Chapter 3
On day seven, I found my weapon.
Not a blade. Not claws. Information.
Kane's office was sacrosanct. No one entered without his explicit permission—not even his Luna. But there were advantages to being considered invisible. A ghost could go anywhere.
I waited until he left for his morning run with the patrol, then slipped in using the master key every Luna was given and none was expected to use.
His desk was a monument to arrogance—unlocked drawers, files left open. He didn't fear me enough to hide anything.
The alliance contracts were in the bottom drawer. I photographed every page with a burner phone I'd bought on a "grocery run" three days prior.
What I found made my blood sing with dark satisfaction.
The mating contract between Blackmoor and Silverpine wasn't just a marriage alliance. It was a territory merger contingent on one condition: the Luna must produce an heir within five years.
If the Luna was declared "barren" and rejected before that deadline? Silverpine's eastern territories—the richest hunting grounds in three states—reverted to Blackmoor's control.
My father hadn't just sold me. He'd sold me knowing I'd fail. He'd negotiated a kickback: three million in untraceable funds, wired quarterly to an offshore account.
The receipts were right there, in Kane's files. He kept them like trophies.
My father had been paid to let them kill me slowly. And Kane had been the eager buyer.
I photographed the financial records, the contracts, the quarterly wire confirmations. Every page was a nail in their coffins.
Then I found something that made me go still.
A medical report, stamped with the Blackmoor Pack clinic's seal. Vivienne's prenatal records.
The blood work was clear: the father of her child was not Kane.
It was my father.
The phone nearly slipped from my fingers. My stepsister—my father's daughter from his second mate—was carrying my father's child. Not a stepsister's scandal. An incest cover-up. And Kane was playing willing cuckold because the baby, regardless of its true parentage, would be declared his heir—a pureblooded Alpha successor that justified eliminating me.
They were all monsters wearing human skin.
I sealed the office exactly as I'd found it and walked back to my room on legs that felt carved from ice.
That evening, Vivienne knocked on my door with her tea-delivering smile, all false warmth and sisterly concern.
"How are you feeling, Sera? You've been so quiet."
I took the cup. Smiled. Sipped—then discreetly spat into a tissue when she turned. "Just tired, Viv. The usual."
Her eyes tracked over me, assessing. Satisfied I was still docile, still dying.
"Rest up," she said, patting my shoulder. "The ceremony preparations will need your input soon. Kane wants everything perfect."
*I bet he does.*
"Of course," I murmured. "I want it to be perfect too."
She left. I locked the door.
Under my bed, hidden inside a hollowed-out copy of *Wuthering Heights,* the burner phone held enough evidence to destroy three bloodlines.
But evidence alone wasn't enough. I needed it deployed at the exact right moment—maximum audience, maximum damage, zero chance of suppression.
The Rejection Ceremony. Every Alpha in the region, gathered. Cameras. Witnesses.
They wanted to make my death a spectacle?
I'd give them a spectacle they'd never forget.
Twenty-three days remained. My wolf pulsed stronger every morning—a furnace building behind my ribs. I could feel her now, constantly. Not words yet, but emotions: rage, anticipation, a predatory patience that mirrored my own.
*Soon,* I promised her. *Soon.*
And then, on day ten, everything accelerated.
Because that was the day I met the wolf who would change everything.
I was in the garden—the wild, overgrown section behind the Pack House that no one tended. I came here to breathe, to be alone.
I wasn't alone.
He stood at the tree line, half-hidden in shadow. Tall. Dark-haired. Eyes the color of a winter storm—pale grey, almost silver.
He wasn't Blackmoor. I knew every wolf in this pack by scent. His was foreign—cedar, iron, and something electric that made my dormant wolf slam against my ribs so hard I stumbled.
Not a blade. Not claws. Information.
Kane's office was sacrosanct. No one entered without his explicit permission—not even his Luna. But there were advantages to being considered invisible. A ghost could go anywhere.
I waited until he left for his morning run with the patrol, then slipped in using the master key every Luna was given and none was expected to use.
His desk was a monument to arrogance—unlocked drawers, files left open. He didn't fear me enough to hide anything.
The alliance contracts were in the bottom drawer. I photographed every page with a burner phone I'd bought on a "grocery run" three days prior.
What I found made my blood sing with dark satisfaction.
The mating contract between Blackmoor and Silverpine wasn't just a marriage alliance. It was a territory merger contingent on one condition: the Luna must produce an heir within five years.
If the Luna was declared "barren" and rejected before that deadline? Silverpine's eastern territories—the richest hunting grounds in three states—reverted to Blackmoor's control.
My father hadn't just sold me. He'd sold me knowing I'd fail. He'd negotiated a kickback: three million in untraceable funds, wired quarterly to an offshore account.
The receipts were right there, in Kane's files. He kept them like trophies.
My father had been paid to let them kill me slowly. And Kane had been the eager buyer.
I photographed the financial records, the contracts, the quarterly wire confirmations. Every page was a nail in their coffins.
Then I found something that made me go still.
A medical report, stamped with the Blackmoor Pack clinic's seal. Vivienne's prenatal records.
The blood work was clear: the father of her child was not Kane.
It was my father.
The phone nearly slipped from my fingers. My stepsister—my father's daughter from his second mate—was carrying my father's child. Not a stepsister's scandal. An incest cover-up. And Kane was playing willing cuckold because the baby, regardless of its true parentage, would be declared his heir—a pureblooded Alpha successor that justified eliminating me.
They were all monsters wearing human skin.
I sealed the office exactly as I'd found it and walked back to my room on legs that felt carved from ice.
That evening, Vivienne knocked on my door with her tea-delivering smile, all false warmth and sisterly concern.
"How are you feeling, Sera? You've been so quiet."
I took the cup. Smiled. Sipped—then discreetly spat into a tissue when she turned. "Just tired, Viv. The usual."
Her eyes tracked over me, assessing. Satisfied I was still docile, still dying.
"Rest up," she said, patting my shoulder. "The ceremony preparations will need your input soon. Kane wants everything perfect."
*I bet he does.*
"Of course," I murmured. "I want it to be perfect too."
She left. I locked the door.
Under my bed, hidden inside a hollowed-out copy of *Wuthering Heights,* the burner phone held enough evidence to destroy three bloodlines.
But evidence alone wasn't enough. I needed it deployed at the exact right moment—maximum audience, maximum damage, zero chance of suppression.
The Rejection Ceremony. Every Alpha in the region, gathered. Cameras. Witnesses.
They wanted to make my death a spectacle?
I'd give them a spectacle they'd never forget.
Twenty-three days remained. My wolf pulsed stronger every morning—a furnace building behind my ribs. I could feel her now, constantly. Not words yet, but emotions: rage, anticipation, a predatory patience that mirrored my own.
*Soon,* I promised her. *Soon.*
And then, on day ten, everything accelerated.
Because that was the day I met the wolf who would change everything.
I was in the garden—the wild, overgrown section behind the Pack House that no one tended. I came here to breathe, to be alone.
I wasn't alone.
He stood at the tree line, half-hidden in shadow. Tall. Dark-haired. Eyes the color of a winter storm—pale grey, almost silver.
He wasn't Blackmoor. I knew every wolf in this pack by scent. His was foreign—cedar, iron, and something electric that made my dormant wolf slam against my ribs so hard I stumbled.