Seraphina POV:

Sleep was a fever dream. The silver was a ring of fire, constantly reopening the wound as my immune system tried and failed to heal it.

But the physical pain was a distraction from the psychic noise.

The wall wasn't soundproof against the Mind-Link.

Even rejected, the biological wire remained.

I lay on the bare floor.

I heard the bed creak next door. Isabella's laughter.

Then, the wave hit me.

A psychic backlash of pleasure. His arousal, his release, washing over my mind like hot grease.

I scrambled to the bathroom and dry-heaved.

He was with her. And the Bond was forcing me to watch.

Get out, I prayed. Get out of my head.

The next morning, I was a ghost. My skin was grey, my eyes sunk deep in bruised sockets. I wore a turtleneck to hide the burns, the fabric scraping the raw skin with every breath.

I went to the kitchen. Isabella was drinking espresso.

"Sleep well?" she asked. "We were... active."

"Like the dead," I croaked. My vocal cords were swollen from the silver exposure.

Dante walked in. He looked energized, practically vibrating with Alpha power. He saw me and frowned. He smelled the burnt flesh-he had to. But he chose to ignore it.

"Passport," he said. "And ID."

"Why?"

"Updating the Pack registry. Since you're... transitioning to the guest quarters."

Evicted.

"Fine," I said. "I'm going to the city to renew my papers anyway."

Dante's eyes narrowed. Possessiveness flared. "Why? Who are you meeting?"

"No one."

"If I smell another male on you," Dante growled, crowding my space, "I will tear his throat out. You are Pack Property."

"I'm not property!"

"You are what I say you are!" He slammed his hand on the counter. Granite cracked.

He pulled out his phone. "Look."

Instagram. A photo from last night. Him and Isabella. Caption: My strength. My future. My Luna.

Thousands of likes. The werewolf world applauding my funeral.

I looked at him. The man who held my heart and squeezed until it popped.

I pulled out my phone. Hands shaking, I opened the comments.

I typed one sentence.

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Thus passes the glory of the world. He taught me that phrase when I was twelve. He said it meant power is fleeting.

I hit send.

Then, I did the unthinkable.

I focused on the golden thread in my mind. The Mate Bond.

No, my wolf screamed. Suicide!

Better dead than this.

I visualized a pair of shears.

I clamped down.

SNAP.

It felt like an aneurysm. White-hot agony exploded behind my eyes. I gasped, blood gushing from my nose.

Dante stumbled back, clutching his chest. The color drained from his face. He felt the void. The sudden silence where I used to be.

"What did you do?" he whispered.

I wiped the blood from my lip. The constant hum of his presence was gone. It was quiet.

"I set you free, Alpha," I said. Dead voice.

I walked out.

I went straight to the garden shed. I found the jar of Wolfsbane paste. Poisonous to wolves. In small doses, it masks a scent. In large doses, it kills.

I needed to disappear.

His birthday party was in two days.

That was when I would run.

The nightmares were getting creative. Dante as a wolf, licking my hand, his tongue stripping the flesh from my bones.

I woke up silent screaming. The collar was choking me, the infection spreading.

Two days left. I had to sanitize my existence.

Wolves nest. We hoard things that smell like our loved ones. My room was a shrine to Dante. Old sweaters, books, dried flowers. Anchors.

I had to cut the rope.

I dragged a black trash bag down the stairs. Thump. Thump.

"Going somewhere?"

Dante stood by the door, whiskey in hand. He looked diminished. Since I cut the link, he was bleeding energy.

"Taking out the trash."

"Smells like... me." He stepped closer. "Stealing my things? Building a nest somewhere else?"

His arrogance was a disease. He thought I was stealing his clothes to sniff them in secret.

"Check it."

He hesitated. He didn't want to see my desperation.

"Burn it," he told the guards.

"What?"

"You want it gone? Let's do it right." He opened the door. "Leo! Torch it."

Leo dragged the bag to the fire pit.

Dante raised his hand. A ball of Alpha Fire flickered in his palm. He threw it.

Whoosh.

I watched my childhood burn. The teddy bear. The diary. The sweater that smelled like safety.

"I've made arrangements," Dante said, eyes on the flames. "Boarding school in Switzerland. You leave next week."

"Exile," I laughed. Dry, cracking.

"Safety," he recited. "Isabella... she's territorial. If you stay, she'll hurt you. And I can't... I can't watch you 24/7."

"You mean you can't stand the guilt."

He turned, eyes blazing. "I am saving your life! You are weak! You are an Omega without a wolf! You cannot survive this world without me!"

"You're right," I whispered. "I can't survive with you."

He flinched.

"Go to your room. Stay there until the party."

I walked away.

He didn't know he'd just done me a favor. A wolf without a nest is a Rogue.

And Rogues have nothing left to lose.

Seraphina POV:

The night of the Gala was apocalyptic. Storm off the Atlantic. Rain like bullets.

Perfect.

I was in the kitchen, dressed as a maid. Invisible.

I heard Dante in the library with William, his Beta.

"She's acting strange, Dante. Too quiet. And that collar... her neck is rotting."

"She's fine," Dante dismissed, though his voice was tight. "Just sulking."

"Is she?" William asked. "Or is she broken? Dante, she's your-"

"Don't say it!" Dante roared. "She is a weak, human child! If I claim her, the Elders will tear her apart! I am doing this to protect her!"

"You're protecting her to death," William said.

I slipped out to the terrace.

Isabella was holding court in a blood-red dress. She saw me and smirked.

She walked over, feigned a stumble, and dumped her wine on me.

