Seraphina POV
"Caleb Vance," I whispered, the name tasting like ash on my dry tongue. "He hates me, Kira."
I looked down at my pale, trembling hands, the ghosts of my past crowding the sterile clinic room. I explained the five-year-old wound to her. Back then, I was the top prospect at the Alpha Council's strategy academy, holding a personal recommendation from Caleb's father, the highly respected Elder Alistair Vance. But when my uncle was severely injured and my aging grandmother needed constant care, I had no choice. I traded my brilliant future for the Blackwood Pack's medical sanctuary by marrying Damien.
To Caleb, who saw me as his only true rival and confidante, my sacrifice was a betrayal of my gift and a cowardly surrender to power. We hadn't spoken since.
Kira's jaw tightened, the golden hue of her inner wolf flaring dangerously in her eyes. Though I was wolfless and couldn't hear it, I knew she was using the Pack's Mind-Link to hurl vicious curses at Damien for destroying my life.
Before she could voice her anger aloud, my phone shattered the moment. Cassia's name flashed on the screen. It rang five times before I finally answered.
"Go to the high-end boutique downtown," Cassia commanded, her tone dripping with arrogant entitlement. "Pick up Isabelle's custom gown for the Pack gala. And make sure you tell them you're just an Omega servant of the Blackwoods."
I took a slow breath, feeling the heavy, invisible chains of my past finally snapping.
"I am no longer your brother's Mate, Cassia," I said, my voice eerily calm and ice-cold. "And I am certainly not your servant. Find someone else to run your errands."
I hung up, dropping the phone onto the bed. It was my first true act of defiance, and it felt both terrifying and liberating.
But the Blackwoods never let a slight go unpunished.
By 5:00 PM, just as my IV bag was nearly empty, the phone rang again. This time, it was Lady Isolde Blackwood.
"You ungrateful little Omega," Damien's mother hissed, her aristocratic voice slicing through the speaker before I could even say hello. "Even on your way out, you still find ways to cause trouble. Cassia has run off because of your insolence."
"I have nothing to do with-"
"Do you want me to bother the Matriarch with this?" Lady Isolde interrupted smoothly, her tone turning lethal. "You know how fragile her heart is."
The words hit me like a physical blow. Matriarch Cordelia, Damien's grandmother, was the only person in that manor who had ever treated me with a shred of dignity. I couldn't let her bear the stress of Cassia's childish tantrums.
Defeated, I ripped the IV needle from my arm, ignoring the sharp sting and the warning beep of the monitor. I dragged my feverish, aching body out of the clinic, the Terminal Soul Wither making every step feel like walking on broken glass.
Following the breadcrumbs of Cassia's usual social media check-ins, I arrived at The Crimson Fang.
It was an exclusive, neutral-territory club for werewolf elites. The interior was dimly lit in deep reds and blacks, reeking of expensive cigars, aged whiskey, and the suffocating, heavy pheromones of powerful Alphas and Betas. My wolfless senses were overwhelmed, my chest tightening with every breath.
I pushed through the heavy velvet curtains of a VIP booth, expecting to find a sulking Cassia. Instead, I froze.
It wasn't a search and rescue. It was a trap.
Damien sat at the center of the plush leather sofa, radiating his dark, cedar-and-frost Alpha aura. Isabelle Vance was pressed elegantly against his side, looking every bit the perfect Luna. Cassia was there, perfectly fine, surrounded by a group of young, sneering Pack aristocrats.
Seeing me standing awkwardly in the doorway, Cassia's lips curled into a wicked, triumphant smile. She stood up immediately, linking her arm intimately through Isabelle's.
"Isabelle," Cassia announced, her sweet, venomous voice carrying easily over the low thrum of the club's music. "I simply cannot wait until the Rejection is final and I can officially call you my Luna. My true sister."
The ambient chatter in the booth died instantly. Every predatory gaze snapped toward me, pinning me under the weight of their collective mockery. I stood there, a sick, discarded Omega, stripped of my last shred of dignity under Damien's cold, unyielding stare.
