The guest wing smelled like disuse and mothballs.

Xavier had called it "temporary accommodations for her mental health." The two young Delta warriors stationed outside my door—boys, really, barely twenty—had looked uncomfortable when they confiscated my phone, my tablet, even the small communication device I'd worn on my wrist.

"Alpha's orders, Miss Montgomery," the taller one had mumbled, not meeting my eyes.

Miss Montgomery. Not Luna. Not even Cynthia.

The door clicked shut. I heard the lock engage.

Aurora paced in my mind, furious. *We should tear through that door. Rip out his throat.*

*Not yet,* I told her, forcing calm into my thoughts. *We need information first.*

I surveyed the room with the clinical eye my Northern instructors had drilled into me. Small window, reinforced glass. Door hinges on the outside. Air vent too narrow for a wolf to fit through, but possibly large enough for—

I stopped myself. I wasn't trying to escape. Not yet.

I needed to understand what Xavier had done to my pack. How deep his corruption ran. The neglected borders, the lazy sentries, the pack house reeking of decay—these were symptoms. I needed to find the disease.

I sat cross-legged on the narrow bed and closed my eyes, slipping into the meditative state that had taken me two years to master. My breathing slowed. My heartbeat steadied. The Northern Territories' elite didn't just train warriors. They trained ghosts.

And ghosts could walk through walls.

---

The morning came too soon.

Xavier's voice boomed through the door, accompanied by the scrape of the lock. "Time for your purification ceremony, Cynthia. The pack deserves to see you cleansed."

The warriors flanking him looked eager now, emboldened by daylight and their Alpha's presence. They grabbed my arms—not roughly, but firmly enough to make a point.

The training grounds were packed.

Every wolf in the territory seemed to be there, forming a loose circle around the muddy center ring. The rain had stopped, but the ground was still soaked, churned into thick sludge by dozens of feet.

Baylee stood in the middle, wearing designer boots and a smirk. Behind her sat three large buckets.

"The rogue scent clings to those who abandon their pack," Xavier announced, his Alpha tone carrying across the grounds. "Before Cynthia Montgomery can be welcomed back, she must be purified."

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Some looked uncertain. Most looked entertained.

Baylee lifted the first bucket. "This will mask the rogue stench," she said sweetly, her phone propped on a nearby post, recording everything.

The mixture hit me like a physical blow. Mud, yes, but also rotting food scraps, something that smelled like sewage. It soaked through my clothes, cold and vile, dripping into my eyes.

Laughter erupted from the crowd.

Baylee dumped the second bucket. Then the third.

I stood there, silent, as filth ran down my face. Aurora howled in rage, but I kept her leashed. I kept my eyes open, scanning the crowd through the muck.

There—Delta Marcus, looking away, jaw tight.

There—young Derek Walsh, the warrior I'd trained with as a teenager, his face twisted with shame.

There—a cluster of she-wolves, laughing, phones out, recording my humiliation for posterity.

I memorized every face. Every laugh. Every turned back.

"Welcome home," Baylee whispered as she passed me, close enough that only I could hear. "This is my pack now."

I said nothing.

But I smiled.

---

Back in the guest wing, I stripped off the ruined clothes and stood under the weak shower spray until the water ran clear. The young guards had returned my confinement with visible relief, probably grateful they hadn't been ordered to participate in the spectacle.

I dried off, dressed in the plain clothes they'd left me, and sat on the bed.

Then I closed my eyes and dove deep.

Ghost Linking was forbidden in most packs. It was considered an invasion, a violation of the sacred mind-link that connected pack members. But the Northern Territories had taught me that sometimes, survival required breaking sacred rules.

I slipped into the slipstream, that rushing river of pack consciousness that flowed beneath every wolf's awareness. Xavier's mental firewalls were laughable—crude barriers that a trained tracker could bypass in seconds.

I moved through the pack's collective memory like smoke, searching for the hidden spaces, the locked doors in Xavier's mind.

And then I found it.

A folder, buried deep, labeled with sickening pride: "The Conquest List."

I opened it.

Names. Dates. Ratings. Nearly a thousand entries, each one a she-wolf Xavier had bedded, ranked by performance like they were restaurants on a review site.

Some I recognized. Pack members. Visitors. Omegas who'd probably thought sleeping with the Alpha would improve their station.

My stomach turned.

But I kept reading. Because buried in that list was something else. Something worse.

Meetings with rogues. Coordinates. Promises of "safe passage" through our territory in exchange for—

The connection snapped.

I gasped, my eyes flying open. Someone had detected the intrusion. Not Xavier—he wasn't skilled enough. But someone had felt me in the link.

Aurora's voice was grim. *They know we're hunting now.*

*Good,* I thought, my hands steady despite my racing heart. *Let them know.*

I had what I needed.

And Xavier Reynolds had no idea what was coming.

The pack house settled into silence around two in the morning.

I waited another hour, listening to the guards outside my door settle into their rhythm. One snored softly. The other hummed under his breath, some pop song I didn't recognize.

I slipped back into the slipstream.

This time, I wasn't hunting for Xavier's sick trophy collection. I was following the money.

