Serena POV
I was jolted awake by the aggressive blaring of my phone's ringtone.
My clothes were soaked in cold sweat, but the agonizing heat in my bones had miraculously subsided. Where the silver should have killed me, only a faint, warm ache remained. Something had saved me—something old and powerful.
I answered the call. It was Valerie, my best friend, a fierce Gamma Warrior who guarded our borders.
“Serena! Are you insane?” Valerie's voice roared through the speaker. “Why didn't you take the potion? And why is Jason blocking my Mind-Link like a dead wolf?”
I slowly sat up, touching my forehead. It was cool.
“Jason took all the potions for Chloe,” I said, my voice eerily calm.
“He did what?!” Valerie snarled, the sound of a vicious animal vibrating in her throat.
I closed my eyes. I remembered my first Shift when I turned eighteen. I had been in so much pain that winter night. Jason had shifted into his massive brown wolf, carrying me on his back through the snow to find the Healer. He had spent the entire night releasing his soothing cedar wood pheromones to comfort me.
That Jason was dead. The man who left me to suffer from silver poison yesterday was a stranger.
I looked down at my hands. A faint, pure white glow seemed to hover over my skin before vanishing.
I did not know it then, but the extreme emotional trauma had cracked a genetic seal inside me. The ancient, legendary White Wolf bloodline—said to be the direct descendants of the Moon Goddess with supreme healing powers—was slowly waking up in my veins.
“Valerie, can you come with me today?” I asked, standing up steadily. “I am going to purchase a motorcar.”
“A car? But Jason always said…” Valerie paused, her warrior instincts picking up on my tone. “I will be right there.”
An hour later, Valerie and I were standing in a high-end auto dealership.
I told her everything. The videos, the soup, the limited-edition sports car he promised Chloe.
Valerie's pupils dilated instantly, swallowing the edges of her irises until, in the showroom's harsh light, they took on the fractured, mineral quality of shattered amber.
“That bastard,” she hissed, her claws extending slightly from her fingertips. “I will tear his throat out. You need to cut ties with him right now, Serena.”
“I know,” I said softly.
I pulled out my phone and sent Jason a formal text message.
“We are done. Do not contact me again.”
I then arranged payment for a sleek, black motorcar, liquidating the savings I had so carefully hoarded for what was to have been our wedding. The dealer assured me the vehicle would be prepared and ready for collection the following afternoon.
Afterward, Valerie drove me straight to a real estate office and I rented a beautiful apartment far outside the Crescent Pack's territory.
We celebrated with a huge plate of roasted meat at a diner.
When night fell, I drove back to the packhouse to gather my belongings. Valerie stayed downstairs, leaning against her jeep to keep watch.
I walked up the stairs and pushed open the door to the apartment I had shared with Jason for five years.
The lights were off.
Suddenly, the air grew thick, pressing down with a suffocating weight that made each breath a labor.
Jason was sitting on the living room sofa in the dark. The ambient light from the window seemed to bend around him, and his eyes held no reflection, only a flat, possessive darkness.
He was projecting the full weight of his rank, preparing to interrogate me.
I stopped in the doorway, my hand tightening on the doorknob. My wolf did not cower. She only watched—and waited.
