The contract required Sebastian to eat two meals a day with us. He treated every single one like a court deposition.

On our third morning, he sat at the head of the heavy mahogany table, an espresso cup in one hand and his smartphone in the other. His thumb scrolled relentlessly through pack logistics, his face drawn tight.

Paislee didn’t care. She was completely incandescent.

She had saved the seat directly to his right, placing a hand-drawn picture on his plate before he sat down. It was a crayon sketch of a black wolf with crooked legs and a girl with curly brown hair.

"Mud is the Gamma," Paislee announced, propping her stuffed rabbit against the sugar bowl. "The bear with the missing eye is Beta. I’m the Alpha."

Sebastian lowered his phone an inch. His green eyes, still shadowed with fatigue, flicked toward her. "You’re the Alpha?"

"Of course," she said, spooning oatmeal into her mouth with absolute seriousness. "I make the rules. Rule number one is nobody sleeps on the floor. Rule number two is you have to share the blue crayons."

A tiny, involuntary twitch touched the corner of Sebastian’s mouth. For half a second, the harsh lines around his eyes softened. He stared at her small, earnest face, his brows drawing together in quiet confusion.

Then, deep in his chest, something rumbled.

It wasn't a growl. It was a faint, bewildered whine—his inner wolf scratching at the surface, unsettled by a familiarity it couldn't map.

Sebastian blinked hard, as if snapping awake from a trance. His jaw hardened again. He set the paper aside, pushed his chair back, and stood up without finishing his coffee.

"I have boundary reports to review," he said curtly, not looking at either of us. He walked out, his heavy boots clicking sharply against the hardwood.

I sat across the table, my tea cooling between my palms. I didn't say a word. I simply cataloged the way his hands had tightened on the edge of the table before he fled. I felt nothing. No pity, no lingering ache. Just the cold, mechanical satisfaction of a clock ticking toward zero.

***

By mid-morning, the main house was quiet. Paislee was down in the gravel courtyard, cautiously watching two pack pups chase a rubber ball.

I stood by the window in our second-floor guest room, pulling the small tin of wolfsbane balm from my pocket. I unbuttoned my collar, letting the cool draft hit the jagged, raised silver tissue on my left shoulder.

I scooped a dab of the bitter, pungent salve onto my fingers.

*Can we stop using the balm now?*

I froze. My breath locked in my throat. The tin slipped half an inch in my palm before my reflexes caught it.

The voice hadn't come from the hallway. It had detonated directly behind my temples—deep, raspy, and soaked in seven years of pure, undiluted fury.

*I can barely breathe,* the voice snapped.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. My hands shook so hard the silver tin rattled.

*Selene.*

She wasn't a faint warmth anymore. She wasn't a dying ember. She was awake, crouched low in the dark hollow where my wolf used to live, baring her teeth at the poison I had fed her to keep us hidden.

I closed my eyes. I gripped the edges of the window frame until the wood groaned beneath my fingers. I forced my breathing into a slow, flat rhythm, refusing to let the panic swallow me.

*Not yet,* I answered silently, my thoughts cold as iron. *Sleep.*

A low, irritated snort echoed through my skull, but the voice faded. The heat in my chest didn't. It stayed there, burning hot and stubborn against my breastbone, daring me to choke it out again.

I rubbed the salve over my scar anyway. The bitter smell rose up, masking the faint pulse of life beneath my skin. I buttoned my shirt to the throat and went downstairs.

***

That afternoon, Sebastian fulfilled clause four of the contract: the public pack outing.

We drove out to the Ironveil riverbank where the pack gathered on crisp autumn weekends. The air smelled of cold water, pine needles, and wet earth. A dozen families were scattered across the gravel shore, their laughter carrying over the rush of the current.

Pack wolves shifted freely here, letting their beasts run along the shallow rapids. As we walked toward the water, hushed whispers rippled through the crowd. Eyes lingered on my worn boots and faded jacket, then darted to Paislee. A wolfless woman and an unregistered child. An embarrassment to the pack’s bloodline.

