My wolf was tearing at the confines of my mind, a feral howl shredding my sanity. “Mate! Chase her!”
I lunged toward the fading scent of tuberose and moonlight, but a hand clamped onto my bicep. "Kian, ignore that madwoman," Ember purred.
Her poppy scent suddenly reeked like rotting syrup. My wolf snarled, repulsed by any touch when our true mate fled. I ripped my arm free. "Don't. Touch. Me." The icy growl turned her face chalk-white.
The street was empty when I burst outside, neon bleeding into shadows. Rage ignited in my chest—not just at her escape, but at her defiance. She needed to bleed for this.
I activated the mind-link, my Alpha Command crackling like lightning: “Liam! Status report on the Woodlands sanctions. I want Asia Watkins’ pack collapsing NOW.”
The silence lasted three heartbeats. “Alpha…” Liam’s voice tightened. “The embargo crushed them within 48 hours as ordered. But thirty minutes ago… Silvermoon Pack absorbed all their trade routes. They injected ten times our capital.”
Silvermoon. The name stabbed my spine. Adella hadn’t just escaped—she’d gutted my victory. How? The question burned. A wolfless pawn couldn’t move Silvermoon’s pieces—
My thoughts shattered as polished metal glinted down the block.
The armored SUV’s door yawned open. Adella stood framed in its steel jaws, her spine rigid as a blade. The warrior beside her dropped to one knee. Moonlight caught the obsidian card he offered—etched with a wolf crowned in stars. The Gray Dynasty crest.
Ember’s poison hissed in my skull: …spreading her legs for the next Alpha…
Reality warped. The kneeling warrior wasn’t a lover. He was a subject.
And the Gray bloodline ruled Silvermoon.
My claws tore through my palms as I mind-linked my tracker:
“Larsen. Surveil Adella Gray. Document every ally, every whisper. I want proof of how deep Silvermoon’s corruption runs—and her role in it.”
The SUV devoured the night. My teeth ground bone-deep.
She’d played me. Used her name like a hidden blade.
At the Rejection Ceremony, I’d expose that blade—and break it.
