Being dead didn’t stop the worry. If anything, it made it worse. I was nothing but a whisper in the wind now, a silent observer tethered to the two pieces of my heart that remained on this cruel earth. I hovered in the damp air of the Obsidian Shadow Pack’s gardens, watching my daughter try to make herself invisible.

Adley was tucked behind a stone statue of a howling wolf, her small body pressed into the wet ivy. In her hands, she held a crumpled, mud-stained newspaper she must have fished out of the trash bins behind the kitchen. Her lips moved silently, forming words.

*Stocks. Market. Crash.*

She was reading. My brilliant, starving girl was reading the financial section because it was the only thing with words she could find.

Heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel path. My spirit flickered with anxiety. Holden.

He was pacing, his aura a storm of agitated black smoke. His wolf was restless, pacing under his skin, sensing a connection he couldn’t logically explain. He turned the corner and stopped dead. His golden eyes—eyes that Adley had inherited—narrowed as they landed on the small intruder.

"You," he rumbled.

Adley jumped, the newspaper fluttering to the grass. She didn't run, though. She scrambled to her feet, her back hitting the cold stone of the statue. She looked so tiny next to him. He was a titan of muscle and rage; she was a bag of bones in an oversized wool coat.

"What is that?" Holden asked, pointing a gloved finger at the paper.

"Reading," Adley whispered, her voice trembling but defiant.

Holden stepped closer, his shadow engulfing her. "Rogue brats don't read. Who taught you?"

Adley clutched her hands into fists at her sides. "Mama."

"And where is this Mama?" Holden’s voice dripped with that familiar, icy venom. He thought she was some negligent rogue whore who had abandoned her child. "Did she teach you to steal, too?"

He leaned down, invading her space, using his size to intimidate. It was a test. He wanted to see if she would cower.

She didn't.

Adley’s upper lip curled back. A low, vibrating sound rose from her chest—a growl. It was small, pathetic really, but the intent was pure Alpha. She bared her tiny, human teeth at him, her golden eyes flashing with a ferocious need to protect her dignity.

I gasped, though I had no breath. It was like looking in a mirror. I had seen Holden make that exact face a thousand times when the Council tried to control him.

Holden froze. The irritation on his face slackened into pure shock. He stared at the snarling five-year-old, his wolf suddenly pushing forward, confused by the reflection of its own dominance in this frail creature.

"Stop that," he snapped, straightening up abruptly. He looked rattled. "Go back to the kitchens. Before I change my mind about letting you stay."

Adley snatched up her newspaper and bolted. Holden watched her go, his hand raking through his dark hair, his chest heaving. He needed to hit something. I could feel the violence itching under his skin, the need to silence the questions his wolf was screaming at him.

***

An hour later, the rain had turned into a deluge. Holden stood at the edge of the territory, surrounded by his Delta team. He needed a distraction, and the universe had provided one: a tip about a rogue slave ring operating just five miles past the border.

"No survivors among the traffickers," Holden ordered, his voice void of mercy. "Kill them all."

I followed him into the dark. The raid was a blur of blood and silver. Holden fought like a demon possessed, tearing through the rogue guards with a brutality that made my soul weep. He was punishing the world for the pain I had caused him. Every snap of bone, every spray of blood was a testament to the heart I had broken.

When the silence finally fell, the slavers lay dead in the mud. Holden wiped a splatter of blood from his cheek and walked toward the covered trucks parked in the clearing. The smell coming from them was horrific—unwashed bodies, fear, and rot.

"Open them," he commanded.

His warriors threw open the back of the largest truck. Inside, a dozen women huddled in cages, their eyes hollowed out by abuse. They were skeletal, filthy, stripped of their humanity.

Holden walked down the line, his face a mask of disgust. He wasn't looking for survivors to save; he was looking for intel. He stopped at the last cage.

A woman lay curled in the corner, her hair matted with grime. But I knew that hair. It was the color of autumn leaves, just like mine used to be.

*Liana.*

My scream echoed in the void, unheard by the living. My little sister. The last time I saw her, she was sixteen, laughing in the Moonstone pack house. Now, she was a broken shell, branded and beaten.

Holden stared at her. Recognition dawned slowly, followed by a cold, hard fury. He didn't see a victim. He saw a connection to me.

"You," he breathed, grabbing the bars of the cage and ripping the door off its hinges with a screech of metal.

Liana flinched, curling tighter into herself. She didn't look up. She was too broken to hope.

Holden reached in and dragged her out by her arm. She was light as a feather, but he handled her with no gentleness. He hauled her to her feet, shaking her.

"Liana Phillips," he snarled, his Alpha aura crushing down on her. "Look at me."

She raised her head slowly. Her eyes were vacant, dead things. She didn't recognize him. Or maybe she did, and she just didn't care.

"Where is she?" Holden roared, the sound echoing through the rainy forest. "Where is your traitor of a sister?"

Liana blinked, a tear cutting a clean track through the dirt on her cheek. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

"Don't play dumb!" Holden shook her again, his desperation bleeding through his rage. "Molly is out there, living her life, while you rot in a cage? Is that it? Tell me where she is!"

He thought I was alive. He thought I had abandoned my own blood to slavery while I lived in luxury with some imaginary mate. The injustice of it tore at my spirit.

*I’m here, Holden!* I screamed at him, uselessly. *I’m in the ground! I’m dead! Stop hurting her!*

"Speak!" he bellowed.

Liana’s knees gave out. She slumped in his grip, a puppet with cut strings. She stared past him, at nothing, her mind retreating to a place where he couldn't reach her.

"Take her back to the cells," Holden shoved her toward his Beta, his face twisted in a snarl of pure hatred. "She talks tonight. Or she bleeds."

