The silence in my head was a heavy, suffocating blanket. Since Elias had severed my mind-link, the Pack House felt like a tomb. I walked down the hallway, my steps soundless on the plush carpet, desperate for the one source of warmth I had left. Muffin.

He was just a stray, a scruffy orange tabby I’d found shivering near the kitchens a year ago. Hunter had sneered at him, calling him a 'useless creature,' but he had let me keep him. Perhaps he thought a pet would keep me distracted, docile. He didn't understand that Muffin was the only living thing in this house that didn't look at me with pity or contempt.

I reached my bedroom door, my hand trembling as I turned the knob. 'Mist,' I whispered internally. 'Is he in there?'

'Something is wrong,' Mist growled, pacing in the back of my mind. 'The air... it smells of iron.'

I pushed the door open. The scent hit me first—thick, metallic, and horrifyingly familiar. It was the smell of the car wreck. The smell of the road on the night I died.

"Muffin?" My voice cracked.

The room was dim, the curtains drawn against the afternoon sun. I stepped forward, my eyes adjusting to the gloom. My bed, usually perfectly made by the Omegas, was a mess of rumpled sheets. And in the center of the pillow, where I laid my head every night, was a small, mangled shape.

I stopped breathing. The orange fur was matted with dark, wet crimson. His small body was twisted at an unnatural angle, broken with a violence that made my knees buckle. It wasn't an accident. It was a slaughter.

I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle the scream, tears instantly blurring my vision. I stumbled toward the bed, reaching out but afraid to touch him, afraid to make it real. Then, I saw the mirror.

Across the glass of my vanity, written in dripping red letters that could only be blood, was a message:

*WEAK THINGS DIE.*

I collapsed to the floor, my chest heaving with silent sobs. The cruelty of it was precise. It wasn't just about killing a cat; it was about showing me how easily I could be broken.

Suddenly, a sharp, static screech pierced the silence of my mind. It wasn't the warm hum of the Pack link; it was a jagged, forced intrusion, like a needle being driven into my brain.

*"Did you hear it, Liliana?"*

Amaya’s voice echoed in my skull, distorted and mocking. I clutched my head, curling into a ball.

*"He screamed just like you did when your car went over the ridge,"* she whispered, her mental voice dripping with venom. *"High and pathetic. Begging for help that wasn't coming."*

'Get out!' Mist roared, lunging at the mental intrusion, snapping her jaws at the invisible enemy. 'I will kill you! I will tear your throat out!'

*"Save your energy, mutt,"* Amaya laughed, the sound scraping against my sanity. *"This is just a preview. The Alpha doesn't keep broken toys forever."*

The connection snapped, leaving me gasping on the floor, the silence rushing back in with deafening force. I looked at Muffin’s body, and the grief catalyzed into something hot and hard. Rage.

I stood up. I didn't wipe the tears from my face. I walked to the bed and gently wrapped Muffin’s body in the silk pillowcase, staining the fabric red. I cradled him against my chest, feeling the cold weight of him, and walked out the door.

I didn't stop for the guards. I didn't lower my eyes when I passed the Beta in the hall. I marched straight to Hunter’s office and kicked the heavy oak door open.

Hunter was on the phone, leaning back in his leather chair. He frowned as I entered, covering the mouthpiece. "Liliana? I am in a meeting—"

I walked to his desk and placed the bloody bundle on top of his pristine paperwork. The blood began to soak through the silk, spreading across his documents.

"She killed him," I said, my voice shaking not with fear, but with the effort to not shift right there and then. "Amaya. She came into my room. She wrote a message in his blood on my mirror."

Hunter stared at the bundle, his expression shifting from annoyance to a cold, detached pity. He hung up the phone without saying goodbye.

"Liliana," he sighed, standing up and walking around the desk. He didn't look at the cat. He looked at me, his eyes scanning my face for signs of hysteria. "We've discussed this. The windows in the east wing are old. A fox, or perhaps a raccoon, must have gotten in."

"A fox didn't write on my mirror!" I screamed, the sound tearing at my throat. "She mind-linked me, Hunter! She taunted me! She said—"

"Stop it!" Hunter’s voice cracked like a whip, his Alpha tone slamming into me. I froze, my body locking up against my will.