The pack's financial system was supposed to be secure, protected by layers of encryption and Council oversight. But Xavier had gotten sloppy. Arrogant. He'd reused passwords, left backdoors open, treated the pack's resources like his personal bank account.

I found the ledgers within minutes.

My father had left the pack wealthy. Strong borders, well-equipped warriors, emergency funds that could sustain us through years of hardship. The numbers glowed in my mind's eye as I traced them forward through time.

Three years ago, everything changed.

Large withdrawals. Luxury car dealerships. Jewelry stores. High-end hotels. Xavier had bled the pack dry, spending money meant for border sensors on diamond necklaces. Funds allocated for warrior armor had purchased sports cars.

Aurora's rage burned white-hot in my mind. *He left our warriors defenseless so he could buy toys for his whores.*

I kept digging, my tracker training guiding me through the digital maze. And then I found them.

The forged Council decrees.

They were crude, really. Any Council member would have spotted them immediately. But Xavier had never submitted them for verification—he'd simply shown them to the pack, using his Alpha tone to prevent anyone from questioning their authenticity.

The first decree declared me dead. Killed in a training accident in the Northern Territories. It was dated six months after I'd left.

The second decree named Xavier as the rightful Alpha, claiming my father had secretly amended his will before his death.

Lies. All lies.

But lies the pack had believed because their Alpha had commanded them to believe.

I pulled back from the slipstream, my hands shaking. Not from fear. From fury so cold it burned.

I had everything I needed now. The conquest list. The financial corruption. The forged documents. Xavier had built his kingdom on a foundation of lies, and I was going to bring it crashing down.

But first, I needed to survive the night.

---

Morning brought an unexpected visitor.

The lock clicked. The door swung open. And a woman I hadn't seen in over a decade swept into my cell like she owned it.

Xavier's mother looked exactly as I remembered—beautiful, cold, and utterly self-absorbed. Her designer clothes probably cost more than most pack members made in a month. Diamonds glittered at her throat and wrists.

"Cynthia Montgomery," she purred, settling into the room's only chair like it was a throne. "How the mighty have fallen."

I said nothing. Just watched her with the patience my instructors had drilled into me.

"I heard my son had finally taken his rightful place," she continued, examining her manicure. "I had to come see for myself. And look—here you are, caged like the rabid bitch you always were."

Aurora snarled, but I kept my face blank.

"You Montgomerys always thought you were so special," she said, her voice dripping with venom. "Your father, with his noble bloodline and his precious legacy. He took my son in, gave him scraps from the Alpha's table, and expected gratitude."

"My father honored Xavier as my mate," I said quietly. "He welcomed him as family."

"He made him feel inferior!" She leaned forward, her composure cracking. "Every day, Xavier had to watch you parade around with your Alpha blood, your birthright, your destiny. Do you know what that does to a wolf? To know he'll never be good enough, no matter what he achieves?"

"So you encouraged him to destroy us."

Her smile was razor-sharp. "I encouraged him to take what should have been his. To breed out your precious Montgomery line with good, strong Gamma blood. To prove that leadership isn't about bloodline—it's about power."

She stood, smoothing her skirt. "I found a wealthy mate in the Mountain Ridge Pack. I don't need the Silver Moon's charity anymore. But before I left, I wanted to see you broken. And here you are."

She walked to the door, paused. "Xavier always hated you, you know. Even when you were children. Especially when you were children. Every kindness your father showed him was just another reminder that he wasn't born to this. That he had to earn what you got for free."

The door closed behind her.

I sat very still, processing. Xavier's corruption wasn't opportunistic. It was calculated. Revenge dressed up as ambition.

Good.

That made what I was about to do so much easier.

---

The alarm shrieked through the pack house just after sunset.

I heard the commotion from my cell—running footsteps, shouted orders, Xavier's voice booming with irritation.

"It's probably another glitch! Derek, take your squad and check it out. I'm not leaving my mother's welcome dinner for a faulty sensor."

Derek. The young Delta who'd looked away during my humiliation.

I closed my eyes and reached for the pack link, just barely, just enough to sense the borders.

The alarm wasn't a glitch.

Rogues. At least a dozen of them. Moving toward the weakest point in our defenses—the eastern border where Xavier had removed the sensors to save money.

And Xavier was sending inexperienced warriors to face them alone.

I stood, walked to my door, and knocked.

The guard opened it, looking annoyed. "What?"

"Tell your Alpha," I said clearly, "that if he doesn't send reinforcements to the eastern border in the next five minutes, Derek Walsh and his entire squad are going to die."

The guard laughed. "The Alpha doesn't take orders from prisoners."

"Then their blood," I said softly, "will be on his hands."

I sat back down and waited.

Somewhere in the distance, wolves began to howl.

The howls grew louder. More desperate.

I didn't wait for Xavier's response. The lock on my door was cheap, designed to keep in someone who didn't know how to break it. I had the tumblers picked in under thirty seconds.

The guards were gone—probably pulled to deal with the alarm. Good.