Sebastian stepped ahead of us onto the river stones. He pulled off his dark flannel shirt and dropped it on a boulder.

His bones cracked.

Within two seconds, the man was gone. In his place stood a massive, midnight-black wolf with shoulders reaching past my chest. Power rolled off his dark coat in suffocating waves, making the surrounding wolves bow their heads in instinctual submission.

Paislee stopped walking. Her jaw dropped. Her wide grey eyes drank in the sight of him, entirely devoid of fear.

"Look, Mama," she whispered, breathless. "He’s huge."

Before I could grab her jacket, she took three bold steps forward onto the wet stones.

Sebastian’s wolf turned his massive head toward her. His ears pinned forward, his gold-rimmed green eyes locking onto the tiny figure approaching him.

Paislee stretched her small, bare hand straight out.

Every wolf on the bank went dead silent. Approaching an Alpha wolf in full shift was suicide for an outsider.

Sebastian didn't snap. He didn't bare his fangs.

Without a single command from the man inside him, the beast lowered his enormous head. He bent down until his black snout hovered barely an inch from Paislee's fingers. He exhaled a warm cloud of steam, then pressed the wet leather of his nose directly into her open palm.

He took a deep, shuddering breath of her scent.

Then, the great Alpha wolf let out a sound that made my blood run cold.

A high, broken whine. It was an agonizing note of pure recognition, vibrating straight from his ribs into the freezing mountain air.

Paislee giggled, her fingers gently stroking his dark muzzle. "Good boy."

The wolf jerked back violently.

Sebastian forced the shift in a frantic, uncoordinated snap of bone and muscle. He tumbled backward onto the stones as a man, naked to the waist, his chest heaving as if he had run twenty miles through snow. His skin was pale, his eyes wild and bloodshot.

He dragged a shaking hand roughly through his dark hair, staring at Paislee like she was a ghost that had just pulled out his heart.

"Enough," he rasped, his voice raw. "We’re going back."

I stood twenty feet away on the cold gravel, my fingers digging hard into the brand beneath my sleeve.

Inside my chest, Selene surged forward. She didn't nudge me. She threw her full weight against my ribs, a snarling demand to be let loose, to rip the blindfold from his eyes and tear his throat out for what he had stolen from us.

*Down,* I commanded her, swallowing the metallic taste of blood where I bit my tongue.

I took two steps back into the shadow of the pines, turned my back on the river, and walked away.

The open-air market in the center of Ironveil was busy on Tuesday mornings. Pack members milled between wooden stalls of fresh berries, dried herbs, and venison. I kept my hood up, buying a small carton of blackberries that Paislee loved.

A shadow fell across the fruit stand. The sickly sweet smell of lavender and expensive lotion hit my nose before she even spoke.

"Good morning, Ariana," Luella said.

She wore a soft cream trench coat, her blonde hair catching the autumn sun. She had a woven basket over her arm, looking every bit the future Luna running domestic errands. Her smile was bright and generous, perfectly tailored for anyone watching from the nearby stalls.

"Good morning," I replied, handing two dollar bills to the vendor.

Luella stepped closer, tilting her head with practiced sympathy. "I saw you at the river the other day. It must be so hard for you, watching the wolves run. Being out there, outside the circle. It’s unnatural, really, for a wolfless woman to attach herself to a high-ranking Alpha. People talk. They think you're using him for status."

I tucked the fruit into my canvas bag. I didn't look away from her.

"Sebastian is a very generous man," she continued, her voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. "He feels sorry for strays. But a real pack needs order. An Alpha needs an heir of pure blood to carry the line. A future. Temporary arrangements only cause confusion, especially for a little girl."

She paused, waiting for me to shrink back, to blush or stammer.

I took one slow step forward.

I closed the distance until my mouth was barely an inch from her ear. The warmth of my breath made the delicate hairs on her neck stand up.

"You should be more careful," I said, my voice so flat and low it sounded like a door locking, "about which enemies you choose to make."

Luella froze.

