimeter upgrades. The sensor calibration charts. The structural reinforcements for the nursery. The lifeblood of the Silver Creek Pack, drawn in my handwriting.

"You think you can just leave?" Henry snarled, crossing the room in two strides. "You think you can walk out of here and embarrass me?"

"You embarrassed yourself, Henry," I said, my voice quiet. "I'm just removing the audience."

He laughed, a harsh, jagged sound. "You’re taking nothing. You came here with nothing, you leave with nothing."

He grabbed the stack of blueprints. My breath hitched—not out of fear, but out of sheer disbelief at his stupidity. Those weren't just drawings. They were the only reason his pack hadn't been overrun by rogues three months ago.

"Henry, don't," I warned, stepping forward. "Those are the defensive grid schematics. You don't know how to read the backups."

"I don't need your scribbles!" he shouted. With a violent rip, he tore the blueprints in half. Then again. He threw the confetti of blue and white paper into the air, letting it rain down around us like the ashes of his future. "You think you're important? You’re a wolfless Omega who played with pencils while I led this pack!"

He wasn't done. He kicked the drafting table, the wood splintering under his Alpha strength. My inkwells shattered. The rulers snapped. In seconds, five years of strategic defense planning was reduced to kindling.

"Get out," he breathed, pointing a trembling finger at the door. "Before I kill you myself."

I looked at the ruined drawings on the floor. I felt a cold, hard knot tighten in my chest. He had just destroyed his own shield.

I zipped my bag. "Goodbye, Henry."

I walked past him, down the narrow stairs, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I needed to get to the border. Once I crossed the territory line, I was a rogue, but I was free.

I reached the back door of the pack house, my hand hovering over the handle, when the sirens began to wail.

It was the Intruder Alarm—a sound I had designed to trigger only during a full-scale invasion. Then, Henry’s voice boomed over the Pack Link, amplified through the PA system for those who couldn't hear the telepathic channel.

*"All units! Stop Sloan Patterson! She has looted the treasury! She is fleeing with pack funds! Detain her at all costs!"*

The lie was so audacious, so completely backward, that I almost laughed. I hadn't stolen from the treasury; I *was* the treasury. Every cent in that vault had come from my private accounts.

But the warriors wouldn't know that. To them, I was just a fleeing thief.

I burst out the door into the cool night air, my boots slamming against the gravel. I didn't run toward the main road. That was suicide. I turned sharp left, sprinting toward the dense forest that bordered the eastern ridge.

I knew exactly where to run. I knew because I had left the gaps there intentionally.

*Camera 4 has a three-second lag,* I reminded myself, ducking under a low-hanging branch. I counted the beats—one, two, three—and dashed across the open clearing just as the lens swiveled away.

*The pressure sensors in Sector 7 are offline for maintenance.* I hit the dirt path, ignoring the burning in my lungs. My human body was weak, far weaker than the wolves hunting me, but my mind was the architect of this terrain.

I could hear them behind me—the heavy thud of paws, the snapping of twigs. They were fast. Too fast.

I pushed harder, my legs screaming in protest. The roar of the Silver River grew louder ahead, a thunderous sound of rushing water that marked the edge of the territory. There was no bridge here. Just a sheer drop and the violent, white-capped current that had claimed a dozen lives over the years.

I broke through the tree line and skidded to a halt on the muddy bank. The river raged below, black and swollen from the recent rains.

I turned around, chest heaving, trapped between the water and the woods.

Three wolves emerged from the shadows.

Henry was in his human form, shirtless, his chest heaving as he shifted back to mock me. Beside him stood Maddison, looking smug and untouched, still in her red dress. And flanking them, silent and grim, was Beta Joshua White.

"End of the line, Sloan," Henry panted, a cruel grin stretching across his face. "Nowhere left to run."

"Hand over the bag," Maddison sneered, stepping closer, her eyes gleaming with malice. "Let's see what you stole."

I clutched the strap of my bag tighter, feeling the weight of the Lycan Crest Brooch pinned over my heart. They thought I was trapped. They didn't realize that the only thing keeping them safe was the fact that I hadn't shifted yet.

The roar of the Silver River was deafening, a churning black abyss behind me that smelled of wet earth and violence. But the predators in front of me were far more dangerous.

