Ava POV:
The yacht cut through the waves, leaving a trail of white foam that quickly disappeared into the dark blue. Just like my dignity.
I sat on the stern, staring at the horizon. Up on the flybridge, Harrison was steering, with Brooke laughing beside him. The wind carried their voices, but not their words.
I tried to reach Harrison through the mind-link.
Harrison? Can we talk?
Silence. Not the silence of an empty room, but the silence of a locked door. He was blocking me.
I focused harder. I could feel a hum of activity on his mental frequency. He was linking. Just not with me.
He was mind-linking her .
My stomach twisted. Mind-linking was intimate. It was a merging of thoughts. To do it with someone other than your mate while your mate was sitting ten feet away was emotional adultery.
"Champagne?"
I jumped. Harrison was standing there. He held two crystal flutes.
"Where's Brooke?" I asked.
"Downstairs changing," he said. He sat next to me, offering a glass. "Ava, I know you're upset. But you have to understand the pressure I'm under. The Council is threatening to downgrade our Pack status if we don't deal with the Rogue threat. Brooke is the key."
"So you sleep with the key?" I asked, taking the glass but not drinking.
Harrison flinched. "I haven't slept with her."
Liar. I smelled her on him. It was faint, buried under his cologne, but it was there.
"Drink," he urged, clinking his glass against mine. "To us. To the future."
I looked at him. His eyes were pleading. I wanted to believe him so badly. I wanted the nightmare to end.
I took a sip.
It tasted sweet, crisp... and then it burned.
Not the burn of alcohol. A scorching, chemical burn that clawed at my throat and seized my lungs.
I dropped the glass. It shattered.
I clutched my throat, gasping for air. My limbs felt heavy, like they were filled with lead.
"Har...ri...son..." I choked out.
He didn't move to help me. He just watched, his face an unreadable mask of regret and determination.
"I'm sorry, Ava," he said softly. "The Pack needs a Luna who can shift. A Luna who carries power. Brooke... she's pregnant."
The world spun. Pregnant?
"It's a male," he continued, his voice sounding far away. "A strong heir. I can't have a weak heir, Ava. I can't."
Liquid Wolfsbane. High concentration.
My vision blurred. Darkness encroached from the edges.
"Sleep," he commanded.
I slumped onto the deck, paralyzed but conscious. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak.
He picked me up effortlessly and carried me down the stairs. He bypassed the master bedroom and went to the crew quarters-the brig. He dumped me onto a narrow cot and locked the door.
I lay there in the dark, my body fighting the poison, my heart shattering into a million pieces.
Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. The engine slowed. The anchor dropped.
I dragged myself to the porthole. We weren't at the marina. We were in a secluded cove.
I saw flashes of light from the upper deck. Chanting.
I forced my paralyzed fingers to claw at the door lock. It was useless.
Then, the door opened.
Brooke stood there. She was wearing a long, shimmering silver gown. Around her neck was a pendant-a moonstone set in twisted white gold.
My mother's necklace. The one I had thought was lost in the Rogue attack three years ago.
"Like it?" Brooke asked, fingering the stone. "Harrison gave it to me. Part of the Luna Ceremony."
"It's... mine..." I wheezed.
"Not anymore," she smiled. It wasn't a sweet smile. It was the smile of a predator playing with food. "You're just a placeholder, Ava. A defective Omega who couldn't give him a pup. I'm carrying the next Alpha."
She stepped into the tiny room, the smell of Wolfsbane and vanilla suffocating me.
"You know," she whispered, leaning down, "I told the Rogues which route your mother was taking that day. She screamed quite a bit before she died."
My blood froze.
"Why?" I managed to whisper.
"Because I needed an opening," she shrugged. "I needed the Pack vulnerable so Harrison would be desperate for a Seer. And you... you were just in the way."
She stood up and smoothed her dress. "Enjoy the brig, honey. Tonight is my coronation."
She slammed the door. The lock clicked.
I lay on the floor, staring at the rivets in the metal wall. The grief for my mother, the betrayal of my mate, the poison in my veins-it all swirled together into a vortex of pure rage.
They thought I was weak. They thought I was broken.
But deep inside, past the Wolfsbane and the pain, something snapped. The seal my father placed on my bloodline cracked.
My eyes burned, not with tears, but with a strange, white heat.
You want a monster? I thought. I'll show you a monster.