Her smile dropped like shattered glass. For a split second, her eyes blew wide with pure, feral panic. The color drained from her cheeks so fast she looked ill. For that one heartbeat, she didn't see an Omega. She saw something that terrified her down to her marrow.

Then she caught herself. She forced a breath, smoothed her lapels, and stepped back with a tight, brittle laugh.

"Have a lovely day, Miss Alvarez," she said stiffly, turning on her heel.

I watched her walk toward her car. Her phone was already pressed to her ear. She was rattled. That afternoon, I knew, she would start digging into where Ariana Alvarez had come from.

Let her dig. The paper trail was buried seven years deep under ash and wolfsbane.

***

The following morning, Paislee was awake before the sun.

It was the Come of Age preparation ceremony at the pack school. She had been rehearsing the pledge for four days straight, whispering the words in front of the bathroom mirror. She wore her best navy dress, her white socks pulled straight, her brown curls brushed until they shone.

Sebastian had looked her in the eye at breakfast yesterday and promised he would be there.

At eight sharp, I went downstairs to the garage to wait with her. The big black SUV was gone.

Theron, the Beta, was standing near the tool bench with a tablet. He looked up, his expression awkward and tight.

"Where is Sebastian?" I asked.

Theron cleared his throat. "Luella had an emergency. A severe wolfsbane reaction. Chest pain, trouble breathing. The Alpha had to drive her to the clinic in the next town to see a specialist."

He didn't leave a note. He didn't even come upstairs to look at his daughter's dress.

I drove my beat-up sedan to the school.

Paislee was waiting near the glass double doors of the auditorium, clutching Mud by his one good ear. Her little shoes were polished. Every time the door opened, her head snapped up, her grey eyes scanning over the heads of the crowd, searching for broad shoulders and dark hair.

I walked up and knelt in front of her.

"Hey, baby," I said softly, smoothing down her collar.

She looked past my shoulder, out into the empty parking lot. Her small chin trembled once, barely visible, then went rigid.

"He had pack business, didn't he?" she asked. Her voice was quiet.

"Yes," I said. "He was called away."

Paislee nodded once. A slow, careful nod. She didn't cry. She didn't stomp her feet. That broke my heart worse than any tantrum ever could. She had already learned how to expect nothing.

Inside the auditorium, the pack families sat together in loud, boisterous rows. Paislee took her seat on the wooden bench with the other six-year-olds.

Two boys in the row ahead turned around. They were Delta pups, sturdy and arrogant, their pack jackets already bearing the Ironveil crest.

"Who's your dad?" one sneered in a loud whisper. "Where is he?"

"She doesn't have one," the other snickered, loud enough for three rows to hear. "She’s the fatherless Omega girl. Her mom doesn't even have a wolf. They're just playing house."

A few parents chuckled softly. Nobody stopped them.

Paislee sat completely upright. She looked straight ahead at the podium. Her tiny hands gripped Mud so tightly that the rabbit's cotton stuffing strained against the seams. She didn't make a sound. She didn't give them a single tear.

***

The break didn't happen until midnight.

A sharp, ragged gasp woke me from a dead sleep.

I threw off the covers and crossed the room. Paislee was curled in a tight ball in the center of the bed, shaking so violently the headboard rattled against the wall. Her mouth was open, fighting for air, but only thin, wheezing chirps came out.

"Paislee!"

I hauled her into my arms, pulling her small, shivering body against my chest. Her skin was freezing and drenched in cold sweat. Her eyes were wide, glassy, and unseeing, rolling back toward the dark ceiling.

"I can't... Mama, I can't," she gasped, clawing at her own throat. "It's too heavy. I can't breathe."

"Look at me, baby. Look at Mama." I caught her small hands, pressing them flat against my sternum. "Breathe with me. In. Out. In. Out."

She couldn't. Her little chest heaved in terrifying, uneven spasms. It was a panic attack, raw and violent, the accumulated poison of a week of quiet cruelty finally tearing through her small frame.

"You're safe," I whispered into her damp hair, rocking her back and forth on the floor. "I’ve got you. Nobody touches you. Mama is right here."

