Ellery POV:
Blood dripped from my tightly clenched fist, pooling on the white, sterile sheets like scattered rose petals. The sharp crack of the Kensington pendant shattering echoed in the silent, freezing room, followed immediately by another violent, agonizing fit of coughing that tore through my chest.
"My lady!" Rose, my fiercely loyal maid who had been weeping quietly in the corner, screamed in absolute horror.
She threw herself at Auguste's polished boots, sobbing wildly, her trembling hands desperately grasping at the fine fabric of his trousers. "Alpha Sullivan, please! I beg of you, call a pack healer! She is dying, please save her! She has given everything for this pack!"
Auguste looked down at the weeping maid with absolute, chilling indifference. "There is no need," he said flatly, his voice devoid of any warmth, rejecting her desperate pleas without a single second thought. "Her body is failing beyond repair. A healer would only prolong her inevitable suffering. It is kinder this way."
He stepped closer to my bed, looking down at my blood-stained, haggard face. A flicker of hypocritical pity crossed his handsome features, a look that made my stomach churn with violent disgust. He leaned in slightly, his scent of winter pine and Blaire's sickly sweet perfume invading my senses, suffocating me.
"Ellery," he murmured, his voice dripping with a sickening, false sorrow. "I am truly sorry it had to end this way. You were a good Luna. If there is a next life, I swear I will find a way to make it up to you."
Make it up to me?
By using the wealth I bled for to build a happy, perfect life with his mistress? His sheer, shameless hypocrisy was the final, lethal blow. It sickened me to my very core, shattering the very last string holding my spirit to this mortal world.
I refused to die quietly. I gathered the absolute last shred of my fading life force, forcing my heavy, bloodshot eyes to lock onto his. I did not scream. I just bared my blood-stained teeth, my voice a harsh, venomous rasp that scraped through the heavy silence of the room.
"Auguste Sullivan. I do not want your apologies. I will be waiting for you in hell."
With those final, gritted words, my vision went completely black.
The excruciating pain vanished. I was dead. Killed by the venom of their betrayal and his sickening hypocrisy.
But it was not the end. I felt a sudden, strange lightness as my soul separated from my flesh. My spirit drifted upward like smoke, leaving the broken shell of my physical body on the blood-stained bed. Hovering near the ceiling, floating in the frigid air, I was no longer burdened by pain or illness. I was just a soul now, looking down at Auguste and Blaire with the numb detachment of a ghost.
"Auggie, she is finally gone!" Blaire cheered softly. She did not even try to hide her glee. She stepped forward and threw her arms around his neck, her eyes gleaming with greedy, malicious triumph as she looked at my fresh corpse.
I waited for Auguste to show even a fraction of the sorrow he had just faked. But he did not. A long, profound sigh of relief escaped his lips, as if a heavy, annoying burden had finally been lifted from his shoulders. He wrapped his strong arms securely around Blaire's waist, pulling her flush against his body, completely unbothered by the fact that his legal wife of five years lay dead just inches away.
His dark eyes, completely devoid of any remorse, swept over my lifeless form with chilling indifference. "Yes," he murmured, pressing a deeply affectionate kiss to the top of Blaire's head. "It is finally over. Tomorrow, we will announce her tragic passing to the pack. And then, Sullivan Manor will officially be ours, my beautiful Luna."
Blaire giggled, a sharp, grating sound that echoed in the deathly quiet room. She stepped out of his embrace just enough to look down at my corpse, her face twisting into a sneer of absolute disgust. She clicked her tongue in mock sympathy. "What a pathetic end for the great Ellery Kensington. Rose, stop your incessant crying and get this mess cleaned up immediately. I want her filthy things burned by morning. The stench of failure and death in this room is making me terribly nauseous."
Rose cried even harder, clutching my cold hand and refusing to move away from my bed. Auguste's expression darkened into a cold, ruthless scowl. He snapped his fingers sharply. "Guards! Take this insubordinate maid to the dungeons. I will not tolerate such annoying wailing on a day of our long-awaited liberation."
Two burly guards stormed into the room, dragging a screaming, thrashing Rose away by her arms. Once the door clicked shut, leaving them completely alone with my corpse, Auguste cupped Blaire's face and captured her lips in a passionate, hungry kiss, right in front of my dead, staring eyes.
I hovered above them, watching their sickening display of affection. The sheer, unapologetic cruelty of their actions fueled a fire in my ethereal chest hotter than the sun. My previous hatred multiplied a thousandfold. I did not want his regret or his tears. I wanted to tear them apart piece by piece. I wanted to watch them bleed just as I had bled.
And just as my soul prepared to fade into the endless void, a scorching, blinding heat erupted from the shattered pieces of the Kensington wolf still clutched in my corpse's cold hand.
A violent, invisible force yanked my spirit backward, tearing through the very fabric of time and space. A deep, ancient voice whispered in the boundless dark, sending electrifying shivers through my ethereal form.
"The blood debt is unpaid. The game begins anew."
When I opened my eyes again, the agonizing scent of blood was gone, replaced by the crisp, fresh scent of winter pine. The warmth of a crackling fireplace brushed against my skin. I was no longer lying on my freezing deathbed. The wheel of fate had turned backward, and this time, I would be the one holding the blade. I smiled into the darkness, my eyes flashing with a dangerous, predatory golden light. Let the hunt begin.