He marched away, into the rain, chasing a ghost he would never catch, leaving my sister in chains and my daughter in the scullery. And I could do nothing but watch.

Being a ghost meant screaming without a voice. It meant watching the world move on while I was stuck in the spaces between heartbeats, tethered to the people I loved who were slowly destroying each other.

The kitchen was a chaotic symphony of clanging pots and hissing steam. Adley was there, perched on her crate, her small arms submerged in gray, greasy water. She looked so much like me in the dim light—the set of her jaw, the way she blew a stray curl off her forehead. But her eyes... those were all Holden.

The service door swung open, and two warriors dragged a woman in. My spirit flickered, dimming with grief. Liana. My baby sister. They had put her to work, a test of loyalty for a slave who had refused to speak. She looked skeletal, her once-vibrant hair dull and matted, her hands trembling as she reached for a stack of dirty plates.

Then, she froze.

Liana’s gaze had drifted across the room, landing on the small girl struggling with a pot twice her size. The color drained from Liana’s face. She didn't see a rogue child. She saw the past. She saw me.

"Molly?" she whispered, the name cracking on her dry lips.

The stack of china in her hands slipped. The crash was deafening, shattering the rhythm of the kitchen. Shards of white porcelain exploded across the tile, but Liana didn't flinch. She was already moving, scrambling over the broken pieces, ignoring the cuts slicing into her bare feet.

"Molly's baby!" Liana sobbed, falling to her knees beside the sink. She grabbed Adley, pulling her wet, soapy body into a desperate embrace. "You look just like her. Oh, Moon Goddess, you're alive."

Adley stiffened, then melted. I had told her stories of Aunt Liana—the one who used to braid flowers into our hair. "Auntie Li?" Adley whimpered, burying her face in Liana’s ragged shirt.

For a second, amidst the filth and the fear, there was love. Pure, unadulterated love.

Then the air turned to ice.

"What is the meaning of this?"

Holden stood in the doorway. He didn't see a family reunion. He saw a hysterical slave attacking a servant, surrounded by destroyed pack property. His Alpha aura flooded the room, dark and suffocating.

"Get off her!" Holden roared.

He crossed the room in two strides, gripping the back of Liana’s shirt and ripping her away from Adley. Liana screamed, reaching out, her fingers brushing Adley’s one last time.

"It's her!" Liana shrieked, her eyes wild. "Holden, look! It's Molly's—"

"Silence!" Holden’s voice was a physical blow, using the Alpha command. Liana choked, the words dying in her throat as her wolf was forced to submit. He shoved her toward the warriors. "She’s unstable. Throw her back in the cells. If she breaks anything else, take it out of her rations."

"No!" Adley cried out, stepping forward.

Holden turned on her, his golden eyes cold and unyielding. "And you. Clean this mess up. Now."

He didn't wait for an answer. He stormed out, leaving my sister in chains and my daughter in tears. I hovered between them, helpless, my soul fracturing further.

***

That night, the fever came back with a vengeance.

The stress of the reunion had burned through Adley’s fragile reserves. She lay on her wooden bench in the servants' quarters, trashing in her sleep. Her skin was on fire. The wolfsbane and sage paste I had applied weeks ago—the only thing hiding her identity—was sweating out of her pores, dissolving into nothing.

And then, the scent broke free.

It started as a whisper, then a roar. Vanilla and rain. My scent. The unique, undeniable fragrance of the Moonstone Pack’s Luna, the scent that had once driven Holden wild with desire. It poured off my daughter’s feverish skin, filling the damp room, seeping under the door, and drifting through the ventilation shafts of the great house.

Upstairs, in the master suite, Holden gasped.

He sat up in his massive bed, his chest heaving. He wasn't dreaming. He inhaled sharply, his pupils dilating.

"Molly," he breathed.

He was out of bed in a second, not bothering with shoes or a shirt. He tore open his door, his nostrils flaring. He thought I had come back. He thought I was here, in his house, finally ready to explain, finally ready to come home.

He ran. He didn't walk; he sprinted, following the invisible ribbon of vanilla through the dark corridors. I floated behind him, my heart breaking for the hope I saw on his face. He hated me, yes, but beneath the hate, the bond was still screaming.

He slammed into the servants' hallway, skidding to a halt outside the door where the scent was strongest. He threw the door open, his chest heaving, his eyes scanning the darkness for a woman’s silhouette.

"Molly?" he called out, his voice raw.

But the room was empty of women. There was only a small, shivering heap on a wooden bench.

Holden froze. The confusion on his face was painful to watch. The scent was overpowering here—vanilla, rain, and the metallic tang of sickness. It was coming from the child.

He walked forward slowly, like a man approaching a bomb. He knelt beside the bench. Adley was whimpering in her sleep, her brow slick with sweat.

"Impossible," Holden whispered.

He reached out, his hand trembling, and brushed a damp lock of hair away from her forehead.

*Zap.*

A spark of static electricity, blue and bright, snapped between his fingers and her skin. It wasn't just static. It was the blood bond. The ancient, undeniable connection between a sire and his pup.

Holden jerked his hand back as if burned. He scrambled backward, falling onto his calm, his back hitting the wall. His eyes flashed—not human gold, but the glowing, feral yellow of his wolf.

*"Pup!"* his wolf roared in his mind, loud enough that even I felt the echo. *"Blood! Mine!"*

Holden shook his head, clutching his chest where his heart was hammering a frantic rhythm. He looked at Adley, really looked at her, and for the first time, he didn't see a rogue. He saw the shape of her nose. The curve of her chin.

He saw me.

"No," he choked out, the denial rising like bile. "She rejected me. She left. She wouldn't... she wouldn't have kept this from me."

But the air didn't lie. The vanilla swirled around him, mocking his ignorance, while his daughter burned with fever, waiting for the father she had finally found to save her.