Florence POV:

I woke up feeling like I had been hollowed out with a rusty spoon.

My hip throbbed with a deep, bone-level ache where they had drilled into me. I was back in a recovery room, but it wasn't the VIP suite. It was a storage closet converted into a temporary ward. Mops and buckets lined the far wall.

I tried to sit up and failed. My body was completely drained.

The door opened. Julius walked in.

He looked fresh, showered, and annoyed.

"Finally," he said. "Kenzie is stabilizing. The marrow took."

"Where is Ava?" I whispered, my voice like sandpaper.

"In the nursery. She's fine." He tossed a clipboard onto my legs. "Sign this."

I looked down. It was a Non-Disclosure Agreement. And a transfer of assets.

"What is this?"

"It states that you donated the marrow voluntarily," Julius said, checking his watch. "And that you are transferring your 20% stake in the architecture firm to Kenzie. As a... get-well gift."

I laughed. It hurt my ribs, but I laughed.

"You stole my body parts, Julius. Now you want my life's work?"

"You have no leverage, Florence. Sign it, or I send Ava to a boarding school in the Rogue territories. I hear the survival rate is... low."

Something inside me shattered. Not a bone, but the last tether of affection I held for this man. The ten years of hiding, of pretending to be weak, of loving him... it all turned to ash.

I looked at the pen. I picked it up.

I signed the paper.

"Good girl," Julius smirked, snatching the clipboard. "I, Alpha Julius Carroll, reject you, Florence Horton, as my wife. Pack your things. You have one hour to vacate the premises."

He didn't wait for a reaction. He turned and walked out, eager to get back to his 'Fated Mate'.

The moment the door clicked shut, the air in the room shifted.

"You can come out now," I whispered.

A shadow in the corner detached itself from the darkness. Sarah, the head of my father's Royal Guard.

"Princess," Sarah said, her voice thick with suppressed rage. "The King is two miles out. He wants to level this building."

"No," I said, swinging my legs off the bed. I hissed as pain shot through my hip, but I forced myself to stand. "Not yet. If we strike now, he becomes a martyr. I want him to be nothing."

"Your orders?"

"Get Ava. Get the car. We're leaving."

I limped toward the door. I paused, looking at the empty IV bag hanging by the bed.

"Julius thinks he took everything," I murmured, my eyes flashing silver in the dim light. "He has no idea he just woke up the White Wolf."

Florence POV:

Three weeks later.

The glass doors of the Carroll Architecture Firm slid open. I walked in, my heels clicking rhythmically against the marble floor. I wore a simple black dress, high-necked and long-sleeved, hiding the healing puncture wound on my hip.

My ID was deactivated, naturally. The receptionist, Betty, looked up and paled.

"Mrs. Car— I mean, Florence. You can't be here."

"I'm just here to pick up my personal sketches, Betty," I lied smoothly. "Unless Julius wants a lawsuit for intellectual property theft on top of everything else?"

"Let her in."

The voice came from the mezzanine. Kenzie stood there, looking radiant. She leaned over the railing, smiling down at me. She looked remarkably healthy for someone who supposedly needed a life-saving transplant weeks ago.

"Let her come up," Kenzie said. "I want to thank her personally."

I took the elevator. When the doors opened, the office fell silent. My former colleagues stared at their screens, terrified to make eye contact.

I walked to my old office. It was already changed. My awards were in a trash bin. The walls were painted a garish pink. And Kenzie was sitting in my chair.

Julius stood by the window.

"You look terrible," Julius said without looking up.

"And you look incompetent," I replied.

The room gasped.

Julius turned slowly. "Careful, Florence."

I pointed at the blueprints on the desk. "That's the Lunar Temple project. You've placed the load-bearing pillars on a ley line. The magical interference will collapse the atrium within six months."

Kenzie laughed. "Listen to the human trying to teach us pack magic. I redesigned it. My intuition told me the flow was better this way."

"Your intuition is going to kill people," I said flatly.

"Enough!" Julius slammed his hand on the desk. "Get out. You have your sketches. Leave."

Kenzie stood up and walked around the desk. She stopped in front of me, invading my personal space.

"You know, Florence, you really are pathetic," she whispered. "You couldn't keep your man, you couldn't keep your house. You're just... empty."

She raised her hand and slapped me.

The sound cracked like a whip.

My head snapped to the side. My Inner Wolf didn't just growl; she roared against the cage of my mind. Kill her. Paint the walls with her.

I slowly turned my head back. I tasted copper.

"Do you feel better?" I asked softly.

Kenzie smirked. "Much."

I looked at Julius. He was watching, arms crossed. He approved of this.

"Get out," Julius said.

I nodded. "Gladly."

I walked to the elevator. As the doors closed, I let a small, cold smile play on my lips.

They thought they had humiliated me. They didn't know that while Kenzie was posturing, my phone had been cloning the localized server.

I had just downloaded ten years of financial records, illegal trade deals, and the original blueprints.

And before I left my office, I had dropped a small, silver USB drive behind the server rack.

The Trojan Horse was in the city.

Florence POV:

"Mommy, are the bad men coming?"

Ava sat on the cot in the basement safe house, clutching her stuffed rabbit. We were underground, in a property my father bought through shell companies.

"No, baby," I soothed, brushing her hair. "We're playing a game. Hide and seek."

My phone rang. Blocked number.

"Hello?"

"I know where you are." Julius.

My blood ran cold. "How?"

"You really thought you could hide? You're still wearing the necklace I gave you. Tracker."

I ripped the silver chain from my neck and threw it across the room.

"What do you want, Julius?"

"The Lunar Temple blueprints," he snarled. "The contractors are refusing to build Kenzie's version. They say it's unstable. I need your original files. The ones you stole."

"I didn't steal them. I created them."

"Bring them to me. And bring Ava. The courts awarded me full custody this morning. Abandonment looks bad on a mother's record, Florence."

"You signed away your rights!"

"I'm the Alpha. I do what I want. You have one hour."

I hung up. I grabbed my laptop.

"Okay, Julius," I muttered. "You want the designs? I'll give you a fix."

I opened the CAD files. I adjusted the ventilation specs. To the untrained eye, it looked like a stabilization fix. In reality, I was creating a sonic tunnel. When the autumn winds hit the building, it would emit a high-frequency screech that would drive every wolf inside into a migraine-induced madness.

I hit send.

CRASH.

The door to the safe house splintered inward.

Three men in black tactical gear stormed in. Rogues. Mercenaries.

"Grab the girl!" one shouted.

"Ava, get behind me!" I screamed.

I grabbed a heavy iron lamp and swung. It connected with the first man's helmet with a satisfying crunch. He went down.

But the second man tackled me. His fist connected with my stomach. I doubled over, gasping.

"Mommy!"

I looked up to see the third man grabbing Ava. She was kicking and screaming.

Then, the air shimmered.

Ava's eyes glowed a bright, piercing gold. A low growl, far too deep for a five-year-old, erupted from her throat.

The Rogue holding her yelped and dropped her. Smoke rose from his arm where she had touched him.

"She's burning me!" he yelled.

Ava had manifested her aura. The Royal Aura.

"Forget the plan!" the leader shouted. "Gas them!"

One of them pulled a canister. Wolfsbane.

"No..."

Purple mist filled the tiny room. My lungs burned. My vision blurred.

The last thing I saw was Julius walking through the broken door, stepping over my body to pick up a coughing Ava.

"Good work," he told the Rogues. "Bring the mother. We'll finish this at the river."