The burning started the moment I smoothed the cream across my cheekbones.

At first, I thought it was just the usual tingle of my expensive night moisturizer—the one Keith had bought me last month during our fifty-first reconciliation, claiming he wanted to "take better care of his Luna." But this wasn't a tingle. This was fire.

I gasped, stumbling backward from my bathroom mirror as my skin erupted in angry red welts. The cream felt like acid eating through my flesh, and deeper than that—much deeper—Aria began to howl.

Not the usual howl of distress. This was agony, pure and primal, echoing through every fiber of my being as my wolf writhed in torment. Silver. The scent hit my nostrils now, metallic and poisonous, mixed with the familiar lavender of my skincare routine.

"Keith!" I screamed through the mind-link, my hands clawing at my face as the burning intensified. "Keith, help me!"

I collapsed beside the bathtub, my vision blurring as Aria's howls grew weaker. Silver poisoning. Someone had laced my cream with silver, and now it was seeping into my bloodstream, threatening to sever my connection to my wolf permanently.

The bathroom door burst open, and Keith filled the doorway, his dark hair disheveled, still wearing the clothes he'd had on at dinner. His eyes widened as he took in my condition—the angry red burns spreading down my neck, my body convulsing as I fought to maintain my grip on Aria's fading presence.

"What happened?" He knelt beside me, his hands hovering uncertainly over my burning skin.

"The cream," I gasped, pointing toward the innocent-looking jar on the marble counter. "Someone... someone put silver in it."

Keith's jaw tightened as he carefully lifted the jar, inhaling deeply. I watched his expression shift from concern to something harder to read—not quite anger, but not quite belief either.

"This smells like your regular moisturizer," he said slowly.

"Keith, please." Aria's voice was barely a whisper in my mind now, and panic clawed at my chest. "I'm losing her. I'm losing Aria."

He scooped me up, carrying me toward the door. "We're going to the pack hospital. Dr. Martinez will figure this out."

But even as he said it, I could hear the doubt creeping into his voice. The same doubt that always appeared whenever something happened to me that might implicate his precious Sapphire.

The hospital smelled of antiseptic and pine, a combination that usually comforted me but now made my stomach churn. Dr. Martinez worked quickly, administering IV fluids and a silver neutralizer that burned almost as much going in as the poison had coming out.

"She'll be fine," he assured Keith as I drifted in and out of consciousness. "But another few minutes, and we might have lost her wolf permanently. Someone knew exactly what they were doing."

I expected Keith to demand answers, to launch an investigation, to show even a fraction of the protective fury he displayed whenever someone looked at Sapphire the wrong way. Instead, he nodded absently, his phone buzzing in his pocket.

"I need to take this," he murmured, stepping into the hallway.

Through the thin hospital walls, I could hear fragments of his conversation. Sapphire's voice, high and distressed, bleeding through the phone speaker.

"...can't believe she'd accuse me... never hurt anyone... so scared, Keith..."

My heart sank as I recognized the tone—the same wounded innocence she'd used after destroying Mama's flower shop, the same trembling vulnerability that never failed to make Keith forget everything else.

When he returned, his expression had shifted completely. Gone was any trace of concern for my near-death experience. Instead, he looked tired, almost annoyed.

"Sapphire is devastated," he said, not quite meeting my eyes. "She's crying so hard she can barely breathe. She thinks you're going to blame her for this... accident."

"Accident?" The word scraped against my raw throat like broken glass.

"The cream was probably contaminated during manufacturing. These things happen with beauty products sometimes." He was already moving toward the door, his mind clearly elsewhere. "You should rest. I'll check on you tomorrow."

"Keith, wait—"

But he was gone, leaving me alone with the steady beep of monitors and the devastating silence where Aria's voice should have been. Through the window, I could see him crossing the parking lot with quick, purposeful strides—not toward home, but toward the pack house where Sapphire would be waiting with her tears and her perfectly crafted story.

I closed my eyes, feeling the last threads of my mate bond stretch thin as Keith chose, once again, to comfort the woman who had nearly killed me while I recovered alone in a sterile hospital room.

Somewhere deep in my chest, what remained of Aria whimpered—not from the silver anymore, but from something far more poisonous: the growing certainty that my own mate would never protect me from the one person who wanted me gone.

