*Silas POV:*
*I paced the hallway outside the infirmary. The image of the dead boy-Orion-wouldn't leave my mind. The way his small body had gone limp. The way Emily had swung that bar with such practiced brutality.*
*Something was wrong. The pieces didn't fit.*
*"Alpha," the Pack Doctor stepped out, looking pale. "We've examined the Luna."*
*"Is the baby safe?" I asked.*
*The doctor hesitated, glancing around to ensure we were alone. "Alpha... there is no baby."*
*I froze. "What do you mean? Did she miscarry?"*
*"No, sir. There was never a baby. Her womb is empty. It has been for months. She's been faking the hormonal scent with herbs."*
*The world tilted on its axis. No baby. The attacks. The cruelty. The dead boy.*
*"Where is she?" I growled.*
*"She went back to the lab," the doctor said.*
*I didn't wait. I sprinted.*
*I burst into the lab, my heart hammering against my ribs.*
The scene before me stopped me dead.
My parents-my dead parents-were kneeling on the floor, sobbing over a pile of sea foam.
"Mother? Father?" My voice cracked. "You're... you're alive?"
They looked up. Their faces were masks of grief and fury.
"You fool!" my father roared, his Alpha aura shaking the room. "We have been prisoners in your own home! Emily kept us in the maintenance tunnels! She used us to extort the merfolk!"
"But... the boat..." I stammered.
"The Mer-King saved us!" his mother screamed. "We were dying of the Feral Curse! Marina came to bring the cure to you! She saved us!"
I looked at the tank.
There was no body. Only a pile of glistening white foam on the concrete floor, mixed with the silver blood of the boy.
"Marina?" I whispered.
I lunged forward, my knees hitting the blood-slicked concrete. I reached out to grab the foam, to mold it back into the shape of the woman I had tortured.
My fingers passed right through it.
It felt like dipping my hand into champagne bubbles-cool, ticklish, and insubstantial.
"No, no, no!" I scrambled frantically.
*SNAP.*
A sound like a suspension bridge cable breaking exploded inside my chest.
The pain was blinding. It wasn't physical. It was my soul being ripped in half. My wolf, Fenrir, threw his head back and let out a sound that wasn't a howl-it was a death scream.
*MATE GONE. MATE DEAD.*
I collapsed onto the foam, burying my face in it. It smelled of salt and tears. It was wet against my cheek, and then it started to dry, leaving nothing but a salty crust.
"Silas," my mother sobbed, touching my shoulder.
"Don't touch me!" I snarled, flinching away. I looked at my hands. They were stained with the blood of her brother.
I looked at the empty space where she had been.
"I did this," I whispered. My voice sounded broken, like glass. "I killed her."
"Son," my father said, his voice grim. "We need to get you to the healer. The bond breaking can kill you."
"Let it!" I screamed, clawing at my chest. "Let it kill me! I deserve it!"
I stood up, swaying. The pain in my chest was a constant, throbbing agony, but underneath it, a cold, dark fire was igniting.
Emily.
She had whispered poison in my ear for years. She had faked the pregnancy. She had murdered a child. She had enslaved my parents.
I turned to the door.
"Silas, where are you going?" my mother cried.
"To finish it," I said. My voice was devoid of humanity. The man was gone. Only the monster remained.
I threw my head back and let out a howl. It was a sound of pure desolation, a song of regret that shook the foundations of the Pack House.
*I am coming for you, Emily.*
And when I was done with her, I would walk into the sea and never come back.
*
