The bucket in Greyson’s hand sloshed as he approached, the liquid inside dark and viscous. It didn't smell like water. It smelled like burning sulfur and death. My breath hitched in my throat, a ragged sound in the damp silence of the dungeon cell.
"Greyson, please," I whispered, my voice cracked from screaming. The silver chains bit into my wrists, holding me upright against the cold stone wall. "You don't have to do this. Just look at me. Look at your mate."
He stopped just out of reach. His eyes were a storm of conflict—gold flashing against the brown, his wolf fighting the man. But then he looked at the bandage on his forearm, a phantom injury from where Francesca had cut herself, and the gold vanished. The man won. The lie won.
"My mate wouldn't try to kill my brother's pup," he said, his voice devoid of emotion. It was terrifyingly calm. "You are a sickness, Helena. A rot in this pack. And rot must be burned out."
He lifted the bucket.
"No!" I screamed, thrashing against the chains. "Greyson, it's Wolfsbane! You'll kill her! You'll kill Selene!"
He didn't hesitate. With a grunt of exertion, he threw the liquid.
Time seemed to stretch and warp. I saw the dark wave coming, saw the droplets catching the torchlight like black diamonds. Then, it hit.
It wasn't like fire. Fire is hot; fire consumes. This was cold. It was a liquid freeze that sank instantly through my skin, bypassing muscle and bone to attack the very essence of my soul. It felt like acid eating through my veins.
I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The pain was too absolute. It seized every nerve ending, turning my body into a single, vibrating wire of agony. My skin blistered instantly, the Wolfsbane reacting violently with my healing bloodline. Steam rose from my arms, my chest, my face.
But the physical pain was nothing compared to what happened inside.
*Helena!* Selene roared in my mind, a sound of pure terror.
I felt her thrashing within me, clawing at the walls of my consciousness as the poison flooded our bond. It was suffocating her. The Wolfsbane was designed to suppress a wolf, but in this concentration, poured directly onto a shifter... it was an execution.
*Fight it, Selene!* I begged, though I couldn't form the words. *Stay with me!*
*I... cannot...* Her voice grew faint, distorted like a radio losing signal. *It burns... the link... it's breaking...*
And then, the worst sound I have ever heard echoed through my skull. It wasn't a roar or a growl. It was a whimper. A high, broken sound of a dying animal.
Then silence.
Absolute, crushing silence.
The connection that had been there since I was sixteen, the comforting presence that was always in the back of my mind, was gone. It was like going blind and deaf all at once. I was hollowed out. Empty.
My knees gave way. If not for the chains, I would have collapsed into the puddle of poison. As it was, I hung there, limp, my head lolling forward. Darkness clawed at the edges of my vision. The last thing I saw before the blackness took me was Greyson dropping the bucket, his hands shaking violently.
***
While I floated in the void, miles away, a different kind of darkness was spreading.
Francesca stood at the northern border of the Silver Moon territory. The wind whipped her hair around her face, carrying the scent of pine and impending rain. She didn't look like a grieving widow now. She looked like a predator.
She checked her watch. 3:00 AM. The witching hour.
She pulled a small, jagged stone from her pocket—a rune stone, carved with symbols that made the eyes ache to look at. She pressed it against the invisible barrier of the pack's wards. The magical shield shimmered, a translucent dome of energy that protected the families sleeping in the valley below.
"Open," she whispered, her voice laced with power that didn't belong to a wolf.
The stone pulsed red. The wards groaned, a low vibration that only the most sensitive wolves would feel in their teeth. Then, with a sound like tearing fabric, a hole opened in the barrier. It wasn't big, just enough for a signal to pass through.
Francesca pulled a flare gun from her coat. She didn't aim it at the sky. She aimed it into the dense woods beyond the territory line, pulling the trigger. A streak of green light shot into the trees.
"Come and get them," she smirked, tossing the rune stone into the underbrush. "Dinner is served."
***
I woke up to the sound of dripping water.
My body felt heavy, impossibly heavy, like my bones had been replaced with lead. I tried to take a deep breath, but my ribs screamed in protest. Every inch of my skin felt raw, tight, and hot.
*Selene?* I called out internally, a reflex.
Nothing. Just the echo of my own thoughts in a vast, empty cavern.
A sob caught in my throat. She was gone. He had killed her.
Footsteps approached the cell. Heavy, erratic footsteps. I didn't have the strength to lift my head, but I smelled him. Greyson. But beneath his scent of cedar and rain, there was something else—sour, acrid fear.
The cell door creaked open.
"Helena?"
His voice was a whisper. He stepped into the torchlight, and for the first time in three years, he looked at me. Really looked at me.
He saw the blisters covering my arms. He saw the way I hung from the chains, broken. And then, his hand flew to his chest, right over his heart.
He gasped, staggering back as if he'd been struck. "It... it hurts."
The bond. Even through the Wolfsbane, even through the lies, the mate bond was a fundamental law of nature. He was feeling my pain. He was feeling the echo of the emptiness where Selene used to be.
"Why does it hurt?" he choked out, his eyes wide and bewildered. He reached a hand toward me, his fingers trembling. "I... I shouldn't feel this. You're a traitor."
For a second, the fog in his eyes cleared. He looked at his own hands, then at the empty bucket in the corner, horror dawning on his face. "What have I done?"
He took a step toward me, reaching for the keys on his belt. "Helena, I—"
"Greyson!"
Francesca appeared in the doorway, breathless, her eyes wide with fake panic. She didn't look at me. She grabbed Greyson's arm, her nails digging into his bicep.
"Don't listen to her magic!" she shrieked. "She's trying to bewitch you again! Remember the baby, Greyson! Remember the blood on the library floor!"
Greyson froze. He looked at me, then at Francesca. The conflict raged in his eyes, a war between the truth of his soul and the poison in his ear.
"She killed him," Francesca sobbed, burying her face in his chest. "She killed your brother's baby."
The clarity vanished from Greyson's face, replaced by a wall of ice. He dropped his hand from his chest, his jaw tightening until a muscle feathered in his cheek. He stepped back, away from me, away from the truth.
"You're right," he muttered, his voice hollow. He turned his back on me, leaving me in the dark. "Let her rot."
