I should have left.

Every rational part of me screamed to walk away—to gather what remained of my dignity, climb into the car Langston had waiting two towns over, and never look back. But I couldn't. Not yet. Not without understanding how ten years of letters, of sacrifice, of silent love had somehow become hatred in his eyes.

So I stayed.

The Omega quarters were exactly what the name implied. A row of narrow rooms at the pack's outer edge, where the walls were thin and the mattresses were thinner. I told the pack's intake coordinator I was passing through, that I had nowhere else to go. She looked at me with tired pity and handed me a room key without asking questions. Omegas never asked questions.

I unpacked almost nothing. I folded the torn gown carefully—the way you'd fold something sacred—and tucked it into the bottom of my bag. Then I sat on the edge of the stiff mattress and listened to the pack breathe around me.

Deep in my chest, my wolf curled tight and silent. She hadn't spoken since the gravel. Since him.

I pressed a hand to my sternum and tried to remember why I came.

Because I needed to know if the boy I loved was still somewhere inside that cold, beautiful stranger. Because I had given ten years to a promise, and I needed to look it in the eye before I let it go.

Because some part of me was terrifyingly foolish.

---

The pack gathering happened three days later in the grand courtyard—some weekly ritual of reports and announcements, Alphas performing their authority for the crowd. I kept to the back, near the hedgerow, trying to make myself invisible the way I'd practiced for a decade.

But scent doesn't care about invisibility.

I noticed it before he did. The slight shift in his posture. He was mid-sentence, addressing Marcus about eastern border rotations, when his nostrils flared—just barely, just for a second—and his eyes went dark.

He didn't look for me. He was too controlled for that. But his next sentence came out half a beat slower, and his jaw tightened in a way that had nothing to do with pack logistics.

I watched Victoria notice it too.

Her smile didn't waver, but her fingers tightened around his forearm like a vice. Her blue eyes swept the crowd with surgical precision until they landed on me, half-hidden behind the hedgerow. Something cold and calculating moved behind her gaze.

Then she smiled wider and leaned up to press a slow, deliberate kiss to Arian's jaw.

His focus snapped back to her immediately. He covered her hand with his, said something low near her ear. She laughed—that practiced, musical laugh—and the crowd relaxed.

But her eyes never left mine.

---

The assignment came the next morning.

A pack Omega named Petra delivered it personally, her eyes fixed on the floor the entire time. She held out a folded note like it might bite her.

*Report to the grand hall. Full floor scrub. Report to Head Luna Victoria Foster upon completion.*

I read it twice. Then I folded it neatly and put it in my pocket.

"Thank you, Petra."

She scurried away without responding.

The grand hall was enormous—forty feet of marble flooring that probably gleamed on normal days. Today it did not gleam. Someone had made sure of that. Muddy boot prints tracked in deliberate patterns from one end to the other, overlapping and layered. A bucket and a bristle brush sat waiting near the entrance, along with a single rag that had seen better years.

No gloves.

I looked at it for a long moment. My fingers—which had signed documents reorganizing entire pack financial structures, which had pressed royal seals into wax—curled at my sides.

Then I knelt down and started scrubbing.

An hour in, heels clicked on the marble behind me. I didn't look up.

"Missed a spot."

Victoria's voice was sweetness and razors. I heard her crouch to my eyeline—close enough that the diamond pendant at her throat caught the light.

"You know," she said, almost gently, "I don't usually bother with Omegas. But you're a special case, aren't you?"

I kept scrubbing.

"He looked at you during the gathering." Her voice dropped, the sweetness evaporating. "Don't think I didn't see it. Whatever scent trick you're using—"

"I'm not using anything." I said it quietly, still not looking at her.

Silence.

Then her heel pressed down—slowly, deliberately—onto the back of my already raw hand.

"Finish the floors," she said. "And stay away from what's mine."

She walked away. Her footsteps echoed until the hall swallowed them.

I stared at the marble. At the small pink smear where my knuckle had split again.

My wolf stirred, finally. Not with grief this time.

With something else entirely.

