Ember POV:

The boutique smelled of lavender and old money. It was the kind of place where the price tags were hidden because if you had to ask, you couldn't afford it.

Karyn lounged on a velvet sofa, sipping champagne provided by the nervous shop assistant. Chace stood by the window, scrolling on his phone, looking bored.

"That one," Karyn pointed a manicured finger at a rack in the back. "For the servant."

The assistant hesitated. "Miss? That is the... discount section. It is mostly uniforms."

"Exactly," Karyn smiled, showing too many teeth. "She needs something practical. Grey. Shapeless. She is there to hold my purse, not to attract attention."

The assistant handed me a dress. It was made of scratchy wool, the color of dirty dishwater. It looked like a sack.

"Go try it on," Chace commanded without looking up.

I took the dress, my hands shaking slightly. But as I walked toward the changing rooms, my eyes caught a flash of crimson.

It was a gown displayed on a mannequin in the center of the room. Deep red silk, cut to cling to every curve, with a neckline that was both elegant and daring. Red was the color of power. The color of a Luna.

My inner wolf, usually dormant, stirred. She wanted that dress. She wanted to be seen.

I didn't know what possessed me. Maybe it was the lingering adrenaline from the Wolfsbane. I grabbed the red dress off the mannequin.

"I'm trying this one," I said.

The silence in the shop was instant.

Karyn dropped her glass. It didn't break, but champagne spilled onto the expensive rug.

"What did you say?" she hissed.

"I said I'm trying this one," I repeated, my voice steady. "If I am to represent the Red Stone Pack at a high-society auction, I should not look like a maid. It insults Chace's status."

I used his ego against him. I saw Chace's head snap up. He looked at the grey rag in my hand, then at the red silk.

"She has a point, Karyn," Chace muttered. "The Alpha King will be there. We don't want to look poor."

Karyn's face turned purple, but she couldn't argue with Chace's vanity. "Fine. Put it on. Let's see how ridiculous a wolfless rat looks in silk."

I went into the changing room. The silk felt like cool water against my heated skin. I zipped it up. It fit perfectly, as if it had been made for me.

I stepped out.

The shop assistant gasped.

I looked in the three-way mirror. The dress hugged my waist and flowed around my legs like liquid fire. My pale skin glowed against the dark red. For the first time in years, I didn't look like a victim. I looked like a queen.

I turned to face them.

Chace dropped his phone. His mouth hung open slightly. His pupils blew wide, swallowing the blue of his irises. I could smell his scent spike—musk and arousal. He was looking at me not as a childhood friend, but as a male looks at a female he wants to claim.

"Ember," he breathed. "You look..."

Karyn saw his reaction. The air in the room instantly grew heavy and sour.

"Ow!" Karyn shrieked, clutching her chest. She collapsed onto the sofa. "Chace! Help! She's doing it again!"

Chace blinked, shaking his head as if waking from a trance. "What?"

"Her pheromones!" Karyn wailed, squeezing out fake tears. "She's releasing malicious intent! It's attacking my wolf! I can't breathe!"

It was a lie. I was an Omega. I couldn't project intent like that. But Chace didn't care about logic. He only cared that his 'true mate' was distressed.

His face hardened. The lust vanished, replaced by the cold fury of an Alpha protecting his own.

"Take it off," Chace growled.

"Chace, she's lying," I said, standing my ground. "I'm not doing anything."

"I said take it off!"

He used the Alpha Voice.

It hit me like a physical slap. My knees locked together. My lungs seized. The command bypassed my brain and went straight to my muscles. My hands moved on their own, reaching for the zipper.

"Kneel," Chace barked.

Gravity seemed to increase tenfold. I crashed to my knees on the hardwood floor. The impact bruised my skin, but I couldn't cry out. The Alpha Command sealed my throat.

Karyn sat up, her 'pain' miraculously gone. She looked down at me with a smirk.

"You thought you could outshine me?" she whispered, leaning close so only I could hear. "You are nothing. You are a placeholder."

