The first rays of dawn were a cruel intrusion, bleeding across the horizon in streaks of pale amber and cold violet. As the lunar pull ebbed, the agonizing beauty of the wolf retreated, leaving me human, shivering, and wrapped in a heavy wool cloak Silas had wordlessly left on a low-hanging branch near the forest's edge.
The "pack high"—that intoxicating sense of belonging and effortless strength—was evaporating, replaced by the heavy, leaden reality of my human skin. My joints ached with the memory of the expansion, and my skin felt too tight, too sensitive to the morning breeze. But beneath the physical exhaustion, my mind was anchored to a single, impossible image: the smooth, flawless bronze of Silas's chest where my tongue had cleared the blood.
I walked back toward the estate, my bare feet stinging against the frosted grass. Every step was a reminder of the fragility of being human. As a wolf, the world was a map of scents and pulses; as a woman, it was a maze of rules and expectations. I reached the garden doors of the breakfast room, my hair tangled with pine needles and my skin smelling of the wild, cold air of the north.
I expected the house to be asleep. Instead, I found him.
Silas was seated at the head of the mahogany table. He was fully dressed—a crisp white shirt, a dark charcoal vest—as if he hadn't just spent the night running through the dirt as a beast the size of a carriage. But the mask of the High Alpha was frayed. His hair was damp, his eyes were bloodshot, and his hands were wrapped around a cup of black coffee as if he were trying to leach the heat from the porcelain.
The air in the room thickened the moment I stepped inside. The silence was pressurized, heavy with the memory of our wolves running shoulder-to-shoulder.
"The healers say a first shift can leave the body feeling hollow," Silas said. He didn't look up, but his voice was a low, rough rasp. He gestured toward a plate of fruit and bread. "Eat, Seraphina. Your metabolism will be screaming for hours."
I didn't go to the food. I sat three chairs away, my legs trembling. "I'm not hungry. I'm... confused. I healed you, Silas. I touched the wounds I made—wounds that shouldn't have stayed open—and they vanished. Why?"
Silas set his cup down with a controlled, deliberate click. "In our world, the Moon is rarely simple. Some suggest the first person to witness a late-bloomer's shift becomes a catalyst for their magic. A focal point."
"You don't believe that," I challenged softly. "You saw the way the pack reacted. You saw Poppy and Elias. They didn't see a catalyst. They saw a Queen. And you... your wolf..."
"My wolf is a beast, Seraphina," Silas snapped, his voice turning sharp. He stood up, walking toward the window. "He reacts to power. He reacts to the scent of a titanium-strong Alpha who finally found her teeth. Do not mistake primal recognition for something sentimental."
"It isn't sentiment!" I stood up, too, the heat of the night still simmering in my blood. "It's the truth. I felt the bond, Silas. It wasn't a thread; it was a cable."
Silas spun around, his face pale, his jaw set in a line of pure iron. "And what would you have me do with that truth? You were Julian's intended," he whispered, his voice thick with suppressed violence. "In the eyes of the High Council, in the eyes of every pack from here to the coast, you belong to the Silver-Moon lineage. You were born of their soil, promised to their heir. That bond... that first promise... it is etched into the records of our kind."
"Julian is a monster!" I cried, my voice breaking. "He forfeited any right to me the moment he tried to break me."
"The law doesn't care about cruelty, Seraphina. It cares about bloodlines." Silas stared out the window. "In forty-eight hours, we walk into that gala. You will be draped in silver silk, and you will show them that you are the most powerful Alpha they have ever seen. And then, the clock starts. You have eleven months left on your debt. When that time is up, the law dictates you must return to your pack to take your place. To do anything else is Luna Theft—an offense that would end with my execution and your forced reclamation."
"Return to my pack?" I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat with a raw, jagged force that made the crystal on the table vibrate.
Silas froze, his back still toward me.
"What pack, Silas?" I took a predatory step toward him, the titanium strength of my wolf vibrating in my bones. "The pack that sat by while I was beaten? The pack that called me a dud while I carried the blood of Alphas? You keep talking about my lineage, about my 'birthright,' but they stole that from me! They took my name, they took my history, and they let me believe I was nothing!"
I grabbed the back of the mahogany chair, my knuckles turning white. "You say I belong to their soil? I don't even know who my parents were! I don't know whose aura I've inherited or why my claws can cut a High Alpha. They raised me in a lie so they could use me as a bargaining chip, and now you're telling me I have to go back because of some 'fated promise' I never even made?"
Silas turned slowly, his face a mask of pained restraint. "Seraphina—"
"No!" I cut him off, my voice trembling with fury. "I don't know who I am, Silas! I am a woman made of titanium and silver who was kept in a cage until you bought me. I am a wolf who only knows how to run because you showed me the woods. If the High Council wants to execute you for keeping me, then let them try. Because I am not a piece of property to be 'reclaimed' by a man who doesn't even know what I am!"
The air in the room was suffocating, charged with the static of our colliding auras. I was breathing hard, my chest heaving.
"I am a guest in your house," I whispered, my voice dropping to a dangerous, low hum. "But I am a stranger in theirs. If you send me back in eleven months, you aren't following the law. You're just finishing what Julian started."
Silas's gold eyes fractured, the iron in his gaze melting into something raw and bleeding. He looked at me—truly looked at me—and I saw the terror of a man who realized he wasn't just holding a debt. He was holding a revolution.
"You don't understand," he rasped, his voice breaking. "If I keep you... if I admit what you are to me... I give them the excuse they need to destroy everything I've built to protect you. I am trying to give you a future where you don't have to hide. Even if that future isn't with me."
"Then you don't know me at all," I said, my voice cold as the morning frost.
I turned and walked out of the room, the heavy wool of the cloak trailing behind me like a funeral shroud. I didn't care about the gala. I didn't care about the silver dress. I cared about the fact that even the man who had saved me was too afraid of the law to see that I had already chosen my pack. And it wasn't the one waiting for me in the Silver-Moon.