I was attacked by Rogues on border patrol and severely poisoned by silver rain.

I dragged my burning body back to the packhouse, expecting my boyfriend of five years, the future Alpha, to save me.

Instead, Jason just complained that I was tracking mud on his expensive leather shoes.

He went straight to the medicine cabinet and took all three of our remaining magical healing potions.

I begged him to leave just one vial for me, as the silver poison was literally boiling my blood.

"Stop behaving like a fragile Omega," he snapped.

Then, he left to give all the life-saving potions to his Beta secretary, Chloe.

Her life-threatening emergency? She had caught a slight chill from walking to her car in the rain.

As I lay dying on the living room rug, I heard him mind-link her, promising to buy her a limited-edition sports car to comfort her.

The five years of love and loyalty I had given him instantly turned to dust.

He assumed I would just swallow the humiliation, thinking I was throwing a childish tantrum to get his attention.

But as my ancient White Wolf bloodline miraculously awakened to heal my ruined body, my heart went completely cold.

I didn't cry or beg him to look at me again.

I packed my bags, officially severed my bond with his pack, and walked right into the arms of my true Fated Mate.

Chapter 1

Serena POV

The rain was no longer liquid. It descended from the night sky not as water, but as a fine, metallic dust, carrying with it the effluence of the industrial factories up north. Each silver particle burned through our supernatural healing like a drop of acid.

I stumbled through the front door of the packhouse, my skin covered in angry red blisters. It had been a border patrol, a thing of routine, until the Rogues materialized from the treeline. I had barely torn myself free, but the silver rain had seeped into my bloodstream.

My body shook violently as Wolf-fever set in, a conflagration that seemed to boil the very marrow in my bones. I collapsed onto the living room rug, too weak to even maintain my human form properly. My fingernails kept elongating into sharp claws against my will.

The front door slammed open.

Jason rushed into the room. He was the future Alpha of the Crescent Pack, the CEO of our billionaire enterprise, and my boyfriend of five years.

I looked up at him with blurry eyes, expecting him to scoop me into his strong arms.

Instead, he walked right past my trembling body.

“Gods, Serena, you're tracking mud everywhere,” he groaned, his gaze fixed upon the ruin of his Italian leather shoes.

He went straight to the medicine cabinet, tearing through the shelves.

“Where is the Healer's supply?” he muttered under his breath, his voice tight with panic.

Our Pack Healer brewed a rare, magical antidote for illnesses, and we only had three vials left.

“Jason,” I croaked, my throat feeling like it was stuffed with dry ash. “I need…”

“Serena, get up,” he snapped, finally looking at me. “Stop lying on the floor. Go to the kitchen and make some bone broth.”

I stared at him, my vision swimming. “Broth? For who?”

“For Chloe,” he said impatiently. “She got caught in the rain on her way to her car. She has a slight chill.”

Chloe was his Beta secretary. I, on the other hand, was an Omega, a creature at the very bottom of the pack's hierarchy.

“She has a chill?” I whispered, my chest tightening with a suffocating heaviness. “Jason, I was attacked by Rogues. I am burning with Wolf-fever. The silver is eating me alive. I cannot stand.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “I see mud, not blood. Stop behaving like a fragile Omega, Serena. You always exaggerate to get my attention.”

He found the small wooden box containing the three vials of potion. He grabbed all of them.

I reached out a shaking hand. “Please. Just leave one for me. The silver… it is in my blood.”

Before he could answer, his eyes glazed over slightly.

He was receiving a message through the Mind-Link, that telepathic current that bound our pack together. Because I was his girlfriend, our mental bond allowed me to hear the edges of the conversation.

Jason, I feel so dizzy. Are you coming back? Chloe's voice echoed in his head, dripping with sweet, helpless vulnerability.

Jason's harsh expression instantly melted into absolute tenderness.

I am coming, Chloe. Just hold on. I will have my assistant order that limited-edition sports car you wanted by tomorrow morning, he replied through the link.

