Eliana POV
The ocean breeze in Portugal didn't just smell of salt; it smelled of liberation.
I had rented a small, whitewashed villa in a sleepy coastal town called Nazare. No Packs. No politics. No heavy crowns. Just the rhythmic, thundering sound of waves crashing against the cliffs.
It had been two weeks.
I sat on the terrace, wrapped tight in a wool blanket. My ribs were fully healed—one of the few perks of the White Wolf bloodline—but my soul still felt bruised, tender to the touch.
"Tea, *querida*?"
Angele, my landlady, set a silver tray down on the mosaic table. She was human, a woman in her sixties with skin weathered like old leather and eyes that held the depth of the ocean. She didn't know I was a wolf, but she knew the look of a woman running for her life.
"Thank you, Angele," I murmured, my voice barely audible over the wind.
She didn't leave. Instead, she sat beside me, her presence heavy and grounding. "You have been staring at the sea for three hours. The water will not answer you, child."
"I know," I said, my voice cracking on the second word. "I just... I feel empty."
"Empty is good," Angele said, pouring the steaming tea. "A cup must be empty before it can be filled with something new."
That was the crack in the dam. I broke.
I leaned into her shoulder and sobbed. I cried for the five years I had wasted trying to be small. I cried for the baby I never carried. I cried for the naive girl who believed that love was a fairy tale, not a battlefield.
Angele just held me, her hand stroking my hair with a mother’s rhythm.
That night, under the blinding light of the full moon, the pain shifted. It became physical. The White Wolf inside me was restless, pacing the cage of my ribs. She wanted to run.
I went down to the secluded beach below the cliffs, where the shadows were long and deep. I stripped off my clothes and surrendered to the *Shift*.
The transformation was usually a brutal affair—bones snapping, muscles tearing, reshaping. But tonight, it felt like water flowing downhill. My fur burst forth, not the muddled grey or brown of common wolves, but a blinding, iridescent white.
I was colossal. A titan among wolves, dwarfing even the largest Alphas.
I threw my head back and howled at the moon. It wasn't a call for a mate; it was a song of mourning and terrible liberation.
*We are here, Eliana.* a deep, resonant voice echoed in the cavern of my mind.
I froze, my paws digging into the wet sand. It wasn't Dustin.
It was the Elders of the David family. My blood. My legacy.
*Grandfather?* I projected, the thought tentative.
*We felt the bond break, Eliana,* his voice rolled like thunder across the psychic plane. *We respected your wish for silence, but we have seen the news. He rejected you?*
*I rejected him,* I corrected, my mental voice sharp. *But he gave me no choice.*
*Then war it is,* Grandfather growled, the sound vibrating in my very marrow.
"No," I shifted back, the change instant. I stood shivering in the cool air, scrambling to grab my silk robe. "I don't want war. I just want peace."
*There is no peace without justice,* Grandfather replied, his tone final. *We have already recalled all David family loans to the Obsidian Pack. We have embargoed their trade routes through our northern territories.*
I gasped, clutching the robe tighter. The David family controlled the northern trade routes and the banking systems that fueled half the continent. Without them, Obsidian wasn't just isolated; it was an island under siege.
*Grandfather, that will bankrupt them.*
*Good,* he said simply. *The Elders are meeting now. We are declaring Obsidian a hostile entity. Any Pack that trades with them is an enemy of the White Wolf line.*
The connection severed, leaving a ringing silence in my head.
I sat on the cold sand, the magnitude of it hitting me like a physical blow. I wasn't just a divorcee. I was the scion of one of the oldest, most lethal bloodlines in the world. I had forgotten that in my desperate effort to be a "good wife."
My phone buzzed in my robe pocket, startling me. It was Laura.
*Turn on the news. Now.*
I opened the link with trembling fingers. It was a shaky, handheld video taken inside the Obsidian Pack house.
Dustin was in his wolf form—a massive black beast—but he was unrecognizable. He was rabid, frothing at the mouth, tearing apart the antique furniture of the throne room. He snapped at his own Beta, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. His eyes were milky white. Madness.
*The Alpha has gone Feral,* the headline screamed in bold red text. *Obsidian Pack in Chaos.*
I watched the beast that used to be my husband destroy his own legacy. I felt a twinge of pity, but it was distant, cold. Like watching a tragedy unfold on a movie screen for a stranger.
"You did this to yourself," I whispered to the screen.
I looked down at my hands. They were steady. No tremors. No fear.
Angele was right. The emptiness was filling up.
It was filling up with power.
