Aurora POV:
"Her spine is fractured. Her left leg is shattered. If she were human, she would be dead."
The doctor's voice was grim. I lay in the hospital bed—my second home this week—unable to move. A neck brace held my head rigid.
"Will she heal?" Ethan's voice. He sounded wrecked. Good.
"Slowly. Her wolf is... fading, Alpha. The bond is the only thing keeping her system running. If you don't mark her soon, her body might give up on the trauma."
Silence. A long, heavy silence.
"I can't mark her yet," Ethan whispered. "Ilene is..."
"Ethan," I croaked.
He rushed to my side. "I'm here. Don't try to move."
"I want... the Council," I managed to say. "I want to press charges. Attempted murder."
Ethan's face hardened. He pulled a chair up and sat down, taking my hand. I tried to pull away, but I was too weak.
"Aurora, listen to me. There are no cameras on the stairs. It's your word against hers."
"There are cameras in the hall," I whispered. "They would show... she pushed me."
Ethan looked down. He didn't meet my eyes. He looked conflicted, his scent souring with frustration.
"I checked the logs," he said quietly. "The system was down for maintenance. There is no footage."
My blood ran cold. "How convenient. Did Ilene tell you that? Or did her 'trauma' cause an electromagnetic pulse?"
"Stop it," he hissed, leaning closer. "Why are you so obsessed with blaming her? She was hysterical, Aurora. She said you tripped. Why would she lie? She can barely walk up those stairs herself without getting winded."
"She's playing you, Ethan. She's strong."
"She took a bullet for me!" He stood up, pacing the room. "She is an invalid because of me. I won't have you twisting an accident into a murder plot just because you're jealous."
"Jealous? She nearly killed me!"
"And if I launch an investigation, do you know what happens? The press gets wind of it. The stock prices tank because the Alpha's household is a war zone. Ilene gets dragged through interrogations she can't handle mentally. I am protecting the pack."
"You're protecting a monster."
"I am making hard choices!" He ran a hand through his hair. "Just... let it go. We will say you fell. That is the official story."
"You... you are a monster."
"I am an Alpha!"
"Make it difficult?"
A surge of energy, hot and white, bubbled up from the base of my spine. It wasn't the weak Omega energy I was used to. It was ancient. It was furious.
The glass pitcher of water on the bedside table suddenly shattered. Smash!
Water and glass exploded outward.
Ethan jumped back, staring at me. "How did you...?"
He looked at me, really looked at me. For a second, he saw something in my eyes that scared him.
But then, denial washed over his face. "You're in distress. Your energy is spiking because of the pain."
He pressed a button on the wall. "Nurse, give her a sedative. She's hysterical."
"No!" I gasped. "Ethan, look at me! I am not—"
Two nurses rushed in. I felt the prick of a needle in my arm.
The world began to swim.
"Sleep, Aurora," Ethan said, smoothing my hair back. "When you wake up, we will forget this happened. We will start over."
As the drug pulled me under, I had one clear thought.
There is no starting over.
He hadn't seen the truth because he refused to look. He was blind, willfully and pathetically blind.
I wasn't going to wait for him to kill me for real.
I wasn't going to the Council. They were all corrupt old men who bowed to money.
I was going to leave.
Not just the house. Not just the city.
I was going to leave the werewolf world entirely. I would disappear into the human world, where Alphas had no power and 'mates' were just a fairy tale.
I would become a Rogue. A lone wolf.
It was a death sentence for most. But lying there, drugged and broken, I realized I was already dead in this pack. At least out there, I would die free.