He stepped closer, towering over me, radiating a suffocating heat. "Amaya is pregnant. She is resting. She has not left her suite all day. Your mind is fragile, Liliana. You are seeing things that aren't there because you are sick."

'He is lying,' Mist snarled, pacing frantically. 'He smells of her scent. He knows what she is.'

"I am not sick," I whispered, fighting the pressure of his command. "I know what I saw."

Hunter reached out and brushed a stray hair from my forehead. His touch was gentle, terrifyingly so. "You are hysterical. And look at you... covered in filth."

He turned back to his desk, picking up a tissue to wipe a speck of blood from his hand. "Clean yourself up. The Omegas will dispose of... the animal. You have duties to attend to."

I stared at him. "Duties?"

"The Winter Solstice Gala is tonight," Hunter said, as if he hadn't just dismissed a murder. "The entire Council will be there. Neighboring Alphas. It is the night we officially announce the heir."

He leaned against the desk, crossing his arms. "You will attend. You will stand by my side. And when I introduce Amaya and the pup, you will smile. You will bless her pregnancy in front of everyone."

My stomach turned. "I won't. I can't."

Hunter’s face hardened. The mask of the caring husband vanished completely, replaced by the tyrant who had locked me in a dungeon of my own mind.

"You have a choice, Liliana," he said softly. "You can play the part of the supportive, recovering Luna. You can show the Pack that you are healing. Or..."

He gestured vaguely to the room, to the house, to the world outside.

"Or I will deem you a danger to yourself and others. I will have you sedated and confined to the isolation ward in the basement. You will never see the sun again. You will never paint again. You will rot in the dark until you forget your own name."

He waited, letting the threat sink into my bones. He knew exactly what terrified me. The chains. The dark. The silence.

"Do we have an understanding?" he asked.

I looked at the bloody bundle on the desk, then at the man I had once thought was my soulmate. I felt Mist retreat deep into my mind, crouching low, biding her time. We were not strong enough to fight him yet. Not today.

"Yes, Alpha," I whispered, the words tasting like ash.

Hunter smiled, satisfied. "Good. Wear the silver dress. It matches your eyes."

The Winter Solstice Gala was a suffocating sea of velvet, diamonds, and false smiles. The ballroom air was thick with the scent of expensive perfume and roasted meats, but beneath it all, I smelled the rot of my own life. I stood by the punch bowl, the silver dress Hunter had forced me into clinging to my skin like a second layer of ice. Every whisper from the pack members felt like a lash. *Look at her. The broken Luna. The thief.*

I couldn't breathe. The ghost of Muffin’s blood still stained the back of my eyelids every time I blinked. I needed air. I needed to be anywhere but here.

I slipped away from the crowd, ducking into the opulent changing rooms adjacent to the grand balcony. The room was quiet, filled with racks of fur coats and spare gowns. I leaned against a vanity, gripping the cold marble edge until my knuckles turned white.

'He is watching,' Mist growled in my head, her presence a restless storm. 'The Alpha never stops watching.'

“Enjoying the party, Liliana?”

The voice slithered over my shoulder. I spun around to find Amaya standing in the doorway. She wore gold, a deliberate contrast to my silver, rubbing her swollen belly with a possessive smirk. She didn't look like a guest; she looked like the owner of the house.

“Get out,” I rasped, stepping back.

Amaya laughed, a sharp, brittle sound. She closed the distance between us, her eyes dancing with malice. “You look terrible. That dress does nothing for your... fragility. Did you clean up the mess on your bed? Or did you make the Omegas do it?”

Rage, hot and blinding, flared in my chest. It wasn't the slow burn of resentment; it was an explosion.

“You killed him,” I hissed. “You walked into my room and slaughtered a defenseless animal.”

“And I’ll do the same to anything else you love,” Amaya whispered, leaning in close. “Because you are weak, Liliana. You are a placeholder. And placeholders are meant to be discarded.”

She reached out and slapped me. It wasn't a hard blow, but the disrespect of it—the sheer audacity—snapped the last thread of my control.

'Hit her!' Mist roared.

