Gavyn POV

My convoy of blacked-out SUVs cut a jagged scar down the highway, racing toward the Silver Moon border.

I sat in the back of the lead car, my knee bouncing with a rhythm of pure, uncontrollable anxiety.

She is awake.

The words played on a loop in my head, a taunting mantra I couldn't escape.

Suddenly, my Mind-Link snapped open, shattering my concentration. It wasn't Alex. It was Elara.

Gavyn! You fool! What have you done? Her voice exploded in my head, loud enough to make me wince physically.

Elara, tell me where she is, I demanded, shoving my Alpha authority back down the bond.

You drove her into the arms of another! You broke the bond! Do you know what that does to a wolf? Do you know the agony she suffered while you were playing house with that viper?

Watch your tongue, Elder, I growled, my wolf pacing angrily beneath my skin. Iliana is my Chosen Mate.

Iliana is a monster! Elara shrieked, her mental voice cracking with desperation. And you are blind!

I severed the link, slamming the mental door shut and ripping the tactical earpiece from my ear.

My head was pounding. Why was everyone against me? I did what was best for the pack. An Omega Luna makes us look weak. I needed a strong Luna. Iliana came from a powerful Alpha bloodline. It was politics. It was survival.

But the ache in my chest... that wasn't politics. That was loss.

I needed to clear my head. I keyed the comms and signaled the convoy to stop at a rest area near the border. I needed air.

The gravel crunched beneath my boots as I walked toward the edge of the woods, trying to soothe the restless beast inside me.

That's when I heard them.

Voices. Small, familiar voices.

They were drifting from the open window of the SUV behind me, where the nanny was keeping the twins. I had brought them because I thought... I thought maybe seeing them would bring Alex back to me.

I moved closer, staying out of sight, using the shadows.

"I miss Mommy," Kennith's voice floated out. Small and broken.

"Me too," Kaelynn whispered. "My tummy hurts, Kenny."

"Is it the special juice Auntie Iliana gave us?"

I froze. My breath hitched in my throat.

"Yeah," Kaelynn whimpered. "She said it's 'strong wolf medicine'. But it tastes like fire. She said if we tell Daddy, the monsters will come back."

"She's mean," Kennith said, his voice trembling. "She pinched me when I spilled it. She said Mommy Alex is dead and we are 'baggage'."

The world seemed to dissolve beneath my feet.

Special juice. Tastes like fire. Baggage.

My knees hit the gravel hard.

Before I could process the horror, a frantic Mind-Link pierced my consciousness. It was the Pack Healer back home.

Alpha! Emergency!

What now? I gasped, clutching the cold metal side of the car to keep from collapsing.

I... I found the logs, Alpha. I was afraid to show you before because Iliana threatened my mate, but... with you gone... with you far enough away...

Send it! I roared internally.

An image flashed into my mind. A toxicology report. Dated three weeks ago.

Subject: Kennith & Kaelynn Dunlap.

Substance Found: Wolfsbane (Trace Amounts), Arsenic.

Source: Dietary Supplement administered by Luna Iliana.

I stared at the digital paper in my mind's eye, paralyzed.

Wolfsbane. She was feeding my children Wolfsbane. It stunts growth. It causes excruciating pain. In high doses, it kills.

Acid clawed up my throat. I doubled over and vomited onto the asphalt.

The realization hit me like a freight train. Every time the twins cried. Every time they said they were sick. Every time Alex tried to warn me, and I dismissed her as jealous.

"She's just an Omega, Gavyn. She doesn't understand medicine." That's what Iliana had said.

And I believed her.

I stood up, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. The sadness was gone. The confusion was gone.

In its place was a cold, dark void of pure murderous intent.

I stalked to the SUV where the twins were. I ripped open the door. They flinched, terror in their eyes. They were afraid of me. Their own father.

"Daddy?" Kaelynn whispered, trembling.

I reached out, my hand shaking, and gently touched her cheek. It was fever-warm.

"Healer!" I bellowed, my voice shattering the silence of the rest stop. "Get over here! Now!"

The pack warriors scrambled, eyes wide with confusion.

"Treat them," I ordered, my voice devoid of humanity. "Flush their systems. If they die, you all die."

I turned to Marcus, my Beta.

"Turn the car around," I said softly.

"Alpha? But... the Silver Moon..."

"Turn. The. Car. Around." I looked at him, my eyes bleeding into a deep, demonic red.

"We are going home. I have a 'Chosen Mate' to execute."

I looked down at my hands. They were trembling.

I had destroyed the only woman who ever truly loved me. I had handed my children to a killer.

