Seraphina POV:
The Cooler. A silver-plated coffin.
The guards threw me in. I landed hard on my injured shoulder. The silver floor burned on contact, sucking the heat straight out of my marrow.
The door slammed. Darkness.
"Dante, please! Check the cameras!"
Silence.
I curled into a ball, trying to minimize contact with the floor. My wolf whimpered, a creature of light trapped in a tomb.
Hold on, I told her.
Time dissolved. Hours? Days?
Hallucinations started.
I saw the cabin. Dante, thrashing, veins black with poison.
“Who are you?” he had growled.
“I'm safe,” I had whispered.
I remembered wrapping my body around his, using my heat to stabilize him.
“Vanilla,” he had murmured. “Moonlight. When I see again, I will find you. You are mine.”
I laughed in the dark cell. A dry, cracking sound.
He kept his promise. He found me. And he froze me.
The cold numbed my extremities.
And then, something broke.
Not a bone. The bond.
It didn't snap with a bang. It just... withered. The constant pull towards him, the desperate need for his validation—it crystallized in the cold and shattered.
I didn't hate him. Hate requires energy. I felt nothing.
Hollow.
And in that hollow space, she woke up.
My White Wolf uncurled. Ancient. Cold. Starlit.
We survive, she whispered. Not for him. For us.
I stopped shivering. I sat up straight in the darkness.
I wasn't waiting for a savior anymore. I was waiting for an opening.