I moved through the pack house like water, silent and fast. Aurora surged forward in my mind, eager for the hunt. The eastern border was two miles through dense forest. Derek's squad would be there in ten minutes. The rogues would hit them in five.

I shifted mid-run, my bones cracking and reforming with practiced ease. My silver-white wolf form was smaller than most Alphas, built for speed and stealth rather than brute force. Exactly what the Northern Territories had trained me for.

The forest swallowed me whole.

I caught Derek's scent first—young, nervous, trying too hard to be brave. His squad of six moved in a tight formation, weapons drawn but held wrong. They were expecting a small incursion. Maybe three rogues, max.

They had no idea.

I circled wide, staying downwind. The rogue pack was larger than I'd sensed through the link. Fifteen, maybe twenty. They moved with the coordination of wolves who'd hunted together before, flanking Derek's position from three sides.

This wasn't random. This was planned.

The first rogue struck before Derek's squad even knew they were surrounded. A massive gray wolf took down the rear guard, teeth sinking into his shoulder. The Delta's scream cut through the night.

Chaos erupted.

I didn't think. I just moved.

The Northern Territories had taught me to fight like a ghost—silent, lethal, gone before anyone realized you were there. I hit the gray wolf from behind, my jaws closing around his spine. He dropped without a sound.

Two more rogues turned toward me, but I was already gone, melting back into the shadows. They saw nothing but silver light and the scent of ozone.

I struck again. And again.

Each kill was surgical. Precise. I didn't waste energy on displays of dominance or prolonged fights. I found the weak points—throat, spine, major arteries—and I ended them.

Derek's squad rallied, fighting back-to-back now. They were holding, barely. But three of them were already down, bleeding into the forest floor.

A massive black rogue, clearly the leader, lunged for Derek's throat. I intercepted mid-leap, my smaller frame using momentum to knock him off course. We rolled, a tangle of fur and fangs. He was stronger, but I was faster.

I went for his eyes first, blinding him. Then his throat.

He died choking on his own blood.

The remaining rogues broke and ran. Smart. I let them go.

Derek stood in the center of the carnage, his wolf form trembling. His squad gathered around him, staring at the bodies. At me.

I met Derek's eyes for one long moment. Recognition flickered there—something familiar in the way I moved, the silver of my fur.

Then I turned and vanished into the trees, leaving only the scent of ozone and silver in my wake.

---

I was back in my locked room before anyone noticed I'd left.

The commotion started an hour later. Voices in the hallway, running footsteps. Xavier's Alpha tone booming through the pack house, demanding answers.

I sat on my bed, perfectly still, and listened.

"—saved us, Alpha. I swear it. A silver wolf, like nothing I've ever seen—"

"You're hallucinating from blood loss!" Xavier's voice cracked like a whip. The sound of flesh hitting flesh echoed through the walls. "There is no silver wolf. You failed to secure the border, and now you're making up stories to cover your incompetence!"

"But Alpha, the rogues—"

"Were handled by my warriors. Your warriors. Not some phantom."

Silence. Then Marcus's voice, quiet but firm. "Xavier, the boy is telling the truth. I can smell it on him. Something was out there."

"Are you questioning me, Beta?"

The pause stretched too long.

"No, Alpha," Marcus finally said. But I heard the doubt in his voice. The first crack in his loyalty.

Good.

---

Baylee came to visit me the next morning.

She swept into my room like she owned it, wearing a designer dress that probably cost more than the medical supplies Xavier had cut from the pack budget. Her phone was out, of course, recording everything.

"I have news," she announced, her voice dripping with false sweetness. She held up a small white stick. "I'm pregnant."

I looked at the positive test, then at her face. She was glowing with triumph.

"Xavier's pup," she continued. "The true heir to the Silver Moon Pack. Once he's born, you'll be executed for treason. Xavier promised."

Aurora stirred in my mind, but I kept my expression neutral. I inhaled deeply, using the enhanced senses the Northern Territories had sharpened to a razor's edge.

And I smelled it.

Rot. Decay. The sickly-sweet stench of something dying from the inside out.

It came from her womb.

The pup she carried wasn't healthy. It was corrupted, poisoned by Xavier's weak, depraved wolf. I'd heard of it before—Never-Shifts, pups born to corrupted fathers who would never awaken their wolves. They lived half-lives, neither fully human nor fully wolf, often dying young.

Baylee had no idea she was carrying her own tragedy.

"Congratulations," I said softly.

She frowned, clearly expecting more of a reaction. "You're not even going to beg? Plead for your life?"

I met her eyes. "Why would I? You've already lost."

Her face twisted with rage. She stepped closer, her phone still recording. "I haven't lost anything. I'm going to be Luna. I'm going to have Xavier's heir. And you're going to die knowing you were replaced by an Omega."

I smiled. "Keep telling yourself that."

She stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

I sat back down on the bed, my mind already moving to the next step. Xavier's corruption was deeper than I'd thought. He wasn't just stealing my legacy—he was poisoning the future of the pack itself.

And Baylee, desperate and blind, had tied herself to a sinking ship.

The Moon Goddess had a cruel sense of justice.