Anais POV

The black SUV had vanished into the rain, leaving me shivering on the cracked pavement of the Omega sector. Marcus, the Alpha's warrior, had dumped me here with a warning glare that promised violence if I spoke a word of what happened.

I stumbled toward the small, peeling door of my home. My legs felt like lead, weighed down not just by exhaustion, but by the lingering, electric hum of his touch.

I pushed the door open. The familiar scent of lavender soap and dried herbs usually brought me comfort, but today, it felt suffocating.

My mother, Amber, was pacing the small living room. Her head snapped up the moment I entered. Relief washed over her face, instantly replaced by a look of sheer horror as her nose twitched.

"Anais?" She rushed forward, grabbing my shoulders. Her grip was bruising. "Where have you been? I've been calling—" She stopped, her eyes widening as she inhaled sharply. "By the Goddess. You smell like... like winter. Like him."

She recoiled as if I were radioactive. The scent of the Alpha heir—crushed mint and ice—was clinging to every pore of my skin, overpowering the damp wool of the cheap grey dress Dimitri had thrown at me.

"Mom, I..." My voice cracked. I didn't know where to start. The white room. The blood. The amnesia.

"Did he hurt you?" Her voice rose to a frantic pitch. "Did Alpha Dimitri force you?"

"No! I mean... I don't remember!" I cried, wringing my hands.

That was when the light from the hallway bulb caught it. The moonstone ring.

Amber froze. She snatched my hand, staring at the heavy silver band engraved with the Alpha's initials. Her face went the color of ash.

"Take it off," she hissed, clawing at my finger.

"I can't! It won't move!" I pulled back, tears streaming down my face.

"Do you know what this means?" Amber whispered, terror trembling in her voice. "If the Pack sees a wolfless Omega wearing the Alpha heir's ring... they won't just kill you, Anais. They will make an example of us. We are invisible. We are supposed to be nothing."

"I didn't ask for this!" I screamed, the panic finally shattering my composure. I ripped my hand from her grasp and bolted for my room, slamming the door and locking it.

I slid down against the wood, clutching my chest. The ring pulsed on my finger, warm and heavy, a shackle binding me to a monster I couldn't remember meeting.

Beatrice POV

The steady beep... beep... beep of the heart monitor was the only music I needed.

I stood over the withered form of Alpha Grafton Barrett. The man who had once commanded armies was now reduced to a husk, his skin grey and papery.

"You held on longer than I expected, my love," I whispered, smoothing a stray hair from his forehead. My voice was soft, the picture of a grieving Luna, but my eyes were dry.

I leaned down, my lips brushing his ear. "You thought you could give the Pack to that stray? To Dimitri?"

Grafton's eyelids fluttered, but he was too weak to wake. The silver tincture I'd been slipping into his evening tea for the past year had done its work beautifully. It was a slow, agonizing rot from the inside out.

"Bryson will be Alpha," I promised him, a cruel smile curving my lips. "And your precious Dimitri? I have a special surprise for him. The Elders will never accept a wolfless Omega as Luna. Your precious Lycan's bond with that trash is a mockery to the Moon Goddess. It will be his undoing, my love. I will make sure of it."

The door handle turned. I straightened instantly, my face falling into a mask of tragic devastation just as the door burst open.

Dimitri POV

The smell of death hit me before I even crossed the threshold. It was a cloying, metallic stench that made Ragnar, my inner Lycan, howl in grief.

"Father!"

I rushed to the bedside, Bryson right on my heels. Alpha Grafton was convulsing, his body arching off the mattress as the machines screamed a flatline warning.

"Do something!" I roared at the Pack Doctor.

"We can't, Alpha! His heart—it's giving out!" the doctor shouted, his hands glowing with healing magic that fizzled and died against Grafton's skin.

I grabbed my father's hand. It was cold. So cold.

"Dimitri..." Grafton gasped, his eyes flying open. They were milky, unfocused. He looked at me, desperate to speak, but a violent cough tore through him, spraying dark, almost black blood onto the white sheets.