He looked back at me, his face turning cold again.

“I am staying at Chloe's territory tonight to take care of her,” he announced, walking toward the door.

“Jason!” I cried out, my voice cracking. “I could die from this fever!”

“You are being selfish,” he growled, his shoulders broadening as he asserted his rank. “You care for nothing but your own discomfort. Make your own soup.”

He slammed the door behind him, taking every single drop of the life-saving potion with him.

I lay alone in the dark, the silver poison burning my veins, as the last shred of love I had for him turned to dust.

The roaring of the fever suddenly receded in my mind, and in its place, a strange, rigid calm spread from the base of my spine, as if each vertebra were being locked into place with ice. I fumbled for my phone. My fingers, trembling with both weakness and a new, cold fury, unlocked the screen. The light was blinding. I opened PackNet, our encrypted social network, and my thumbs moved with a will of their own. I found my status update from earlier, the one where I'd mentioned being stranded in the silver rain. Ignoring the comments, I typed a reply to my own post, a public declaration for all to see.

“He chose not to come. The wolf inside me is dead to him.”

My thumb hovered over the post button for three seconds, until a muscle spasm severed neural control. The small device slid from my palm, landing on the thick pile of the rug with a muffled thud, its screen glowing in the oppressive darkness.

I did not know it yet, but something ancient inside me had already begun to stir.

Serena POV

The storm hammered the wooden shingles of the roof with a dull, percussive rhythm; the groaning of the pipes in the walls made the room sound like a sinking iron coffer.

The heavy rainfall had completely washed out the dirt road leading to the Healer's cabin in the woods. There was no way for me to go out and buy more potion.

I dragged my burning body onto the sofa, curling into a tight ball. Every bone in my body felt like it was being crushed into powder and pieced back together with rusty nails.

I pulled out my smartphone with trembling fingers to distract myself from the agony.

I opened PackNet, that encrypted social network used by the modern werewolf.

My notification bell was flashing red.

My reply from the night before, posted in the moments after Jason had left me for dead, had spread like wildfire.

Dozens of wolves from other packs had commented.

“Why didn't your future Mate pick you up?” one user asked.

“A true male would never let his female walk through Rogue territory alone,” another wrote.

I stared at the screen, a bitter taste rising in my mouth. I remembered calling Jason from the edge of the woods, begging him to come get me. He had told me he was overwhelmed with crucial pack business and that I needed to find my own way back.

I scrolled further down the comment section.

A user replied to my post with a screenshot. “You should buy your own car, girl. Look at the Crescent Pack's new darling. Her Alpha boyfriend just bought her a ride as a token of his power.”

I zoomed in on the screenshot. The profile picture belonged to Chloe.

My heart pounded a slow, painful rhythm against my ribs as I tapped on her public account.

Chloe was a famous socialite on PackNet, boasting over a million followers.

I clicked on her most recent video uploads. In almost every video since she joined Jason's company, there were subtle hints of a male presence. A large, muscular hand wearing a familiar silver watch. A deep, rumbling Alpha voice laughing in the background.

The comment sections were flooded with people shipping them.

“You guys are definitely the future Alpha and Luna!” one comment read.

Chloe had replied to that comment with two words: “Guess who.”

It was a blatant display of female territorial dominance. She was releasing mating signals to the entire digital werewolf world.

My breathing grew shallow as I clicked on a video posted just an hour ago.

It was Jason, sitting on a strange, expensive leather sofa. He was gently blowing on a bowl of hot soup.

“A sports car is a she-wolf's confidence,” Jason's voice said softly to the camera. “You deserve the best.”

The screen's piercing white light suddenly felt like a welder's torch against my retinas. I shoved the device from my lap with the back of my hand, desperate for the surrounding darkness to reclaim the room.