The ancient burial grounds stretched before me like a sea of weathered stone and forgotten names, each headstone a silent witness to my humiliation. The pack ceremony had ended hours ago, but I remained trapped among the graves, my body aching from where I'd been shoved into this sacred space and left to face whatever spirits lingered in the darkness.

"Keith," I whispered through our mind-link, my voice barely a breath in the supernatural silence. "Keith, please. I'm still here."

Nothing. The connection that should have bound us as mates felt cold and empty, like shouting into a void.

I pulled my torn dress tighter around my shoulders, the fabric catching on the rough bark of an ancient oak that had grown between two crumbling monuments. The moon hung full overhead, casting everything in silver light that should have been beautiful but instead felt haunting. Every shadow seemed to move, every whisper of wind through the headstones sounded like voices calling from beyond.

"Keith, I can feel them," I tried again, desperation creeping into my mental voice. The burial grounds were old—older than the pack itself—and the supernatural energy that seeped from the earth made my already weakened wolf tremble. Aria was still recovering from the silver poisoning, her presence in my mind fragile as spun glass. "Something's wrong here. The spirits... they're restless."

Still nothing. But I could sense him through our bond, distant but alive, his attention focused elsewhere. Always elsewhere.

A cold wind swept through the cemetery, carrying with it the scent of decay and something else—something that made Aria whimper and curl deeper into the recesses of my consciousness. The headstones seemed to lean inward, their carved angels and crosses taking on menacing shapes in the shifting moonlight.

"Please," I whispered aloud this time, my voice cracking. "I'm scared."

The mind-link remained silent, but I caught a fragment—just a brief flash of Keith's emotions bleeding through our bond. Concern, yes, but not for me. For Sapphire, who was apparently "traumatized" by the evening's events and needed his constant comfort. I could almost see her, curled up in his arms in the warmth of the pack house, her tears falling like perfectly orchestrated rain while I shivered alone among the dead.

Hours crawled by with agonizing slowness. I tried to find shelter behind a larger monument, but every time I closed my eyes, I felt the weight of ancient gazes upon me. The spirits of long-dead pack members seemed to whisper accusations in languages I didn't understand, their voices mixing with the wind until I couldn't tell what was real and what was my exhausted mind playing tricks.

"Keith, I think I'm losing my mind," I pleaded through the link, my mental voice raw from hours of unanswered calls. "The graves... they're doing something to me. To Aria. Please, just tell me you can hear me."

For a moment—just a heartbeat—I felt his attention flicker toward me. But then it was gone again, pulled away by whatever crisis Sapphire had manufactured to keep him occupied while I suffered alone in this place of death and forgotten memories.

As dawn finally began to creep across the horizon, painting the headstones in shades of gray and gold, I forced myself to stand on unsteady legs. My dress was ruined, torn and stained with dirt and tears. My hair had come loose from its careful arrangement, hanging in tangled waves around my face. But I was alive, and somehow, Aria was still with me, though her presence felt dimmer than before.

I stumbled through the cemetery gates just as the sun cleared the treeline, my bare feet bleeding from cuts I didn't remember getting. The pack house loomed ahead, warm and welcoming to everyone except me.

"Mazie?" Marcus Sullivan's voice cut through the morning air, sharp with shock. Keith's Beta stood at the edge of the training grounds, his usual composed expression cracking as he took in my appearance. "Jesus, what happened to you?"

I tried to speak, but only a broken sob emerged. Marcus was beside me in an instant, his strong hands steadying me as my legs threatened to give out.

"Where the hell have you been all night?" His dark eyes searched my face, taking in every tear track and smudge of dirt. "Keith said you'd gone home after the ceremony."

"The burial grounds," I managed to whisper. "I was pushed... left there."

Marcus's expression darkened, his jaw clenching with barely controlled anger. "And Keith didn't come for you?"

I shook my head, unable to meet his eyes. The shame was too overwhelming, the reality of my mate's abandonment too raw to voice aloud.

"That's it." Marcus's voice carried the kind of authority that made even Alphas listen. "I'm talking to him right now."

Before I could stop him, he was striding toward the pack house with purposeful steps, his Beta aura crackling with righteous fury. Through the large windows, I could see Keith in the living room, Sapphire curled against his side like a delicate flower seeking shelter from a storm that existed only in her imagination.

The confrontation that followed would shatter whatever remained of the friendship between Keith and Marcus, but in that moment, watching someone finally stand up for me after years of silence, I felt something I'd almost forgotten: hope.