I held her in the dark for two hours.

I rocked her until the trembling slowed to faint shivers, until her fingernails stopped digging into my forearms, until her ragged gasps finally smoothed out into the soft, exhausted rhythm of sleep.

I laid her back on the mattress, pulled the quilt to her chin, and tucked Mud beneath her arm.

Then I stood up and walked to the window.

The pack house grounds were pitch black, quiet and dead. Somewhere in the east wing, Sebastian was probably asleep, completely untroubled, resting after his exhausting day of catering to Luella's imaginary illness.

In my chest, behind the cold silver brand, Selene let out a low, venomous growl.

This time, I didn't reach for the balm.

I stood in the dark and felt the last thread of hope snap. The fantasy of a father, the faint, foolish wish that some part of the boy I loved seven years ago still lived inside that Alpha—it was dead. Cut away cleanly, like rotting tissue.

I began doing the math.

Two more blood extractions. That would clear the necrotic toxin from his system enough to satisfy the legal contract and protect me from Ironveil's bounty hunters. Forty-eight hours between sessions. Four days total.

I had twelve thousand dollars in cash stashed inside the spare tire of my sedan. I had forged IDs in the bottom of my bag. There was a bus station thirty miles north, just beyond the Blackridge mountain pass where Ironveil jurisdiction ended.

Four days.

I looked back at Paislee's sleeping face in the pale moonlight.

I would give him the blood he needed to live. And then I was going to disappear so completely that he would spend the rest of his miserable life screaming into an empty grave.

The back door clicked open at twelve minutes past one.

I sat at the dark kitchen island with a mug of black tea, listening to his boots scrape against the entry mat. He smelled of cold autumn wind, exhaust fumes, and the heavy, synthetic lavender lotion Luella bathed in.

Sebastian stepped into the kitchen, shedding his leather jacket. His hair was messy, dark shadows bruising the hollows beneath his eyes. When he saw me sitting under the single pendant light, his jaw tightened.

"You’re still awake," he said, tossing his keys onto the counter. The metal clattered loudly against the granite.

"Paislee waited by the auditorium glass until eight-forty," I said. My voice was low, flat, and steady. "She wore the navy dress. Her white socks were pulled straight. She didn't sit down because she didn't want the pleats to wrinkle."

Sebastian paused, a muscle ticking along his jaw. "Luella had a seizure, Ariana. Her throat closed up. The local healer couldn't stabilize her."

"Two Delta boys sat in the row ahead of her," I continued, staring into the dark circle of my tea. "They turned around and told everyone within three rows that she was a fatherless Omega stray. They laughed. Several adults joined in."

"I told Theron to explain—"

"She held her rabbit until the seam in its ear tore open," I cut in. I finally looked up, locking my eyes with his. "She didn't cry once. Not in that room. Not in the car."

Sebastian flinched. The reaction was tiny—just a twitch in his eyelids—before his Alpha pride slammed the shield back into place. He leaned over the island, his broad frame casting a thick shadow across my hands.

"You think I wanted to be in an emergency room?" he growled, defensive anger flaring in his green eyes. "A woman’s life was on the line. You have no right to interrogate me in my own house."

"I have a signed contract," I said, my tone clinical. "You promised presence. You promised thirty days of being a father in public. If you fail to show up again, the blood draws stop."

"Don't threaten me!"

His Alpha tone slammed into the room. It was an invisible hammer of sound that rattled the ceramic mugs on the drying rack.

I didn't flinch. A wolfless human had no pack instinct to compel, and whatever part of me had once bowed to him had died in a ditch seven years ago.

My silence unsettled him far worse than shouting.

He stared at me, his chest heaving. Then, deep beneath his ribs, a sound broke through. It was a low, dissonant whine from his wolf—a ragged, broken note that seemed to claw at the inside of his throat. Sebastian pressed a palm against his sternum, suddenly looking dizzy. He swallowed hard, stumbling back half a step.

"I will be there for the next one," he rasped, his voice rough.