I learn to read him in stolen glances.

It becomes a survival skill—watching without being seen, cataloging the tiny fractures in his Alpha facade. Victoria demands his attention constantly, and he gives it. Public displays of affection that make my wolf whimper and my hands clench until my nails draw blood.

But I notice things.

Like today, in the training yard, when she pulls him down for a kiss in front of the gathered warriors. His mouth moves against hers with practiced ease, but his hands—his hands stay rigid at his sides, fingers curled into white-knuckled fists. And there, just for a heartbeat, a flinch. So subtle that anyone else would miss it.

But I don't miss it.

My wolf stirs with something dangerous. Hope. That treacherous, foolish thing that refuses to die no matter how many times I try to bury it.

I turn away before he can catch me watching. Before that hope can grow teeth.

---

The scream cuts through the night like a blade.

I'm walking back from the kitchens—another late shift, another pile of dishes that somehow needed an Omega's attention at midnight—when I hear it. High-pitched. Terrified. Coming from the direction of the pack nursery near the eastern border.

My feet move before my brain catches up.

The scene unfolds in snapshots. A young girl, maybe seven, frozen against the fence. The rogue—massive, scarred, eyes wild with bloodlust—lunging toward her with claws extended. The night patrol is nowhere in sight.

I don't think. I just move.

My Lycan speed kicks in like lightning through my veins. One second I'm twenty feet away, the next I'm between them. The rogue's claws meet my forearm instead of the child's throat. Pain explodes hot and sharp, but I use his momentum against him, twisting and driving my knee up into his ribs with force that sends him sprawling.

He hits the ground hard. Doesn't get back up.

The girl is sobbing. I'm breathing hard, my arm bleeding freely, when the pack warriors finally arrive—Marcus in the lead, three others behind him.

"What the hell—" Marcus stops short, taking in the scene.

I force my breathing to slow. Make my posture smaller, weaker. "I... I don't know. He just fell. I think he hit his head on the fence post."

Marcus looks from me to the unconscious rogue to the girl. His eyes narrow slightly, but he doesn't question it. Omegas don't take down rogues. It's not possible.

So it must have been luck.

"Get that arm looked at," he says gruffly, already moving to secure the rogue. "And get back to your quarters. This area isn't safe."

I nod, cradling my bleeding arm, and turn to leave.

That's when I feel it. The weight of a stare, heavy and burning between my shoulder blades.

I don't look back. But my wolf knows.

He's here. He saw.

---

I make it three blocks before he catches me.

The alley appears on my left—narrow, dark, the kind of space that swallows sound. A hand closes around my wrist and pulls me into the shadows so fast I don't have time to resist.

My back hits the brick wall. He cages me in, one hand beside my head, the other still gripping my wrist. His chest heaves like he's been running, and his eyes—gods, his eyes are molten.

"That was no lucky blow." His voice is rough, dangerous. "I've been tracking your scent all week. I saw what you did."

The mate bond roars to life between us. This close, it's overwhelming—electric currents racing across my skin everywhere he's near but not touching. My wolf claws at my control, desperate to close the distance.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I force the words out steady, even as my heart threatens to break through my ribs.

"Liar." He leans closer. His scent—pine and winter rain and something uniquely him—floods my senses until I can barely think. "What are you?"

His gaze drops to my mouth. His breathing changes, becomes heavier. The hand beside my head curls into a fist against the brick.

"Arian." His name comes out broken. A plea and a warning.

He inhales sharply, and I realize he's scenting me. Drawing in the peppery floral notes that mark me as his. His pupils dilate, and for one terrifying, perfect moment, I think he's going to kiss me.

His wolf is winning. I can see it in the way his control fractures, in the slight tremble of his hand near my face.

Then headlights sweep across the alley entrance.

He jerks back like I've burned him. The loss of his proximity is physically painful.

"Stay away from the borders," he grits out, but his voice shakes. "Stay away from—" He stops. Swallows hard. "Just stay away."

He's gone before I can respond, disappearing into the darkness like he was never there.

