Alessia POV:
I was back in the attic, shoving my few clothes into a duffel bag. My hands were shaking, not from fear, but from adrenaline.
The Alpha Command hadn't worked. That confirmed it. My White Wolf blood had fully awakened during the confrontation. I was stronger than Dante.
My phone rang. It was Dante.
I debated ignoring it, but I needed closure. I swiped answer.
"How did you do that?" Dante asked. He sounded breathless. "You resisted a direct Command."
"Maybe you're just a weak Alpha," I said, zipping up my bag.
"Don't play games, Alessia. There was... power in that room. Was it you?"
"Does it matter? You have your annulment. Go bite your girlfriend."
"It's not like that," he groaned. "I'm trying to save a life. The life of the woman who saved mine."
I stopped. I sat on the edge of the cot.
"Dante," I said softly. "Look at the scar on your left side. Where the silver entered."
"What about it?"
"It's shaped like a crescent moon. And look at Chiara's arm. Does she have the donor scar?"
Silence.
"She had it laser removed," Dante said, but he sounded uncertain.
"You can't laser remove a spiritual scar from a blood rite," I said. "Check her arm, Dante. Really check it. And then remember the song the girl hummed to you while you were bleeding out. It was *'Clair de Lune'*. Chiara hates classical music. She only listens to pop."
"Stop it," he warned. "You are just jealous."
"And tell me," I continued, my voice trembling with the weight of the secret I had kept for seven years. "Why would an Omega be locked in a maximum-security prison for a traffic accident? Think, Dante. Use that Alpha brain. Why did the security footage vanish? Why was the witness list sealed?"
"To protect you from-"
"To shut me up!" I screamed. "My parents drained me dry to save you, gave the credit to Chiara so she could be Luna, and then threw me in a hole so I couldn't tell you the truth! They didn't protect me from the enemy pack. They protected their lie from *you*!"
"That's insane," Dante whispered. "Parents wouldn't do that to their own child."
"They would if that child was an Omega disappointment and the other was a star."
"I don't believe you," he said. But his voice cracked.
"I know," I said. Tears finally spilled down my cheeks. "You never believed in me. You only believed in what was easy."
"Alessia, wait-"
"Goodbye, Dante."
I hung up.
Then, I did something permanent. I reached into my mind, found the thick, golden rope that was the Mate Bond, and I built a wall of brick and mortar around my end of it.
I blocked him.
For the first time in my life, the constant hum of his existence in the back of my mind went silent.
It was lonely. It was terrifying.
But it was peaceful.
I lay down on the cot. Tomorrow, the boat would leave. Tomorrow, Alessia Salinas would die, and the White Phoenix would begin to rise.
I closed my eyes, and for the first time in seven years, I didn't dream of silver bars. I dreamed of running.
*