Just last year, I had asked Jason if we could buy a small, used car so I would not have to walk home in the dark. He had sternly refused, telling me that he would always fulfill his male duties and drive me. Yet, just last month, he complained to his friends that picking up an Omega maid from work was embarrassing for his image.

The fever ravaged my body, but my mind had never been clearer.

Then, something impossible happened. A cool, silver light flickered beneath my skin—like moonlight trapped in my veins. The burning heat in my bones began to ebb, just slightly, as if an ancient healer had laid hands on me from within.

I picked up my phone from the floor. My fingers were steady now, not with the tremors of sorrow, but with the rigid certainty of purpose.

I typed a reply to the user who suggested I buy a car.

“You are right. I will buy my own car tomorrow.”

As I pressed send, I felt my wolf stir for the first time in years—not in pain, but in awakening.

Serena POV

I was jolted awake by the aggressive blaring of my phone's ringtone.

My clothes were soaked in cold sweat, but the agonizing heat in my bones had miraculously subsided. Where the silver should have killed me, only a faint, warm ache remained. Something had saved me—something old and powerful.

I answered the call. It was Valerie, my best friend, a fierce Gamma Warrior who guarded our borders.

“Serena! Are you insane?” Valerie's voice roared through the speaker. “Why didn't you take the potion? And why is Jason blocking my Mind-Link like a dead wolf?”

I slowly sat up, touching my forehead. It was cool.

“Jason took all the potions for Chloe,” I said, my voice eerily calm.

“He did what?!” Valerie snarled, the sound of a vicious animal vibrating in her throat.

I closed my eyes. I remembered my first Shift when I turned eighteen. I had been in so much pain that winter night. Jason had shifted into his massive brown wolf, carrying me on his back through the snow to find the Healer. He had spent the entire night releasing his soothing cedar wood pheromones to comfort me.

That Jason was dead. The man who left me to suffer from silver poison yesterday was a stranger.

I looked down at my hands. A faint, pure white glow seemed to hover over my skin before vanishing.

I did not know it then, but the extreme emotional trauma had cracked a genetic seal inside me. The ancient, legendary White Wolf bloodline—said to be the direct descendants of the Moon Goddess with supreme healing powers—was slowly waking up in my veins.

“Valerie, can you come with me today?” I asked, standing up steadily. “I am going to purchase a motorcar.”

“A car? But Jason always said…” Valerie paused, her warrior instincts picking up on my tone. “I will be right there.”

An hour later, Valerie and I were standing in a high-end auto dealership.

I told her everything. The videos, the soup, the limited-edition sports car he promised Chloe.

Valerie's pupils dilated instantly, swallowing the edges of her irises until, in the showroom's harsh light, they took on the fractured, mineral quality of shattered amber.

“That bastard,” she hissed, her claws extending slightly from her fingertips. “I will tear his throat out. You need to cut ties with him right now, Serena.”

“I know,” I said softly.

I pulled out my phone and sent Jason a formal text message.

“We are done. Do not contact me again.”

I then arranged payment for a sleek, black motorcar, liquidating the savings I had so carefully hoarded for what was to have been our wedding. The dealer assured me the vehicle would be prepared and ready for collection the following afternoon.

Afterward, Valerie drove me straight to a real estate office and I rented a beautiful apartment far outside the Crescent Pack's territory.

We celebrated with a huge plate of roasted meat at a diner.

When night fell, I drove back to the packhouse to gather my belongings. Valerie stayed downstairs, leaning against her jeep to keep watch.

I walked up the stairs and pushed open the door to the apartment I had shared with Jason for five years.

The lights were off.

Suddenly, the air grew thick, pressing down with a suffocating weight that made each breath a labor.

Jason was sitting on the living room sofa in the dark. The ambient light from the window seemed to bend around him, and his eyes held no reflection, only a flat, possessive darkness.

He was projecting the full weight of his rank, preparing to interrogate me.

I stopped in the doorway, my hand tightening on the doorknob. My wolf did not cower. She only watched—and waited.