Elliot POV:
The bond didn't just pull; it screamed.
I was in a boardroom in London.
*Elliot...*
"Out," I said.
"Sir, the merger—"
"I said get out!" My voice cracked the mahogany table. My eyes shifted to pure, glowing mercury.
I didn't take a plane. I took the jet, and then I jumped. Mid-air shift. A massive, slate-grey wolf, the size of a draft horse, hit the tarmac running.
I crossed the border into Jake Foster's territory like a warhead.
I smelled it miles away. Vanilla and moonflowers, turning into the copper tang of agony.
I crashed through the glass doors of the Moonlight Care Center in human form, naked, radiating an Aura so dense it cracked the floor tiles.
"DOWN!"
*The Supreme Alpha's Roar.*
It wasn't a request. It was gravity.
Every wolf in the room dropped. Guards, nurses, Jake Foster. They were pinned to the floor.
And then I saw her.
Hanging like livestock. Her face burned. Her mouth clamped in silver.
My vision went red.
"Cut her down!" I bellowed.
I didn't wait. I leaped, slashing the rope with a partially shifted claw. I caught her.
She was weightless.
I grabbed the silver muzzle. It sizzled against my skin. I didn't care. I ripped it off.
Skin tore. Blood flowed. I bit my own wrist and pressed it to her mouth. *Drink. Heal.*
Her eyes fluttered. One blue, one swollen shut.
"Elliot?" Her mind-link was a ghost.
"I'm here, Little Moon," I whispered, wrapping my trench coat around her.
I stood up. I turned to Jake Foster, who was struggling to lift his head off the linoleum.
"You."
"Who... are you?" Jake gasped, blood leaking from his nose under the pressure.
"I am Elliot Noel. Supreme Alpha of the European Alliance," I said. "And you just tortured my Fated Mate."
Jake’s eyes widened. "Mate? No... she's human. She's my ex."
"She is the White Wolf!"
As if on cue, Audrey convulsed. The suppression broke.
A column of white light blasted through the ceiling. The scent hit us—pure ozone, snow, and ancient power.
Jake froze. The fake pheromones in his nose shattered against the reality of the White Wolf.
"No..." Jake whispered. "That smell... The cherry blossoms... It's her."
I shielded her.
"You lost the right to look at her when you clamped that thing on her face," I spat.
"Wait!" Jake tried to crawl forward. "I didn't know! My memory..."
"Ignorance isn't a defense for sadism," I said. "Start praying, Foster. I'm going to bankrupt you before the sun goes down."
I walked out, leaving him in the wreckage of his own making.
Jake POV:
I watched him take her.
The scent lingered. It was the smell of the memories I couldn't reach.
I reached into my pocket. The divorce papers.
Stuck to the back was another sheet. Old. Yellowed.
A marriage certificate. Tuscany.
Signed: Jake Foster and Audrey Wallace.
At the bottom, two bloody thumbprints. The Seal of Fated Mates.
My wolf woke up. He didn't howl. He screamed.
*WHAT DID YOU DO?* he roared in my skull. *YOU KILLED HER!*
I looked at my hands. The hands that locked the muzzle.
I slammed my head against the floor, and for the first time in five years, I felt the crack in the wall of my mind.
