The questions started on the seventh night.

I was restocking supplies in the pack house kitchen when Castiel appeared in the doorway. No warning. No sound. Just suddenly there, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed.

"Where did you grow up?" he asked.

I set down the box of dried herbs I'd been organizing. Turned to face him. "Brooklyn area, Your Highness. Small pack territory."

"Pack name?"

"Moonveil." The truth. Wrapped carefully. "It dissolved years ago."

He studied me. "Family?"

"My mother died when I was young." Also true. I didn't mention the silver-laced wolfsbane or the Luna title she'd carried. "My father remarried. I left after that."

Castiel's expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted. "Your wolf's name?"

My throat tightened. I pressed my fingers briefly against the cold scar on my neck. "I don't have a wolf, Your Highness."

"That's not what I asked."

The silence stretched. I counted three heartbeats before I answered. "She never woke. So she never had a name."

He held my gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded once and left.

I stood there in the empty kitchen, hands shaking, and wondered why an Alpha—a Lycan Prince—was asking questions he had no reason to care about.

The common room incident happened three nights later.

I'd been avoiding the main gathering spaces. Easier that way. Less risk of Mara's hostility or the other unmated she-wolves' cold stares. But Dorian found me in the library and insisted I join the evening pack gathering. "Prince's orders," he said. "All pack members attend."

So I went.

The common room was warm. Crowded. Wolves sprawled on couches and floor cushions, talking and laughing. I took a seat near the back, close to the door. Waffles curled at my feet immediately.

Castiel sat in an armchair near the fireplace. He wasn't participating in the conversation, just listening with that characteristic stillness. But his eyes tracked the room constantly.

Dorian was telling a story about a rogue encounter gone wrong—something involving a tree, a miscalculation, and his Beta dignity landing face-first in a creek. The delivery was deadpan. The punchline landed perfectly.

I laughed.

Not a polite chuckle. A real laugh—surprised, unguarded, the kind that escaped before I could catch it. The sound felt foreign in my own throat.

The suppressant thinned.

I felt it happen. The chemical burn at my pulse points fading for just a breath. Just long enough for my real scent—honeysuckle and smoke—to slip through the mask.

Castiel went completely still.

His head turned toward me with predator precision. His nostrils flared. Every line of his body went rigid, like he'd been struck. His eyes locked on mine across the room.

I stopped breathing.

The tincture's heat surged back. The scent vanished. But Castiel didn't move. Didn't blink. Just stared at me with an expression I couldn't read—something between recognition and fury and desperate confusion.

Then he stood abruptly. "Excuse me," he said. His voice was rough.

He walked out.

The room went quiet for a beat. Then the conversation resumed. But Dorian's eyes followed his Prince's exit, and when he looked back at me, his expression was entirely new. Assessing. Careful.

I pressed my hand against my neck and felt the cold scar burning.

Castiel didn't return for an hour.

The message arrived the next morning.

I found it in our dead-drop location—a hollow in the oak tree at the eastern boundary. The encoded note was brief. Sebastian's handwriting.

*Progress noted. Continue current trajectory. Remember your obligations. The runt looks healthy. Let's keep it that way.*

I read it twice. Then I burned it.

Back in my quarters, I sat on the floor with Waffles in my lap. He whined softly and pressed his nose against my hand. I stared at the ceiling and counted the cracks in the plaster.

Sebastian thought I was doing this for him. Thought every moment I spent near Castiel was a sacrifice I made out of lingering devotion. The delusion was almost funny.

Except it wasn't.

Because I was running out of time to decide how much longer I could keep lying. To Castiel. To Dorian. To myself.

Waffles licked my wrist. I buried my fingers in his fur and didn't let myself cry.

The Pack Banquet was announced three days later.

A formal event honoring Silverfang's new territorial alliance with the Northridge Pack. Alphas from six neighboring territories would attend. Protocol required every pack member's presence—even the low-ranking transfers who would serve rather than sit.

I was assigned to beverage service. Fine. I could handle that.

What I couldn't handle was Sebastian walking through the door.

