Seraphina POV:
The night of the Gala was apocalyptic. Storm off the Atlantic. Rain like bullets.
Perfect.
I was in the kitchen, dressed as a maid. Invisible.
I heard Dante in the library with William, his Beta.
"She's acting strange, Dante. Too quiet. And that collar... her neck is rotting."
"She's fine," Dante dismissed, though his voice was tight. "Just sulking."
"Is she?" William asked. "Or is she broken? Dante, she's your-"
"Don't say it!" Dante roared. "She is a weak, human child! If I claim her, the Elders will tear her apart! I am doing this to protect her!"
"You're protecting her to death," William said.
I slipped out to the terrace.
Isabella was holding court in a blood-red dress. She saw me and smirked.
She walked over, feigned a stumble, and dumped her wine on me.
"Oops," she laughed. "Look at you. Cleaning up messes. It suits you."
She shoved me. Hard.
I slipped on the wet stone and fell backward, into the mud and rain.
Dante came rushing out.
"What happened?"
"She pushed me!" Isabella cried. "She tried to attack me!"
Dante looked at me, shivering in the mud, the collar glistening. He knew she was lying.
But he was the Alpha. He couldn't side with the help against the Luna.
"Get up," he barked. "Get out of my sight."
He took off his jacket.
My heart did a stupid, hopeful thing.
He wrapped it around Isabella.
"Let's go inside, love."
They turned their backs.
I lay in the mud. Cold seeping into the marrow.
Bzzzz.
My burner phone.
Border open. Sector 4. Midnight.
11:00 PM.
I stood up.
A wave of heat hit me. Not the silver. Internal.
My blood boiled. Bones ground together. My vision sharpened, tracking individual raindrops.
My fingernails elongated into claws.
Not now.
But my wolf wasn't hiding anymore. She was waking up.
The fever spiked. I wasn't shivering from cold; I was shivering from power.
"Happy Birthday, Dante," I whispered.
I ran into the woods.
I didn't run like a human. I moved with impossible speed.
I was running toward the Rogues.
I wasn't Seraphina the orphan anymore. I was the storm.
The mud was slick, but I didn't slip.
I had rubbed the Wolfsbane paste on my wrists and ankles. It numbed my skin and made my wolf sluggish, but to the patrols, I smelled like wet moss.
I reached the perimeter fence. Twelve feet high, electrified.
I knew the weakness. Rabbits dug under the foundation near the drainage pipe.
I crawled through the muck. Concrete scraped my back.
I emerged on the other side.
Freedom.
A black sedan waited on the access road.
I sprinted. My legs burned with the fever of the shift.
A shadow detached from the trees.
A wolf.
Patrol guard. Massive brown beast, snarling, blocking my path.
He crouched. He recognized me. The Alpha's pet.
He opened his jaws to howl.
No.
I didn't cower.
I stopped. The fever spiked hotter than the silver.
"Move," I said.
It wasn't a scream. It was a vibration. I mimicked the pitch Dante used when he commanded the legions. I threw every ounce of my repressed rage into my aura.
A ripple of energy exploded outward.
The brown wolf froze. He whimpered. Instinct overrode duty. Confronted with a superior predator's frequency, he submitted.
He backed away, tail tucked, belly to the mud.
I didn't question it. I dove into the car.
"Go!"
We sped toward the highway.
We hit the territorial border.
Leaving a Pack isn't like crossing state lines. It's spiritual amputation.
Snap.
"Argh!" I gasped, clutching my chest.
The hook ripped out of my soul. The background hum of the Pack vanished.
Silence. Cold, lonely silence.
But then... oxygen.
For the first time in ten years, I could breathe.