I slide down the wall, my legs suddenly unable to hold me.

My wolf howls inside my chest. And this time, I think I hear his wolf howling back.

His hand is on my throat before I can draw breath.

Not choking—just holding. A warning. His thumb presses against my pulse point, feeling it race beneath his touch, and his eyes are wild with something that looks like rage but smells like fear.

"What kind of game is this?" His voice is raw, shredded. "What are you?"

My back is flat against the brick. His body cages mine completely, and the mate bond screams between us—a living thing that claws at both our wolves, demanding we close the distance, demanding we stop fighting what the Moon Goddess made inevitable.

But he's not listening to his wolf anymore.

"Arian, please—" I start, but he cuts me off.

"No." He leans in closer, and I can see the moment his control shatters completely. "I know what you are. I've known since the moment you showed up in that fucking dress, playing innocent. You're a plant. A spy. That rich Lycan bastard who bought you ten years ago—he sent you here, didn't he? To infiltrate my pack. To destroy everything I've built."

The words hit like physical blows.

"What?" I breathe. "Arian, I never—"

"Don't." His grip tightens fractionally. "I saw you get into that Maybach. Ten years ago. The day before you were supposed to meet me. I watched you climb into a car worth more than my entire pack's territory, surrounded by guards like some precious commodity. You sold yourself, Sofia. And now you're back to finish the job."

Something inside me cracks. Not my heart—that broke days ago. Something deeper. The foundation I've been standing on since I was sixteen years old.

"You think I'm a spy," I say slowly. Quietly. "You think I came here to hurt you."

"I know you did." But his voice wavers. His thumb moves against my pulse—a caress he doesn't seem aware of making. "That speed. That strength. Omegas don't move like that. Don't fight like that. You're trained. Professional. And that scent—" He inhales sharply, his eyes darkening. "That fucking scent is designed to make me weak."

I stare at him. At this stranger wearing my mate's face.

"Let me go," I whisper.

He doesn't move. His chest heaves against mine, and I can feel his wolf battering at his control, howling in anguish at what his human half is doing.

"Let. Me. Go."

This time, something in my voice makes him flinch. He releases me like I've burned him, stumbling back two steps.

I straighten slowly. My throat aches where his hand was. My arm throbs where the rogue's claws caught me. But none of it compares to the hollow space opening up in my chest.

"You're right," I hear myself say. "I should have stayed away."

I walk past him. He doesn't try to stop me.

Behind me, I hear him punch the wall—once, twice, the sound of brick cracking. I hear him curse, low and vicious. I hear his wolf howl.

I don't look back.

---

The Omega quarters are silent when I return. I close the door, lock it, and stand in the darkness for a long moment.

Then I reach for the mind-link I've kept carefully shuttered for ten years.

*Langston.*

The response is immediate. My brother's presence floods the connection—warm, protective, edged with concern.

*Sofia? What's wrong?*

*It's over.* I keep my mental voice steady. Clinical. *The ten-year pact is dead. I'm coming home.*

Silence. Then: *What happened?*

*It doesn't matter.* And it doesn't. Not anymore. *Initiate Protocol Seven. I want every shell company, every anonymous account, every silent partnership withdrawn. Freeze the assets. Cut the supply chains. I want it done quietly, but I want it done now.*

*Sofia—*

*Now, Langston.*

Another pause. Then: *Consider it done. I'll have the car there in forty-eight hours.*

*Thank you.*

I sever the link before he can ask more questions. Before the careful control in my voice can crack.

Then I sit on the edge of the narrow bed and stare at my hands. At the raw knuckles, the rogue's claw marks still healing on my forearm, the calluses from scrubbing marble floors.

Ten years. Ten years of sacrifice, of hiding, of building an empire in the shadows and laying it at his feet like an offering.

And he thinks I'm a spy.

Something cold and sharp settles in my chest. Not grief. Not anymore.

This is something else entirely.

This is the moment Sofia Sanders—the girl who loved a boy enough to give up everything—finally dies.

And in her place, the Lycan Princess begins to wake.