He arrived late. Fashionably so. Emilia on his arm in a silver dress that caught every light in the hall. He smiled. Nodded to the Alphas he recognized. Played the gracious guest.

No one had invited him.

But refusing entry to a neighboring Alpha—even an unwelcome one—would have been a political insult Castiel couldn't afford. So Sebastian was allowed in.

I was refilling a Luna's wine glass when I saw him.

The rejection mark went ice-cold.

Then it started throbbing. Not the dull ache I'd learned to ignore. Sharp. Vicious. Like someone pressing a blade against my throat from the inside.

I set the wine bottle down carefully. Forced my hands steady.

Sebastian was introducing Emilia to a cluster of Alphas near the center of the hall. "My chosen Luna," he said. Loud enough to carry. "The Moon Goddess's gift."

Emilia smiled. Leaned into him.

The mark throbbed harder.

I couldn't breathe.

The hall was too warm. Too crowded. Sebastian's scent—pine and dominance and three years of my life wasted—filled my lungs. Emilia's laugh echoed. The mark pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, each throb stealing more air.

I turned and walked toward the door. Controlled. Steady. I made it to the courtyard before my vision tunneled.

The stone bench caught me before my knees gave out. I sat down hard. Pressed both hands against the mark. It was cold and burning at the same time, the contradictory sensations making my stomach lurch.

I couldn't get air. My chest was too tight. The world was narrowing to a pinpoint.

Panic attack. I knew what it was. That didn't make it stop.

I forced myself to count. One. Two. Three. Tried to match my breathing to the numbers. Failed.

Footsteps.

I looked up.

Castiel stood three feet away, his expression unreadable in the moonlight.

"Breathe," he said quietly.

I shook my head. Couldn't.

He moved closer. Knelt in front of me. "Lilith. Look at me."

I met his eyes.

"Match my breathing," he said. He inhaled slowly. Held it. Exhaled.

I tried. Failed. Tried again.

He kept breathing. Steady. Patient. Not touching me. Not fixing me. Just... there.

Slowly, my lungs remembered how to work.

The panic receded. Not gone. Just far enough back that I could think.

Castiel stayed kneeling. "What happened?"

I couldn't tell him. Couldn't explain that the man inside had formally rejected me in front of his entire pack and then sent me here to destroy the one person I'd wanted for a decade. Couldn't say any of it.

"I'm fine," I whispered.

His jaw tightened. "You're not."

"I will be."

He studied me for a long moment. Then he stood and offered his hand.

I looked at it. At him.

"Come on," he said. "You're not going back in there tonight."

I took his hand.

He pulled me to my feet and led me away from the banquet hall, away from Sebastian's scent and Emilia's smile and the cold, throbbing scar that wouldn't let me forget.

And I followed him, because I didn't know what else to do.

The panic was a living thing. It clawed up my throat, squeezed my lungs, turned the courtyard into a spinning blur of stone and moonlight. I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The rejection mark throbbed in time with my racing heart—cold fire spreading down my neck, into my chest.

Sebastian's voice drifted through the open doors. Introducing Emilia. Again. Louder this time. Making sure everyone heard.

My fingers found the scar. Pressed hard. The grey skin was ice-cold under my touch.

And then something inside me—some desperate, drowning part I didn't know existed—reached.

I felt it happen. A thread of consciousness extending through empty space, searching for an anchor that shouldn't be there. The sensation was foreign. Wrong. I'd never had a mate bond. Never had a wolf strong enough to form one. But my body didn't care about logic. It just reached.

And found him.

The connection snapped taut like a rope pulled between two points. Raw. Unfiltered. Every ounce of my terror flooded through it in a single, uncontrolled wave.

I gasped. The link cut off as suddenly as it had formed, but the damage was done.

Inside the banquet hall, I knew—somehow I knew—that Castiel had felt it.

Footsteps behind me. Not Castiel's. Wrong rhythm. Wrong weight.

"Lilith." Sebastian's voice. Smooth. Concerned. Performative. "You need to pull yourself together."

I didn't turn around. Couldn't.

"This is embarrassing," he continued, moving closer. "If you can't handle being in the same room as me and Emilia, how do you expect to complete your task? The Prince will think you're unstable."