And then, he was gone. The machine let out a long, singular tone that signaled the end of an era.

"No," I whispered. The silence in the room was deafening.

Beatrice let out a wail and collapsed onto Bryson's chest. My brother held her, his face twisted in sorrow, but his scent... his scent was steady. Too steady.

"How did this happen?" I demanded, turning on the doctor. The Alpha's Command rolled off me, shaking the glass vials on the shelves. "He was strong. He was an Alpha!"

Bryson stepped forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Dimitri, stop. The doctor... he told me last week."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Told you what?"

"Father was sick," Bryson said, his voice thick with unshed tears. "It was a rare condition. Chronic silver poisoning. Someone had been exposing him to it for months, maybe years. He forbade us from telling you. He didn't want you to worry while you were handling the border disputes."

Silver poisoning?

Ragnar snarled in my head. Lies? Or betrayal?

"He kept this from me?" I looked back at the lifeless body of the man who raised me.

"He wanted to protect the Pack from panic," Bryson said smoothly. "He wanted to protect you."

I stared at my father's black blood. Silver poisoning wasn't an illness; it was murder. An inside job.

Grief hardened into something cold and sharp in my chest. I had woken up with no memory, mated to a wolfless nobody, and now my father was dead from a secret poison.

The walls were closing in. And I didn't know who held the knife.

Dimitri POV

The mourning ceremony was a blur of black veils and hollow condolences, but my mind was miles away, locked in the cold silence of my private study.

The revelation of the silver poisoning had planted a seed of madness in my brain. Murder. My father had been murdered, and somehow, my memory loss was the key.

I poured a glass of whiskey but didn't drink it. Instead, I stared into the amber liquid, forcing my mind back to the night before I woke up in that bed with the girl. The fog in my head was thick, unnatural.

Think, Dimitri.

A flash of memory pierced through. My father's private quarters. The fire crackling. He had handed me a crystal goblet.

"Drink, my son," Grafton had said, his voice raspy but firm. "It is holy water from the Moon Goddess's spring. To strengthen the bloodline. To prepare you."

His eyes... they hadn't been proud. They had been apologetic.

I slammed the whiskey glass down, shattering it. The shards bit into my palm, but I didn't feel it. He had drugged me. My own father had drugged me to ensure I would... what? Sleep with a wolfless Omega?

Why? Ragnar, my inner Lycan, paced restlessly in the back of my mind. Pack. Protection. Mate.

"Lies," I hissed.

I needed proof.

I waited until the moon was high and the Pack House was silent with grief. The door to my father's study was sealed with the Elders' yellow tape, forbidden to everyone until the official reading of the will.

I didn't care. I ripped the tape and kicked the door open.

The room smelled like him—aged oak, tobacco, and the underlying metallic tang of the sickness that took him. I tore through his desk, tossing papers aside, until my fingers brushed against a uneven seam in the wood of the bottom drawer. A hidden compartment.

I pried it open with my claws. Inside lay a single scroll made of ancient beast skin, pulsing with a faint, silver light.

I unrolled it, and the air left my lungs.

Sacred Bonding Contract.

The words seemed to burn into my retinas. It was a binding magical agreement, detailing the union of Dimitri Barrett and Anais Moreno. And there, at the bottom, was the jagged, unmistakable signature of Alpha Grafton Barrett, witnessed by the High Elder.

"You planned this," I whispered to the empty room, my voice trembling with a rage so cold it felt like ice. "You sold me. You sold your own son to a wolfless nobody."

I looked at the moonstone ring on my finger—the one I couldn't take off. It wasn't an accident. It was a shackle.

A growl ripped from my throat. I grabbed the parchment, intending to shred it, to burn it, to reject this insanity right here and now.

"I, Dimitri Barrett, reject—"

The words died in my throat. The scroll flared with blinding white light, burning my fingertips. Runes of the Moon Goddess surfaced on the skin, glowing with absolute power.

Protected. The magic whispered in my mind. Irrevocable for one full cycle of the seasons.

