Ava POV:
The standoff in the cell didn't last long. Harrison didn't give me a lawyer, and he certainly didn't give me combat.
Instead, he gave me a needle.
Two Enforcers held me down while the Pack doctor-a man who smelled of antiseptic and fear-jammed a syringe into my neck.
"It's a sedative," Harrison said, standing outside the bars, watching me slump to the floor. "You're unstable, Ava. You're a danger to yourself and the Pack. I'm sending you to the Northern Asylum. They specialize in... difficult Omegas."
"Harrison..." My tongue felt thick. The world was tilting. "She... killed... Mom..."
"Enough lies!" Harrison roared, slamming his hand against the bars. "Sleep."
Darkness swallowed me.
I woke up to the smell of salt and gasoline. The rhythmic thrum of an engine vibrated through the metal floor beneath my cheek.
I opened my eyes. I was on a boat. Not the luxury yacht from before, but a rusted fishing trawler.
I was alone in the cargo hold. My hands were zip-tied to a pipe.
I tried to focus. The drug was still heavy in my system, making my limbs feel like they belonged to someone else.
Breathe, I told myself. The White Wolf breathing technique. Purge the toxin.
My father had taught me. Inhale the light. Exhale the shadow.
I forced my lungs to expand. I visualized the sedative as a black sludge in my veins and pushed it out with every breath. Slowly, the fog in my brain began to lift.
The engine noise changed. It sputtered, then cut out completely.
Silence.
Then, heavy footsteps on the deck above.
"Is it done?" A voice asked. It sounded like one of the Enforcers.
"Timer is set. Ten minutes," another voice replied. "Boss said to make it look like a Rogue engine failure."
"Shame about the girl. She was pretty."
"Boss's orders. She knows too much."
A splash. Then the roar of a speedboat engine fading into the distance.
They left me.
Harrison didn't send me to an asylum. He sent me to die.
Panic flared, hot and bright. I yanked at the zip ties. Plastic dug into my wrists, but it held.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
I could hear it. A bomb.
I looked around frantically. The hold was filled with old nets and barrels that smelled of diesel. Highly flammable.
"Dustin!" I tried to project my voice, but the bone-conduction link was one-way unless I had the transmitter, which they had likely taken.
I closed my eyes and reached for the only thing I had left. The ancient power in my blood.
Shift, I commanded my body. Damn you, shift!
My bones ached. My skin burned. But the wolf wouldn't come. The seal was too strong.
Suddenly, a shadow fell over the grate above me.
"Clear the deck! Breach team, go!"
The voice was deep, authoritative, and unfamiliar.
The grate was ripped off its hinges with a screech of metal. A figure dropped down.
He was massive. Clad in black tactical gear, his face covered by a mask, but his eyes...
They were a piercing, electric blue.
He moved with a speed that wasn't human. He saw me, saw the bomb strapped to the fuel tank, and saw the timer.
00:45.
"Civilian located," he barked into his headset. "Rig is hot. We have to move. Now!"
He pulled a knife-not silver, but black steel-and sliced through my zip ties in one motion.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
"I... drug..." I stumbled.
He didn't wait. He scooped me up, throwing me over his shoulder like a sack of flour.
He leaped.
He cleared the height of the cargo hold in a single bound, landing on the deck.
"Jump!" he roared to his team.
We hit the water just as the world turned white.
The shockwave slammed into us underwater, a giant hammer crushing my ribs. The heat seared the surface above us.
I tumbled through the dark, cold ocean, the air knocked from my lungs.
Strong arms tightened around me. The soldier. He was holding me, shielding me with his own body from the debris raining down.
We surfaced, gasping.
In the distance, the trawler was a fireball, sending a pillar of black smoke into the sky.
On the shore, far away, I saw a black SUV. A figure stood by it. Even from this distance, I knew the silhouette.
Harrison.
He was watching the fire.
I felt a sharp, agonizing snap in my chest. It felt like a guitar string being pulled until it broke.
The Mate Bond.
It didn't break because I died. It broke because in that moment, seeing him watch me burn, my soul finally, truly rejected him.
"He thinks you're dead," the soldier whispered, treading water beside me.
I looked at the burning ship, then at the man who saved me.
"Good," I said. "Let him mourn."
