The infirmary was silent except for the soft clink of glass vials as I returned them to their shelves. My hands moved mechanically, sorting herbs I could identify in my sleep. Moonpetal root. Silverleaf extract. Wolfsbane powder.

My neck still ached where Jaden's fingers had dug in.

The warrior had survived. Barely. I'd knelt on that floor for two hours, pouring every ounce of strength into pulling the poison from his veins while Jaden's hand stayed locked on my neck like a collar. A reminder of what I was.

Nothing.

"Child."

I spun around. Elena stood in the doorway, her weathered face half-hidden in shadow. The elderly healer moved like a ghost, silent and careful.

"You should be resting," I said, turning back to my work. "It's late."

"So should you." She crossed the room, her joints creaking. "But here we are."

I didn't answer. What was there to say?

Her gnarled hand closed over mine, stopping my movements. "That light in your palms. When you healed Marcus today."

"What about it?"

"It's not normal, Ocean." Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "I've been a healer for sixty years. I've never seen silver light like that. Not in any common wolf."

Something cold slithered down my spine. "I don't understand."

"The Royal Family." Elena's eyes searched mine, urgent and afraid. "The old legends speak of healing light that glows like moonbeams. A gift passed through the Lycan bloodline."

I pulled my hand away. "That's ridiculous. I'm nobody. I don't even have a wolf."

"Don't you?" She stepped closer. "Or has someone made very sure you believe that?"

The words hung between us, dangerous and impossible.

"Why would Jaden keep you so close, yet so suppressed?" Elena continued. "Why does he watch you like a hawk? Why does he give you that 'medicine' every single day?"

My throat tightened. The bitter tea Jaden insisted I drink each morning. For my health, he'd said. To keep me strong.

"You need to find out the truth," Elena whispered. "Before it's too late."

She left as silently as she'd come, leaving me alone with questions that felt like knives.

I shouldn't have gone to his quarters. I knew that even as my feet carried me through the darkened pack house, past sleeping guards and empty hallways. I just needed to talk to him. To explain that I wasn't trying to sabotage anyone. That I was loyal. That I was worthy.

The lies we tell ourselves are always the cruelest.

Light spilled from beneath Jaden's door. Voices drifted through the wood—his, and Rosalie's.

I raised my hand to knock.

"She's so pathetic," Rosalie's laugh was sharp and bright. "Did you see her face when you made her kneel? I thought she might actually cry."

"She's useful." Jaden's voice, casual and cold. "For now."

My hand froze.

"Once she teaches me the final incantation, we're done with her, right?" Rosalie asked. "You promised."

"Of course." Ice clinked in a glass. "We'll sell her to the rogue ring. They're always looking for healers, and they pay well. The suppressants are costing a fortune anyway."

The world stopped.

Suppressants.

Not medicine. Not vitamins. Not something to keep me healthy.

Poison.

Five years of poison, fed to me every morning by the man I thought saved my life.

"What if she refuses to teach me?" Rosalie's voice turned petulant.

"She won't. She's too broken to refuse anything." Jaden laughed, and the sound carved something vital out of my chest. "That's what five years of suppressants and manipulation will do. She actually thinks I care about her. It's almost sad."

I backed away from the door. One step. Two. My shoulder hit the wall and I barely felt it.

Saved me.

He saved me.

Except he didn't.

Elena's words echoed in my skull. Why would he keep you so close, yet so suppressed?

Because I was never his salvation project.

I was his prisoner.

The next morning, Jaden summoned me to his office. I went because my body still remembered how to obey, even when my mind was screaming.

He sat behind his desk, relaxed and confident. "Your journals. The ones with your healing research. I need them."

I looked at him—really looked at him—and wondered how I'd ever thought those eyes held warmth.

"No."

The word felt foreign on my tongue. Powerful.

Jaden's expression didn't change. "Excuse me?"

"I won't give you my journals." My voice was steady, stronger than I'd ever heard it. "And I won't teach Rosalie another thing."

Something flickered across his face. Surprise, maybe. Then rage.

He moved faster than I could track. His hand cracked across my face, snapping my head to the side. Pain exploded through my cheek, bright and sharp.

I tasted blood.

But I didn't fall.

I turned back to face him, my hand pressed to my burning cheek, and smiled.

Because for the first time in five years, I wasn't afraid.

