Seraphina POV:

The Cooler. A silver-plated coffin.

The guards threw me in. I landed hard on my injured shoulder. The silver floor burned on contact, sucking the heat straight out of my marrow.

The door slammed. Darkness.

"Dante, please! Check the cameras!"

Silence.

I curled into a ball, trying to minimize contact with the floor. My wolf whimpered, a creature of light trapped in a tomb.

Hold on, I told her.

Time dissolved. Hours? Days?

Hallucinations started.

I saw the cabin. Dante, thrashing, veins black with poison.

“Who are you?” he had growled.

“I'm safe,” I had whispered.

I remembered wrapping my body around his, using my heat to stabilize him.

“Vanilla,” he had murmured. “Moonlight. When I see again, I will find you. You are mine.”

I laughed in the dark cell. A dry, cracking sound.

He kept his promise. He found me. And he froze me.

The cold numbed my extremities.

And then, something broke.

Not a bone. The bond.

It didn't snap with a bang. It just... withered. The constant pull towards him, the desperate need for his validation—it crystallized in the cold and shattered.

I didn't hate him. Hate requires energy. I felt nothing.

Hollow.

And in that hollow space, she woke up.

My White Wolf uncurled. Ancient. Cold. Starlit.

We survive, she whispered. Not for him. For us.

I stopped shivering. I sat up straight in the darkness.

I wasn't waiting for a savior anymore. I was waiting for an opening.

Seraphina POV:

The door hissed open. Light blinded me.

Dante stood there, impeccable in a tuxedo. He looked at me—blue-lipped, shivering—and for a nanosecond, his mask slipped. Horror?

Then the Alpha mask slammed back down.

"Get up."

I tried. My legs were wood.

Dante sighed, impatient. He hauled me up. His hand was warm, but the sparks were gone. It was just skin on skin.

"Tonight is the engagement party," he said. "You will attend. You will smile. And you will show the pack that there is no bad blood."

"I can barely walk."

"Lean against the wall," he said callously. "Go wash up. You smell like a corpse."

I scrubbed my skin raw in the shower.

I put on a black dress. Long sleeves, high neck. Mourning attire.

I knelt by my bed and pulled out a rusted tin box.

My pathetic treasure chest. A button from his shirt. Bloodstained gauze. A dried moonflower.

I carried the box into the hallway.

Dante was adjusting his cufflinks. He stopped.

"What is that?"

"Garbage."

I walked to the trash chute.

I opened it. I didn't hesitate. I tipped the box.

Whoosh. The incinerator roared below.

Dante flinched. He rubbed his chest, frowning, as if stung by a ghost.

"What did you just burn?"

"Nothing that matters anymore," I said, eyes dry. "Shall we go, Alpha?"

The ballroom was suffocating.

I stood in the shadows.

Dante took the stage with Isabella. She was radiant, feeding off the crowd's adoration like a vampire.

"My brothers and sisters," Dante boomed. "Tonight, I claim my happiness."

He turned to Isabella.

"Isabella Vitiello. You found me when I was lost in the dark. You healed me. Your scent was the lighthouse that guided me home."

Lies.

"Will you be my Luna?"

"Yes!" Isabella shrieked.

The room erupted. Dante kissed her.

I waited for the pain. The jealousy.

Nothing. Just silence.

I turned to leave.

"Wait!"

Isabella pointed from the stage.

"Sarah! Come here, sister! I want you to be the first to bless us!"

She wasn't done playing with her food.

I stopped. I turned.

And I smiled. A wolf bearing teeth.

"Coming, sister."

Seraphina POV:

I walked up the stairs.

Isabella beamed, wrapping an arm around my shoulders, digging her nails into my burns.

"My sister. Always in the shadows, but tonight, she steps into the light."

Dante looked bored.

I reached out to shake Isabella's hand.

My sleeve rode up.

Isabella's eyes widened. She snatched my wrist.

"What is this?" she gasped.

Wrapped around my wrist was a bracelet of rough moonstones on a leather cord. Ugly, but thrumming with the energy I'd poured into it during the long nights at the cabin.

"That's mine!" Isabella shrieked. "Dante, look! She stole the bracelet I made for you!"

The crowd gasped.

Dante frowned. "You made this?"

"Yes!" Isabella lied. "The one I was crafting during your recovery. She stole it!"

Dante turned to me. Alpha pressure rolled off him. "Is this true, Seraphina? You are a thief now, as well as a traitor?"

"I made this," I said quietly. "Ask her what rune is carved on the center stone."

Isabella faltered.

"Take it off," Dante ordered. He didn't care about the truth. He wanted the scene to end.

"No."

It was the only proof I existed.

"I said, take it off!"

Before I could react, a fist connected with my jaw.

I flew backward, crashing into the champagne tower.

Crash!

Glass sliced my back. Alcohol stung my wounds.

Alpha Giovanni stood over me. "Do not disobey your Alpha!"

"Oh no," my mother, Luna Maria, exclaimed. She grabbed a pitcher of red wine and dumped it over me.

"The smell of blood will ruin the appetite."

Dante stepped over the glass. He grabbed my wrist and yanked.

The leather snapped.

He broke the string. Moonstones bounced across the stage like hail.

He handed the center stone to Isabella.

"For you, my love. Don't let her filth touch you."

Isabella kissed him.

I lay in the wine and glass. My hand closed around a single, small moonstone. A shard cut my palm, but I squeezed.

I squeezed until the physical pain drowned out the screaming of my heart.

The bond didn't just break. It turned to ash.