I threw the scroll across the room. It hit the wall and rolled shut, mocking me. I couldn't reject her. Not yet.

If I couldn't break the bond, I would break the person who helped tie the knot.

"Bring the Omega girl to the cells. Now." I projected the order through the Mind-Link, my voice booming like thunder in the heads of my warriors.

The dungeons were cold, smelling of rust and old misery.

Anais was strapped to a wooden chair in the center of the interrogation cell. She looked small, pathetic in the harsh light of the torches. Her grey dress was torn, and she was shivering violently.

When I stepped in, the air pressure in the room dropped. My Lycan aura flooded the space, heavy and suffocating.

"D-Dimitri?" she squeaked, her eyes wide with terror.

Ragnar let out a low whine. Mate. Hurt. No.

I shoved the beast down. "That is Alpha to you."

I stalked forward, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at me. Her skin was soft, and a spark of electricity—that damned mate bond—zapped my fingers. I ignored it, leaning in until our noses almost touched.

"Who are you working for?" I snarled, letting the Alpha's Command lace my voice. It wasn't a question; it was a compulsion.

Anais gasped, her pupils dilating as the Command hit her. She tried to pull away, tears spilling over her cheeks. "No one! I don't know what you're talking about!"

"My father is dead," I said, my voice dangerously quiet. "He drugged me. He bound me to you with a contract that predates our meeting. You expect me to believe a wolfless Omega just happened to be the beneficiary of the Alpha's greatest betrayal?"

"I don't know!" she screamed, sobbing. "I don't remember anything! I was with my friends... we went to the bar... that's all!"

"What friends?" I tightened my grip on her jaw.

"Ayesha... and Michael," she choked out. "Please... you're hurting me."

Ragnar roared in my head, clawing at my skull. Stop! She is ours!

I released her as if she were burning me. She slumped back against the chair, weeping brokenly.

She was either the greatest actress I had ever seen, or she was truly a pawn. But pawns could still be used to topple kings.

I turned my back on her, walking toward the iron door.

"Rot here until your memory returns," I threw over my shoulder.

"Dimitri, please!" she wailed.

I slammed the heavy door, cutting off her voice, but not her scent. It clung to me, mint and fear, maddeningly addictive.

I pulled out my phone and dialed my Gamma.

"Find Ayesha and Michael," I ordered, staring at the stone wall. "Bring them to me. If she won't talk, maybe her friends will bleed the truth for her."

Anais POV

Time lost all meaning in the darkness. The cell smelled of damp stone and despair, a heavy, suffocating scent that clung to my skin. I curled tighter into the corner, my knees pulled to my chest, shivering not just from the cold, but from the terrifying uncertainty.

The heavy iron door groaned open, slicing through the silence.

Dimitri filled the doorway. Even in the dim torchlight, his presence was overwhelming—a force of nature that sucked the air out of the room. The scent of blizzard and cedar flooded the small space, instantly overpowering the smell of rot. It was a scent that made my heart hammer against my ribs, a confusing mix of terror and an instinctual pull I couldn't understand.

He stepped inside, the heavy door clanging shut behind him. His ice-blue eyes swept over me, cold and calculating.

"Stand up," he ordered. The Alpha's Command washed over me, compelling my trembling limbs to obey before my mind could even process the request.

I scrambled to my feet, pressing my back against the rough stone wall as he stalked closer. He stopped inches from me, his large frame boxing me in.

"Why do you still wear it?" His voice was a low growl, his gaze dropping to the moonstone ring on my finger.

"I... I can't take it off," I whispered, my voice shaking. "I've tried. It won't budge."

He reached out, his rough fingers brushing against my hand. The moment skin met skin, a jolt of electricity—The Physical Surge—zapped through me, hot and undeniable. I gasped, trying to pull away, but his grip tightened. He wasn't hurting me, but the intensity of his touch was terrifying.

He stared into my eyes, searching for something. For a lie? For a confession? I saw a flicker of something wild in his gaze, a flash of gold bleeding into the blue. His jaw clenched, a muscle ticking as if he were fighting a war within himself.

