My wolf went silent.
Not the muffled, frantic silence of the suppressants crushing her down. Not the desperate clawing of something trapped. Just silence. The kind that comes after a door closes and the lock turns and there's nothing left on the other side.
She had been with me since I was fourteen. Whining. Pacing. Pressing against my ribs when I was scared. Howling when I was hurt. Always there. Always listening.
Now she was gone.
I felt the exact moment it happened. The bond severed. The silver burned through my palms. The suppressants flooded my system one more time. And my wolf—my wolf just stopped.
The silver flash behind my eyes died. My aura, already muted for six years, flatlined completely. I lay on the stone floor, blood pooling beneath me, and felt the absence where she used to be.
It was quieter than I expected.
I turned my head. Just barely. Just enough to see Clara Vance standing at the edge of the crowd, Aurelia cradled in her arms. My daughter's cries had softened into exhausted hiccups. Her tiny face was red and swollen. The silver brand on her chest was still visible, angry and blistering.
Clara's eyes met mine. Wide. Horrified. Her mouth shaped a word I couldn't hear.
I tried to lift my hand. Tried to reach for my daughter. My fingers twitched against the stone, and that was all.
Then darkness.
I don't know how long I was out. Seconds. Minutes. When I opened my eyes again, the cheering was louder. Thiago was standing on the stage, Phoebe's hand raised in his, her trembling smile directed at the assembled pack. The mark ceremony was about to begin.
Marcus Thorne's voice boomed across the hall. "Our Alpha has chosen a true Luna!"
Applause. Whistles. Someone in the back started chanting Phoebe's name.
I lay on the floor and watched the candles flicker.
Then I heard it.
A howl.
Not from inside the pack house. From outside. From somewhere far beyond the walls, beyond the courtyard, beyond the territory line.
It was deep. Ancient. A sound that didn't belong to any wolf I had ever heard. It vibrated through the stone floor beneath me, through my ribs, through my bones. I felt it before I heard it.
The applause died mid-clap.
Every wolf in the room turned toward the door.
Thiago's hand dropped from Phoebe's. His golden eyes narrowed. His shoulders went rigid.
The howl came again. Closer this time. Louder. A sound that made the windows shake and the candles gutter and the weaker Deltas drop to their knees without knowing why.
I lifted my head.
Phoebe's trembling wasn't performed anymore. Her hand pressed flat against her stomach, her face pale, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.
Marcus Thorne took one step back from the stage. Then another.
Luisa's composure cracked. Just for a second. Her hand flew to her throat, her fingers pressing against her own mark.
Thiago's Alpha aura flared—instinctive, defensive—and then collapsed under the weight of something so much bigger that his authority looked like a child's imitation.
The pack house doors blew inward.
The sound was deafening. Wood splintering. Hinges shrieking. Cold night air flooding the hall, extinguishing half the candles in a single breath.
In the threshold stood a wolf.
Massive. Silver-white. Eyes burning with an aura that made every wolf in the room lower their gaze before they could choose to.
The wolf didn't move. It just stood there, filling the doorframe, radiating a pressure I had never felt in my life. Not from Thiago. Not from any Alpha. This was something else. Something sovereign.
Behind the wolf, boots hit the ground in formation. The Lycan royal guard. I recognized the insignia on their uniforms—the crescent moon and crown I had grown up seeing in my father's court.
At their head stood Silas Reed, the Royal Guard Commander. His face was clinical. Cataloguing. His eyes swept the room—the flowers, the candles, the assembled pack, Phoebe's hand on her stomach, Thiago frozen on the stage—and I saw him making notes in his head.
Then his gaze dropped to the floor.
To me.
To the blood pooling beneath me. To my burned palms pressed flat against the stone. To my daughter screaming in Clara Vance's arms.
His expression didn't change. But something shifted in his posture. Something cold and final.
The silver-white wolf stepped into the hall.
The ceremony stage went silent.
Thiago's mouth opened. No sound came out.
The wolf's eyes locked on me.
And I smelled it.
Blood. Silver. Home.
The scent I had been suppressing for six years. The scent I had buried under chemical cocktails and human courthouse vows and the desperate belief that love could be enough.
My father's scent.
The Lycan King lifted his head and roared.
