Ainsley POV:
I didn't throw it. I slammed it down onto the desk with such force that the wood splintered.
At the same time, I pushed.
Every wolf has an Aura-a projection of their dominance. Mine had been suppressed by drugs for years, buried under layers of chemical fog. But in my rage, I found a crack in the wall.
I shoved my Aura outward.
It wasn't a tsunami, but it was a shockwave. The air pressure in the room dropped instantly. The windows rattled in their frames.
Damian gasped, clutching his chest. For a low-ranking wolf, an Alpha's aura feels like gravity increasing tenfold.
Casey let out a shriek and fell to her knees, overwhelmed by the instinct to submit.
"You are not the Alpha," I said, my voice vibrating with the Command. "You are a guest in my house. And your welcome has expired."
Damian struggled to breathe, his face turning red. He looked at me with pure terror. He had forgotten. He had genuinely forgotten what I was.
"You... you're crazy," he wheezed. "The drugs... you need your drugs..."
"I don't need your poison," I spat. "Pack your bags. Take your whore. If you are not off my property in ten minutes, I will have the Enforcers drag you out by your hair."
Damian grabbed Casey's arm, hauling her up. The pressure in the room was making his nose bleed.
"You'll regret this!" he yelled, backing toward the door. "I control the accounts! I control the medical board! You'll be dead within a week without me!"
"I'd rather die free than live as your pet," I replied.
He stumbled out into the hallway, dragging Casey with him. I heard them running down the stairs, their footsteps frantic.
I stood there, listening until the front door slammed shut.
Then, the adrenaline crashed.
My legs gave out, and I sank to the floor, right next to the shattered vase. My hands were shaking uncontrollably. My head felt like it was splitting open.
But for the first time in five years, the silence in my head was broken.
'Good,' my wolf purred, stretching her limbs in my mind. 'Now, we hunt.'
I didn't have time to collapse. Weakness was a luxury I could no longer afford.
I dragged myself up from the floor, stepping over the shards of crystal. The house was silent, but the scent of them-Midnight Sovereign and betrayal-still lingered in the air like a stain.
I walked to the window. Down in the driveway, Damian was shoving suitcases into the trunk of his Porsche. Casey was already in the passenger seat, checking her makeup in the visor mirror.
He looked up at the window. Even from this distance, I could see the hate in his eyes. He pulled out his phone, typed something furiously, and then sped off, gravel spraying from the tires.
My phone buzzed on the desk. A text message.
'You've made a huge mistake. Jaxson has a fever. We are going to the hospital. If anything happens to him because of your stress, the Elders will charge you with endangering a pup. A real Alpha protects the young.'
I stared at the screen. Moral blackmail. It was his favorite weapon.
"A real Alpha protects the pack," I muttered to the empty room. "And you are not pack anymore."
I sat down at my computer. My fingers flew across the keyboard.
"Authorization code: Alpha-Prime-Zero," I spoke into the voice recognition software. "Access Pierce Holdings financial mainframe."
'Access Granted.'
The screen filled with numbers. I navigated to the joint accounts.
"Freeze all secondary cards issued to Damian Hicks," I commanded. "Suspend his access to the corporate expense accounts. Revoke his signature authority on the medical trust."
'Processing... Complete.'
In the span of thirty seconds, Damian went from a millionaire to a man with a maxed-out credit card.
But money wasn't enough. I needed information.
I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind.
The Mind-Link is the telepathic web that connects all members of a pack. It usually hums with a low-level background noise of emotions and location pings. For years, mine had been static silence, blocked by the chemicals Damian fed me.
Now, I pushed through the static.
'Graham?'
The connection was rusty, like a bad radio signal, but it held.
'Alpha?'
The response was immediate. Graham was the Pack Beta, my father's right-hand man. He was loyal, stoic, and the only person Damian hadn't been able to fire because the Pack constitution protected the Beta position.
'It's me,' I projected. 'I need you at the estate. Immediately.'
'I felt a spike in the Aura pressure,' Graham's mental voice was tight with concern. 'Did he hurt you? Do I need to initiate Protocol Red?'
Protocol Red. The code for eliminating a threat to the Alpha. Graham had been waiting five years for me to give that order.
'No,' I replied. 'Death is too quick. I want him stripped. I want him hollowed out.'
'Understood,' Graham said. 'I'm five minutes out.'