I was furious.

The syringe glinted in Jaden's hand like a promise of oblivion.

"You think you can refuse me?" His voice was soft. Deadly.

I backed toward the door, but he was faster. His hand locked around my arm, yanking me forward with brutal force. My shoulder screamed in protest.

"Let go—"

"You need your medicine, Ocean." He dragged me across the office, toward the small cabinet where he kept his 'supplies.' "You've been so stressed lately. Missing doses. This will help you remember your place."

The cabinet door swung open. Glass vials lined the shelves, filled with amber liquid that suddenly looked nothing like medicine. Everything like poison.

I twisted in his grip, clawing at his hand. "No. No more—"

He slammed me backward.

Glass exploded around me. The cabinet shattered against my spine, and I felt the sharp kiss of a thousand tiny blades. Pain bloomed across my arm, hot and immediate. Blood welled up, dark against my skin.

But Jaden didn't stop.

He grabbed my jaw, forcing my head back. The syringe descended toward my neck, and I saw the liquid inside—thick, concentrated, wrong.

"This is a special batch," he said, almost conversational. "Triple strength. Should keep you compliant for weeks."

I bucked against him. My feet found his shin, and I kicked hard enough to make him grunt. His grip loosened for half a second.

It wasn't enough.

The needle pierced my skin.

Fire poured into my veins.

I gasped, my body going rigid. It felt like molten silver, burning through my bloodstream, racing toward my heart. My vision blurred. The room tilted sideways.

"There we go," Jaden murmured, pulling the empty syringe away. "Much better."

But something was wrong.

The burning didn't stop. It intensified, spreading from the injection site like wildfire. My blood felt too hot, too thick, like it was boiling beneath my skin.

My knees buckled.

"Ocean?" Jaden's voice sounded distant, muffled. "Ocean, what—"

My body convulsed.

It wasn't a seizure. It was a war. Every cell in my body screamed in rebellion, rejecting the poison flooding my system. The smell of my own blood—sweet and metallic and somehow powerful—filled my nose. It smelled nothing like human blood. Nothing like wolf blood.

It smelled like moonlight and ancient forests and something vast and terrible.

Royal.

The word whispered through my consciousness, foreign and familiar all at once.

"Fuck." Jaden grabbed my shoulders, shaking me. "Don't you dare die. Not before the Summit. Not before—"

Another convulsion ripped through me. My spine arched, my fingers curling into claws. Something inside me was breaking. Or waking. I couldn't tell the difference.

"Damn it." Jaden hauled me up, half-dragging, half-carrying me out of the office. My feet scraped against the floor, leaving bloody smears. "You're not dying in my office. Not where anyone can see."

The pack house blurred past. Stairs descended into darkness. The air grew cold and damp, heavy with the smell of earth and silver.

The dungeons.

He was taking me to the dungeons.

"You'll recover down here," he said, his voice tight with barely controlled panic. "Or you won't. Either way, no one will know until I decide what to do with you."

Iron bars clanged open. He shoved me inside, and I collapsed on the wet stone floor. The cell door slammed shut, the lock clicking with terrible finality.

"I'll check on you tomorrow," Jaden said. "If you're still breathing."

His footsteps echoed away, growing fainter and fainter until silence swallowed them whole.

I was alone.

In the dark.

Dying.

The convulsions came in waves now, each one stronger than the last. My bones felt like they were splintering, reshaping, breaking apart and reforming into something new. Something other.

I screamed, but no sound came out.

The suppressant burned through my veins, trying to hold me down, keep me weak, keep me broken.

But my blood—my royal blood—fought back.

It was like watching two tides collide. The poison versus my genetics. Five years of chemical bondage versus millennia of inherited power.

Something deep inside me stirred.

Not a thought. Not a memory.

A presence.

Wake up, it whispered. Wake up, Ocean. We've been asleep too long.

My back arched off the stone floor. Another wave of agony crashed over me, so intense I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't exist beyond the pain.

My bones cracked.

Reformed.

Cracked again.

And then—

Light.

Golden light, pouring from my skin like sunrise breaking over mountains. It filled the cell, warm and brilliant and utterly impossible. The silver bars hissed where the light touched them, steam rising in delicate curls.

The presence inside me grew stronger. Clearer.

Hello, sister, it said. My name is Aurora.

And I am your wolf.