Henry stood ten feet away, his chest heaving, the moonlight catching the sweat on his skin. Beside him, Maddison smoothed her crimson dress, her eyes darting between me and the sheer drop at my heels. Beta Joshua hung back, his face a mask of professional indifference, though I saw his hand hovering near his belt knife.

"Give it to me, Sloan," Henry demanded, extending a hand. "The bag. The money you stole. Don't make this uglier than it already is."

"I didn't steal anything," I said, my voice barely carrying over the rushing water. I clutched the strap of my duffel bag tighter, the Lycan Crest Brooch digging into the skin over my heart. "Check the accounts, Henry. Check the transfer logs. Every cent in that vault came from my inheritance."

"Liar!" Maddison shrieked. She stepped forward, her heels sinking into the soft mud of the riverbank. "You're just a greedy, wolfless leech! You've been bleeding this pack dry for years!"

She lunged at me. It was a clumsy, theatrical move. I didn't even have to dodge; I just braced myself. But she didn't aim for me. She aimed for the air beside me.

Maddison threw herself backward, flailing her arms as if I had shoved her with the strength of a Lycan. She hit the rocky ground with a cry that sounded practiced.

"Henry!" she wailed, clutching her ankle. "She pushed me! She tried to kill me!"

It was a lie so transparent a pup could see through it. But Henry didn't want the truth. He wanted an excuse.

"You bitch!"

The growl ripped from Henry’s throat. He closed the distance between us in a blur of motion. before I could even raise my hands, his fingers clamped around my throat.

The world tilted. My feet left the ground.

I clawed at his wrist, my human nails useless against his Alpha skin. He lifted me high, dangling me over the precipice of the riverbank. Below me, the white-capped water smashed against the jagged rocks, waiting to swallow anything that fell.

"Henry," I choked out, my vision spotting with black dots. "Don't..."

He pulled me close, his face inches from mine. His eyes, once the source of my comfort, were now void of any humanity. There was no conflict in him. No hesitation.

"I should have done this years ago," he hissed, his breath hot against my cheek. "Do you know how hard it was? Pretending to care about a weak, broken thing like you?"

Tears pricked my eyes—not from fear, but from the sheer, crushing weight of wasted time. Five years. I had given him five years of my life.

"I never loved you, Sloan," he whispered, the words cutting deeper than any blade. "You were just a placeholder. A warm body until a real wolf came along."

He didn't throw me. He simply opened his hand.

Gravity took me instantly.

The wind rushed past my ears, a short, sharp scream that I didn't realize was my own. I hit the water hard. The cold was a physical shock, a thousand needles piercing my skin all at once. The current grabbed me like a giant hand, twisting me, dragging me under.

I tumbled through the blackness, my shoulder slamming against a submerged rock. Pain exploded down my arm, stealing my breath. I kicked, fighting the heavy, sodden weight of my clothes, fighting the river that wanted to keep me.

I broke the surface for a split second, gasping for air.

Through the spray and the darkness, I looked up at the bank. Henry was there. But he wasn't looking for me. He wasn't checking to see if his wife had survived the fall.

He had his back to the river.

Maddison was in his arms. He was stroking her hair, soothing her fake tears, while I drowned in the dark water below. He had already forgotten me.

A wave crashed over my head, shoving me back down into the icy depths.

I sank. The roar of the water became a muffled thrum. My lungs burned. My heart hammered a frantic, dying rhythm against my ribs. The darkness pressed in on all sides, cold and final.

*Let go,* a voice whispered in my mind. *Just let go.*

I closed my eyes. I was going to die here. Sloan Miller, the wolfless Omega, was going to die in the mud, unloved and unavenged.

*No.*

The thought wasn't mine. It was deeper. Older.

Inside my chest, beneath the fear and the freezing water, something snapped. It was the sound of a heavy iron lock breaking. The mental cage I had built five years ago—the walls I had constructed to make myself small enough for Henry—shattered into dust.

I didn't need to be small anymore.

A heat, fierce and sudden, erupted from the center of my being. It wasn't the warmth of life; it was the fire of a star. My eyes snapped open.

The water around me began to hiss. Bubbles rose rapidly as the freezing river started to boil against my skin.

A blinding white light exploded from my chest, illuminating the murky depths like a flare. My bones cracked, shifting, lengthening, breaking and reforming with a speed that should have been agonizing but felt like ecstasy.

The Omega was dead.

And the Princess was waking up.