Chace loomed over me. "You will wear the grey dress. And you will stay in the shadows where you belong. If you ever try to stand above your Luna again, I will go to the cemetery tonight."

My blood ran cold.

"I will dig up Liana's bones," Chace threatened, his voice devoid of mercy. "And I will let the wild dogs in the Rogue territory chew on them."

Tears of rage welled in my eyes. Not fear. Rage.

He knew my mother was my whole world. He knew I stayed in this hellhole only to be near her grave.

"Do you understand?" he demanded.

I couldn't speak. I nodded, forced by his command.

"Good," Chace said, turning away. "Get changed. You disgust me."

I watched his back. Inside my chest, the growl returned. It was louder this time. It didn't sound like a whimper.

It sounded like a promise of war.

Ember POV:

The Auction Hall was a cavernous space filled with crystal chandeliers and the murmuring of the werewolf elite. The air was thick with the scents of expensive cologne, champagne, and the underlying metallic tang of power.

I stood in the corner, invisible in my grey wool dress, holding Karyn's fur coat. It was heavy and smelled of her cloying perfume.

Chace and Karyn sat in the front row, holding hands. They were the golden couple of the evening.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," the auctioneer announced from the podium. "We have a surprise addition to tonight's catalog. Lot 45."

Two staff members wheeled out a large easel covered by a cloth.

"This piece was recovered from the estate of the late Ford family," the auctioneer said. "It is a portrait of the disgraced Liana Ford."

My heart stopped.

The cloth was pulled away.

It was a painting of my mother. But it had been defaced. Someone—Karyn—had painted red slashes across her neck and written the word TRAITOR across the bottom in jagged black letters.

The crowd murmured. Some laughed.

"We are starting the bidding at ten dollars," the auctioneer joked. "Proceeds go to the Rogue Rehabilitation Fund. Who wants a piece of history's shame?"

Laughter rippled through the room. It was a sound like breaking glass in my ears.

I looked at Chace. He was laughing too. He was laughing at the desecration of the woman who had practically raised him when his own parents were too busy.

"Chace," I whispered, though he couldn't hear me across the room. Do something.

"Ten dollars!" a drunk Beta shouted from the back.

"Do I hear twenty? For the Rogue witch?"

I stepped forward. I didn't have money. I didn't have status. But I couldn't let them do this.

"Stop!" I screamed.

Heads turned. Karyn glared at me.

"Sit down, Omega!" Chace shouted, half-rising from his seat. "Don't embarrass me!"

"That is my mother!" I yelled, my voice cracking. "She was a high-born Ford! This is slander!"

"She was a whore!" Karyn shouted back.

The auctioneer raised his gavel. "Going once..."

Suddenly, the air in the room changed.

It wasn't a sound. It was a pressure. It felt like the atmospheric drop before a tornado touches down. Every wolf in the room froze. The hair on my arms stood up. My inner wolf lowered her head, not in submission, but in reverence.

This was a Lycan Aura. Pure, ancient, and terrifying.

The double doors at the back of the hall didn't open. Instead, a man in a sharp black suit walked onto the stage from the side. He wasn't the King. He was a Beta, but he carried a tablet with the Royal Seal.

He placed a hand on the auctioneer's gavel. The auctioneer, an Alpha, trembled and dropped the hammer.

"This auction is suspended," the Beta said. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried to every corner of the silent room.

"By whose order?" Chace demanded, standing up. He was trying to look brave, but I could smell the ammonia scent of his fear.

"By order of the Crown," the Beta replied calmly. "King Keith Mosley has declared this item to be evidence in an ongoing investigation regarding defamation of a Noble House."

The room gasped. Noble House? The Fords were extinct. Or so everyone thought.

"The King is not even here!" Karyn shrieked. "You can't just—"

The Beta looked at Karyn. "The King sees everything. And he is displeased."

He signaled to the staff. They covered the painting immediately and wheeled it away, treating it with sudden, terrified respect.

Chace turned pale. To anger the Alpha King was social suicide. He looked around the room, seeing the accusing glares of the other Alphas. He needed a scapegoat.