"Oops," she laughed. "Look at you. Cleaning up messes. It suits you."

She shoved me. Hard.

I slipped on the wet stone and fell backward, into the mud and rain.

Dante came rushing out.

"What happened?"

"She pushed me!" Isabella cried. "She tried to attack me!"

Dante looked at me, shivering in the mud, the collar glistening. He knew she was lying.

But he was the Alpha. He couldn't side with the help against the Luna.

"Get up," he barked. "Get out of my sight."

He took off his jacket.

My heart did a stupid, hopeful thing.

He wrapped it around Isabella.

"Let's go inside, love."

They turned their backs.

I lay in the mud. Cold seeping into the marrow.

Bzzzz.

My burner phone.

Border open. Sector 4. Midnight.

11:00 PM.

I stood up.

A wave of heat hit me. Not the silver. Internal.

My blood boiled. Bones ground together. My vision sharpened, tracking individual raindrops.

My fingernails elongated into claws.

Not now.

But my wolf wasn't hiding anymore. She was waking up.

The fever spiked. I wasn't shivering from cold; I was shivering from power.

"Happy Birthday, Dante," I whispered.

I ran into the woods.

I didn't run like a human. I moved with impossible speed.

I was running toward the Rogues.

I wasn't Seraphina the orphan anymore. I was the storm.

The mud was slick, but I didn't slip.

I had rubbed the Wolfsbane paste on my wrists and ankles. It numbed my skin and made my wolf sluggish, but to the patrols, I smelled like wet moss.

I reached the perimeter fence. Twelve feet high, electrified.

I knew the weakness. Rabbits dug under the foundation near the drainage pipe.

I crawled through the muck. Concrete scraped my back.

I emerged on the other side.

Freedom.

A black sedan waited on the access road.

I sprinted. My legs burned with the fever of the shift.

A shadow detached from the trees.

A wolf.

Patrol guard. Massive brown beast, snarling, blocking my path.

He crouched. He recognized me. The Alpha's pet.

He opened his jaws to howl.

No.

I didn't cower.

I stopped. The fever spiked hotter than the silver.

"Move," I said.

It wasn't a scream. It was a vibration. I mimicked the pitch Dante used when he commanded the legions. I threw every ounce of my repressed rage into my aura.

A ripple of energy exploded outward.

The brown wolf froze. He whimpered. Instinct overrode duty. Confronted with a superior predator's frequency, he submitted.

He backed away, tail tucked, belly to the mud.

I didn't question it. I dove into the car.

"Go!"

We sped toward the highway.

We hit the territorial border.

Leaving a Pack isn't like crossing state lines. It's spiritual amputation.

Snap.

"Argh!" I gasped, clutching my chest.

The hook ripped out of my soul. The background hum of the Pack vanished.

Silence. Cold, lonely silence.

But then... oxygen.

For the first time in ten years, I could breathe.

Seraphina POV:

The flight was a blur of turbulence and fever dreams.

We landed in Toronto. The air was sharp, smelling of ice and ancient earth.

A convoy waited.

A man stepped out of the lead SUV. Older, silver in his dark hair, radiating power.

Marco Rossi. Alpha of the Blood Moon. My father.

I stepped off the plane. Legs shaking, Wolfsbane wearing off.

Marco stopped five feet away. He inhaled.

Biology doesn't lie.

"Seraphina," he whispered. Voice like gravel.

He reached out.

Then the wind shifted.

He froze. Nostrils flared. Eyes turned feral red.

He smelled the silver.

He looked at my neck. The collar had slipped, revealing the raw, oozing ring.

"WHO DID THIS?"

The roar shook the jet's windows. Pure violence.

"Moretti," he snarled. "I will kill him. I will burn his city to ash!"

"Alpha," a calm voice cut in.

A younger man in a tweed coat stepped up. Glasses. Smelled of sage and antiseptic.

William Sterling. The Beta.

"She is hurt, Marco. Revenge later."

William looked at me. Not with pity, but with clinical concern.

"You're burning up. Silver poisoning fighting the first Shift. We need the safe house."

"I'm fine," I croaked.

"You are safe now, little wolf," Marco said, rage damping into fierce protectiveness. He wrapped his heavy coat around me. Tobacco and leather. Father.

I leaned into him.

Adrenaline crashed. The world tilted.

Black spots danced.

I felt strong arms catch me before I hit the concrete.

Dante POV:

The party was a disaster.

My wolf was pacing in my chest, scratching at the ribs.

I hadn't seen Seraphina for hours.

"Where is she?" I asked a servant.

"Haven't seen her since she... fell, Alpha."

Cold knot in the gut. I pushed past Isabella.

I took the stairs two at a time.

Her room.

"Seraphina!"

Silence.

I flipped the switch.

Empty.

Not just unoccupied. Scrubbed. Shelves bare. Closet empty.

The air smelled of bleach. She had erased herself.

"No," I whispered.

On the desk, a single sheet of sketch paper.

Charcoal drawing. A black wolf-me-and a white wolf on a cliff.

Bottom corner: Long live the King.

And on top of the paper... the collar.

Stained with blood and pus. Strips of skin stuck to the filigree.

The scent hit me. Not vanilla. Suffering. Burnt flesh. Infection.

I dropped the collar like it was radioactive.

She hadn't just run. She had clawed her way out.

Window open. Rain soaking the floor.

"ALARM!" I roared. The Command shattered the window glass.

"Lock down the estate! Find her!"

My wolf let out a sound of absolute desolation.

She wasn't hiding in the woods.

The bond was silent. She was gone.