"Get out," he snarled suddenly, releasing my hand as if it burned him.

I blinked, stunned. "W-What?"

"Leave. Before I change my mind and let you rot here." He turned his back on me, his shoulders tense. "Go!"

I didn't wait to be told twice. I scrambled past him, stumbling out of the cell and running toward the sliver of light at the end of the corridor, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

The fresh air of the courtyard hit me like a physical blow, but I didn't stop. I was barefoot, my feet scraping against the cobblestones, but pain was irrelevant. I just needed to get away.

"Hold it right there, rogue!"

A rough hand clamped around my upper arm, jerking me to a halt. I cried out as I was spun around to face two towering Pack Warriors.

"Look at this," the one holding me sneered, his grip bruising. "Trying to sneak out?"

"Please," I begged, struggling uselessly. "The Alpha... he let me go."

"Likely story," the warrior scoffed, tightening his grip until I whimpered.

A low, thunderous growl vibrated through the air, freezing the blood in my veins.

"Let. Her. Go."

The warriors went pale, dropping my arm instantly and bowing their heads. Dimitri strode toward us, his fury palpable. It wasn't the cold, calculated anger from the cell; this was raw, possessive rage.

He shoved the warrior aside with enough force to send the man stumbling. "If you ever touch her again," Dimitri hissed, his voice laced with a lethal promise, "you will lose that hand."

He turned to me. I flinched, expecting his wrath to turn my way, but he simply grabbed my wrist—the one the warrior had bruised. His thumb brushed over the red marks, and a strange warmth seeped from his skin into mine, soothing the ache.

"Get in the car," he ordered, pulling me toward a black armored SUV parked nearby. His tone brooked no argument.

I climbed into the passenger seat, trembling. As he slammed the door and rounded the vehicle, I realized with a sinking feeling that I wasn't escaping. I was just being moved from one cage to another.

Dimitri POV

The Great Hall was silent, save for the rustling of parchment. I sat at the head of the long mahogany table, my face a mask of indifference, though Ragnar was pacing restlessly in my mind.

Mate safe. Mate home, the beast chanted, satisfied that we had dropped Anais off at her crumbling apartment. I had left warriors to watch the perimeter, though I told myself it was to keep her in, not to keep others out.

"As you can see," Beatrice said, her voice dripping with faux sympathy as she addressed the Council of Elders. She stood near the fireplace, her hand resting on the shoulder of her son, Bryson. "Grafton's will is clear. The heir must be mated to ascend. Dimitri is... unattached. And given his disposition toward women, it is unlikely that will change."

She smiled at me, a shark baring its teeth. "Therefore, as Grafton's widow, I assume the role of Regent until Bryson comes of age."

The Elders murmured in agreement. Beatrice's eyes gleamed with triumph. She thought she had won. She thought she had checkmated me.

"Not quite," I said, my voice cutting through the murmurs.

I pulled the sealed letter from my jacket pocket—the one the High Elder had handed me privately before the meeting. My father's handwriting was shaky on the envelope.

Trust the bond, my son. She is the only way.

I hated him for it. I hated that he had manipulated me, drugged me, and tied me to a wolfless nobody. But I hated Beatrice more.

"I have fulfilled the requirement," I announced, standing up. The room went deathly quiet.

Beatrice's smile faltered. "Impossible. You have no mate."

"I do." I looked her dead in the eye. "The Sacred Bonding Contract was signed by my father before his death. The bond is sealed. The mark is on her finger."

"Lies!" Beatrice shrieked, her composure cracking. "Who? Who would have you?"

I ignored her screeching and looked at my Gamma, Davon, who was standing by the door. I didn't want this. I didn't want a mate, especially not a weak one. But I was the Alpha. And I would not let this pack fall into the hands of a poisoner.

I opened the Mind-Link, projecting my voice so every wolf in the vicinity could hear the command that would seal my fate—and hers.

"Davon. Bring my Mate, Anais Moreno, to the Great Hall. Now. And show her the respect due to your future Luna."