He pointed at me.

"It was her!" Chace shouted. "Ember! She brought the painting! She set this up to create a scandal! I had nothing to do with it!"

My jaw dropped. He was throwing me to the wolves. Again.

"Ember Ford is hereby demoted!" Chace announced to the room. "She is stripped of her rank within the Red Stone Pack. She is no longer an inner circle member. She is an outcast!"

It was a meaningless punishment. I was already treated lower than dirt. But the public rejection stung.

I turned and ran. I pushed through the heavy doors, out into the cool night air.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled it out, my vision blurry with tears.

From: Keith Mosley

Message: Do not cry for them, little wolf. The Pack is family. And I protect my own. Go pack your bags.

I stared at the screen. The fear vanished, replaced by a strange warmth. It felt like a heavy blanket being wrapped around my shoulders.

I wasn't alone.

Ember POV:

The penthouse suite was in chaos.

When I arrived back at the Pack House, my meager belongings were already scattered in the hallway. My suitcase was overturned, my clothes ripped.

Chace was waiting for me. He held a leather-bound sketchbook in his hand. My mother's sketchbook. It was the only thing I had left of her spirit—her drawings of the house she wanted to build for us, the garden she wanted to plant.

"You ruined the night," Chace said. His voice was calm, which was scarier than his shouting. "The King's representative humiliated us. My investors are pulling out."

"I didn't do anything," I said, eyeing the book. "Give that back."

Karyn lounged in the doorway of the bedroom, filing her nails. "Burn it, Chace. It's full of Rogue symbols anyway."

Chace pulled a lighter from his pocket. He flicked it. The small flame danced, reflecting in his cold eyes.

"No!" I lunged forward.

Chace caught me easily. He was an Alpha; I was an unshifted female. He shoved me back, and I hit the wall hard. The breath left my lungs.

"You are a curse, Ember," Chace said. He held the flame to the edge of the book. The leather began to smoke. "Everything you touch rots. Your mother was a whore, and you are nothing but a burden I've carried for too long."

"Stop it!" I screamed. "Please!"

"Beg," Karyn laughed. "On your knees."

I looked at the burning book. Then I looked at Chace.

I saw the boy who used to share his lunch with me. I saw the teenager who promised to protect me. And then I saw the man standing before me, burning my heart for the amusement of a woman who didn't even love him.

The love I had held for him, the loyalty that had kept my wolf silent for years... it didn't just fade. It died. It was a violent, sudden death.

Something in my chest snapped. It was an audible sound, like a dry twig breaking in a silent forest.

The pain was excruciating. It felt like my soul was being torn in half. But beneath the pain, there was freedom.

I stood up. I didn't kneel.

I looked Chace dead in the eye.

I, Ember Ford, reject you.

I didn't say the words out loud. I didn't give him the satisfaction of a public ritual. I said it to the Moon Goddess. I said it to the bond that tied us.

Snip.

The connection between us vanished. The constant, low-level hum of his presence in the back of my mind went silent.

Chace gasped. He dropped the burning book and clutched his chest. He stumbled back, his face going grey.

"What..." he wheezed. "What did you do?"

"Chace?" Karyn asked, stepping forward. "Is it your heart?"

"It hurts," Chace groaned, rubbing his sternum. He looked at me, confusion warring with pain in his eyes. He didn't know what had happened. He was too arrogant to realize I had just cut him loose. He probably thought it was indigestion.

I walked past him. I stomped on the burning book, extinguishing the flames. I picked it up, clutching the charred remains to my chest.

"Get out," Chace whispered, leaning against the table for support. "Get out of my sight before I kill you."

I walked to the door. My body felt light, untethered.

As I reached the threshold, I felt a strange sensation in my eyes. A prickling heat. I glanced at the hallway mirror.

For a split second, my eyes weren't brown. They were molten silver, swirling with flecks of gold.

The White Wolf was no longer scratching at the door. She had kicked it open.

"Goodbye, Chace," I said.

I didn't look back.