I pressed harder against the scar. My vision was still tunneling.

"I gave you a purpose," Sebastian said quietly. "Don't waste it by falling apart at a formal event. Control yourself."

The courtyard door opened.

I felt Castiel before I saw him. The temperature dropped. The air went still.

Sebastian turned. "Your Highness. I apologize for the disruption. Lilith is—"

"Leave." Castiel's voice was flat. Final.

Sebastian blinked. "I was just—"

"Leave my territory."

The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut. I looked up through blurred vision. Castiel stood in the doorway, utterly motionless. His expression was unreadable, but something in his eyes made my breath catch.

Sebastian's jaw tightened. "With respect, Your Highness, she's a transfer from my former pack. I'm simply—"

"She's under Silverfang protection now." Castiel stepped into the courtyard. "Which means she's under my protection. And you're standing too close."

Sebastian's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. "She's just an Omega playing dress-up, Your Highness. Nothing to concern a Prince."

The air pressure changed.

I felt it before I understood it. A crushing wave of dominance that made my knees buckle even though I was already sitting. Ancient. Absolute. The kind of power that didn't ask for submission—it demanded it on a cellular level.

Castiel's aura.

Sebastian's wolf reacted before his mind could catch up. His knees bent. His head dropped. A low whine escaped his throat—involuntary, humiliating. He caught himself halfway to the ground, fighting his own instincts, but the damage was done.

His wolf had submitted to a superior authority.

Castiel didn't move. Didn't blink. Just stood there radiating power until Sebastian straightened with visible effort, his face pale.

"Leave," Castiel repeated. "Now."

Sebastian left.

The aura withdrew. I sucked in air like I'd been drowning.

Castiel crossed the courtyard in three strides. He knelt in front of me—the same position he'd taken during my last panic attack. But this time he didn't wait. He lifted me from the bench, one arm under my knees, the other supporting my back.

I should have protested. Should have said I could walk. But I couldn't make my mouth form words.

He carried me through a side entrance I'd never noticed, down a corridor I'd never walked. Dorian appeared from somewhere, his expression carefully blank.

"She's under my personal protection," Castiel said without stopping. "Effective immediately. Make the announcement."

Dorian nodded once. "Yes, Your Highness."

We climbed stairs. Turned down another hallway. Castiel shouldered open a door and carried me into a room that was clearly his—dark wood furniture, floor-to-ceiling windows, the scent of cedar and night air.

He set me down on a leather couch. Stepped back. Put three feet of space between us.

"Breathe," he said.

I tried. My lungs cooperated better this time.

He watched me for a long moment. Then he turned and poured water from a pitcher on the side table. Brought it to me. Waited while I drank.

"What happened?" he asked quietly.

I set the glass down with shaking hands. "Panic attack."

"I know what it was." His voice was patient. Controlled. "I'm asking what triggered it."

I couldn't tell him. Couldn't explain that Sebastian's presence made the rejection mark burn, that Emilia's smile felt like a knife, that I'd been sent here to destroy him and instead I was falling apart in his private quarters.

"I'm fine," I whispered.

His jaw tightened. "You reached through a bond that doesn't exist yet. You flooded my mind with your terror in the middle of a conversation with the Northridge Alpha. You are not fine."

My head snapped up. "What?"

"The mind-link." He held my gaze. "You initiated it. Without a completed bond. Without a mark. That shouldn't be possible."

I pressed my fingers against the cold scar on my neck. Said nothing.

Castiel studied me for a long moment. Then he moved to the door. "You'll stay here tonight. In the guest room. Dorian will bring your things."

"Your Highness, I can't—"

"You can. You will." He paused in the doorway. "Sebastian Meyer is no longer welcome in Silverfang territory. If he returns, I'll consider it an act of aggression."

He left before I could respond.

I sat alone in the Lycan Prince's private quarters, trembling, and tried to understand what had just happened.

The mind-link. The aura. The way Castiel had carried me like I weighed nothing and mattered everything.

I closed my eyes and felt the suppressant tincture burning in my veins, fighting to keep my real scent buried.

It was getting harder.