Alex, I thought, a single tear cutting through the grime on my face. I broke everything.

But first, I had to clean up the mess.

And it was going to be bloody.

Gavyn POV

The drive back to the Pack House was a blur of shredded asphalt and blinding rage. My wolf prowled beneath my skin, scratching at my ribs, demanding blood for the betrayal.

Wolfsbane.

The word tasted like ash in my mouth.

I looked at the twins sleeping in the car seat next to me. Their skin was pale-ghostly, translucent-too pale for pups their age. They whimpered in their sleep, their little bodies fighting a poison administered by the woman I had put on a pedestal.

We screeched to a halt in front of the main entrance. I didn't wait for Marcus to open the door. I kicked it open, the metal groaning and buckling under the force of my Alpha strength.

"Get the healers!" I barked at the guards rushing toward us. I unbuckled the twins with trembling hands, passing them carefully into the arms of the medical team that had just burst through the doors. "Save them. If they die, you all die."

Once my pups were out of sight, the father receded, and the monster took over.

"Lock down the territory!" I roared, my voice carrying the crushing weight of the Alpha Command. Every wolf within a mile radius would feel the compulsion to obey, a physical pressure forcing them to submit. "No one leaves. No one enters. Find Iliana."

My warriors scrambled, the stench of their terror souring the air. They smelled like wet dog and panic.

I stormed into the Pack House. The air was thick with tension, heavy enough to choke on.

"Alpha," Marcus jogged to keep up with me, his breath coming in short bursts. "She's not in her quarters. Her scent trail ends at the eastern border."

"Find her," I snarled. "Turn every stone. Burn every rogue nest if you have to."

I marched into my office, slamming the door so hard the frame cracked down the center. I needed to think. I needed to track the rot to its source.

My eyes landed on the security monitors. The Healer, terrified but loyal, had sent the files directly to my private server.

I pulled up the footage from the nursery hallway.

There she was. Iliana.

She was talking to a figure cloaked in shadows. The figure wasn't pack. He moved wrong. Too jagged. Too feral, moving with a disjointed, predatory grace.

A Rogue.

I zoomed in. On the Rogue's wrist, a tattoo was visible for a split second. A jagged skull with a serpent winding through the eye.

The Shadow Rogues. Mercenaries who dealt in dark magic and forbidden poisons.

"Marcus!" I bellowed into the Mind-Link, my mental voice a thunderclap.

Yes, Alpha?

The old sawmill near the river. It's a known drop point for the Shadow Rogues. Take a strike team. Now.

Two hours later, the interrogation room smelled of copper blood and rust.

The Rogue was tied to a steel chair. He was missing an ear-freshly torn off by Marcus-and his face was a map of purple and black bruises. But he was smiling. A sick, toothy grin stained with red.

"Where is she?" I asked, my voice dangerously quiet, the calm before the slaughter.

"Gone," the Rogue wheezed, blood bubbling at the corner of his lip. "She knew you'd figure it out eventually. She's smart, your little snake."

I stepped closer, letting my Alpha aura fill the small room. It was suffocating, a physical weight designed to crush the will of lesser wolves until they couldn't breathe, couldn't think, could only obey.

"Why?" I asked. "Why poison children?"

The Rogue laughed, spitting blood onto my boots. "Power, Alpha. It's always power. She wanted to be the only Luna. She wanted to be the mother of the next Alpha. But your brats... they kept asking for the Omega."

My fists clenched until my knuckles turned white, the leather of my gloves creaking under the strain.

"She bought the Wolfsbane from us," he continued, enjoying my pain. "She said they were 'defective'. That they needed to be 'fixed' or removed."

My vision went red. The beast inside me snapped its leash.

I grabbed the Rogue by his throat, lifting him off the ground as if he weighed nothing.

"You sold poison to kill my pups," I growled, my voice dropping an octave, becoming something archaic and monstrous.

"Business is business," he choked out, clawing uselessly at my wrist. "Your Chosen Mate... she was our best customer."

I threw him against the wall. He crumpled, unconscious but alive. Bones snapped on impact. I needed him for the trial.

I walked out of the cell, wiping the filth from my hands. The Pack Elders were waiting in the hallway. Elara was there, her face grim.

"We have the records, Alpha," Elara said, handing me a stack of documents. "Bank transfers. Communications. She has been planning this for months."

I looked at the papers. The dates went back to before I rejected Alex.

The realization hit me like a physical blow. While I was pushing Alex away, thinking I was doing what was best for the pack, Iliana was plotting to murder my bloodline.

"Set up the tribunal," I said, my voice hollow, void of all emotion save for a cold, deadly resolve. "Tonight. We end this."