I set my mug in the sink. "Goodnight, Alpha."

***

The clinic smelled of rubbing alcohol and chilled steel.

Pack Healer Darian swabbed my left arm with iodine, his hands slightly trembling. Across from my cot, Sebastian sat in a heavy leather recliner. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing the thick veins running down his forearms.

"The residual bond channel opened wider after the first transfusion," Darian warned quietly, looking between us. "The draw will pull harder today. If you feel faint, Miss Alvarez, speak immediately."

"Just do it," I said.

Darian inserted the large-gauge needle into my crook.

The pain didn't hit like a needle prick. It hit like a blowtorch.

A sickening, tearing heat ripped straight through my left shoulder, digging into the silver brand beneath my sweater. The faint, decayed thread connecting my blood to Sebastian's violently dilated. My vision greyed out. My fingers clawed into the synthetic leather of the cot, my knuckles turning white.

Across the room, Sebastian's head snapped back.

His entire body locked rigid. His pupils dilated until the green in his irises vanished, completely swallowed by molten gold.

For three full seconds, the air in the room stopped moving.

Sebastian's chest expanded in a violent, desperate gasp. His nostrils flared, dragging in air like a drowning man breaking the surface. He wasn't breathing oxygen. He was drowning in a ghost—white jasmine and freezing winter rain. The scent hit him so hard and pure that the leather under his fingers shredded with a loud *rip*.

Claws burst through his knuckles. A guttural, agonizing roar rattled inside his ribs, threatening to tear his human throat open.

"Alpha?" Darian jumped back from the line, terrified. "Alpha, are you alright?"

Sebastian’s claws snapped back into blunt fingernails. He pressed both hands against his temples, sweat pouring down his pale neck. He was shaking. His gaze flicked wildly across the white tiles, completely terrified of whatever had just possessed his senses.

"I'm fine," Sebastian choked out, his voice hoarse and unrecognizable. "Keep draining."

He didn't look at me once for the rest of the hour.

Later that night, at three in the morning, a hollow crash echoed from the Alpha suite down the hall.

I stood in the dark corridor, watching through the crack of my doorway. Sebastian had thrown open the French doors to the balcony, letting the freezing mountain rain soak his shirt. He stood gripping the iron railing, drenched in cold sweat, his trembling hands reaching out into the empty dark as if trying to hold onto smoke.

***

The next morning, the kitchen was quiet and bathed in pale sunlight.

Paislee sat at the breakfast nook in her pajamas, swinging her bare feet. Beside her plate sat her small bowl of oatmeal, her rabbit Mud, and the worn, knitted baby blanket we had carried through every cheap motel for six years.

She picked up the corner of the yarn, holding it against her small nose.

"The Alpha smells like my blanket," she said.

The wooden spoon froze in my hand.

I turned around slowly from the stove. The kitchen felt instantly airless. "What did you say, baby?"

Paislee looked up, her grey eyes wide, calm, and completely certain. "My baby blanket. It smells like him. It smelled like him before we moved here, Mama. When we lived in the cabin."

My heart dropped like lead. The blood rushed out of my face, leaving my lips cold.

"It's just the pack house detergent, Paislee," I said, forcing my voice to sound casual, light, dismissive. "His scent gets on everything in the laundry."

Paislee held my gaze for three steady seconds.

She didn't argue. She didn't nod. With slow, unnerving precision, she folded the frayed edge of the blanket and laid it neatly beside her plate. Then she turned her head toward the hallway, listening to the heavy tread of Sebastian’s boots approaching the kitchen.

Her eyes weren't hopeful anymore. They were cold, analytical, and eerily sharp.

In my chest, behind the silver scar, Selene slammed her weight against my ribs.

The wolf's voice tore through my head, raspy, fierce, and utterly venomous:

*She already knows. She's known longer than you have.*

My hand violently jerked.

The glass pitcher struck the rim of the counter. Orange juice exploded across the pale oak floor, splattering the hem of my jeans just as the kitchen door swung wide.