I didn't think. I didn't calculate. I lunged.

My hands tangled in the expensive fabric of her gold dress, and I shoved her backward with every ounce of strength my human body possessed. Amaya’s eyes went wide with shock as she stumbled, crashing hard into a heavy rack of winter coats. The metal frame groaned and tipped, sending furs cascading over her.

For a second, there was silence. Then, Amaya’s face twisted. She wasn't hurt—she was a wolf, she was durable—but she was humiliated. And then, I saw the calculation flicker in her eyes.

She let out a bloodcurdling scream.

“Help! She’s trying to kill the baby! Help me!”

My blood ran cold. “What are you—”

Amaya scrambled up, grabbing my wrist with a grip like iron. She wasn't fleeing; she was dragging me. She pulled me toward the open glass doors of the balcony, her screams piercing the night air.

“Let go!” I shrieked, clawing at her hand, but she was stronger. She was a rogue who had survived in the wild; I was a sheltered girl who had been mentally sedated for three years.

She slammed me against the stone railing. The wind whipped my hair across my face, blinding me. Below, the garden was a dark abyss, two stories down.

“You wanted to be free, didn’t you?” Amaya hissed, her face inches from mine. The madness in her eyes was terrifying. “Fly, little bird.”

She didn't just let go. She shoved me. Hard.

My center of gravity tipped. My hands scrambled for purchase on the wet stone, but there was nothing to hold. The world tilted, and then the balcony was gone.

The fall was silent, but the impact was a thunderclap.

I crashed through the decorative hedges, branches tearing at my skin, before slamming into the frozen earth. A sickening *crack* echoed through my body. Pain, white and blinding, exploded in my left leg and radiated up my ribcage. I tried to scream, but my lungs were empty, crushed by the blow.

I lay there, gasping, tasting copper. Above me, the balcony was a silhouette against the moonlight. Faces began to appear at the railing—horrified, gasping faces.

“Liliana!”

Hunter’s voice boomed from above. Not a minute later, the garden doors burst open. He came running toward me, his tuxedo stark against the dark shrubbery. A crowd of guests followed, keeping a respectful distance.

“Help me,” I wheezed, trying to lift my head. “She... she pushed...”

Hunter dropped to his knees beside me. He didn't look at my shattered leg. He didn't check my vitals. He looked into my eyes, and I saw no love, no panic. I saw a script being written in real-time.

He turned to the crowd, his face a mask of devastated sorrow.

“She tried to jump,” he announced, his voice trembling with practiced grief. “My poor, sweet Liliana. The madness... it drove her to try and end it all.”

“No,” I choked out, grabbing his lapel. “Amaya... pushed me...”

Hunter leaned down, his lips brushing my ear. To the pack, it looked like a lover’s comfort.

“**Silence,**” he commanded, the Alpha tone vibrating through my broken bones, paralyzing my tongue. “You are unwell, Lily. You are a danger to yourself.”

He scooped me up into his arms. The movement caused my broken ribs to grind together, and I blacked out for a second, a whimper escaping my throat.

“Make way!” Hunter shouted to the guests. “I must get her to safety!”

“The infirmary is that way, Alpha!” someone called out—Edith, the healer.

“No,” Hunter said, his stride long and purposeful, heading toward the main house, but not toward the medical wing. He was heading for the heavy oak door that led to the basement. “She needs containment. She is violent. I cannot risk her hurting herself again.”

'He is burying us,' Mist howled, her voice sounding far away through the haze of pain.

I watched the chandeliers of the hallway pass overhead, blurring into streaks of light. We went past the kitchen, past the servants' quarters, and down the stone steps. The air grew colder. The scent of damp earth and silver filled my nose.

Hunter kicked open the heavy iron door of the dungeon. He walked into the cell where Amaya had once stayed—the cell he had kept prepared.

He dumped me onto the thin, filthy mattress. I screamed as my broken leg hit the hard surface.

“Rest now, Liliana,” Hunter said, standing tall and adjusting his cuffs, looking down at me like I was a broken toy he was finally tired of playing with. “You’ll be safe here. No one can hear your lies down here.”

The door slammed shut. The lock clicked. And for the first time in my life, the darkness was absolute.