My hand was almost on the heavy brass handle of the exit door.

I didn't rush. Every step was measured, even with the rancid wolfsbane water dripping from my hair onto the floor. I had taken three steps past the edge of the crowd when a shrill voice cut through the hall.

"Stop her!"

The shout bounced off the high vaulted ceiling.

I stopped.

Behind me, the clicking of high heels picked up speed. Juliette was moving fast. A quiet exit didn't fit her script. If I walked out with my head high, her live-stream would lose its punch. She needed a total, humiliating defeat. She needed a criminal.

"She’s a thief!" Juliette screamed, her voice hitting that perfect pitch of panicked outrage. "Duke, don't let her leave! Look at her coat pockets! She stole the enchanted silver cuff from the Ironcrest vault!"

Gasps rippled through the banquet hall.

It was a ridiculous lie. An Omega like me didn't even have clearance to walk the upstairs halls, let alone pick the lock on a secure pack vault. But Juliette didn't care about logic. She knew how pack justice worked. In a room full of elites, an Omega was guilty the second an accusation left a Beta's mouth.

"I saw her lurking near the west gallery before the banquet!" Juliette called out, playing directly to her phone camera. Her screen lit up her flushed face. "She knew she was getting cast out tonight, so she grabbed the most valuable relic she could find! Search her!"

"Well, well," Duke's arrogant drawl cut in. "An Omega and a thief. Grab her, boys. Pin her to the floor."

Heavy leather boots struck the marble behind me. Three Ironcrest warriors broke away from Duke's circle, their broad shoulders cutting through the crowd.

I stood ten feet from the exit doors, staring at the polished dark wood in front of me.

I didn't turn around. I didn't run.

Slowly, I lowered my right hand. My thumb had been resting against the angry, red rash on my neck—the burn left by Quinton’s cheap nickel pendant. For months, that burning had kept me grounded. It had reminded me of the role I chose to play, the trial I promised my grandfather I would endure.

*Survive unseen,* my grandfather had told me from his deathbed. *Learn what it feels like to have no voice, Florence. Only then will you know how to lead.*

I had obeyed him. For three long years, I had clamped an iron fist around my own throat. I had buried my true nature so deep in the dark that even the wolves around me thought I was hollow.

Now, my phone was silent in my pocket. The clock had hit zero.

I dropped my hand to my side.

*No more,* I told the dark space inside my chest. *Wake up.*

For the first time in a thousand days, I stopped holding my wolf down.

Inside my soul, she opened her eyes.

She didn't growl. She didn't bark. She simply stood up, shaking off three years of chains, and let her ancient, royal blood flood back through my veins.

The change in the room didn't happen with a roar. It began with an eerie, suffocating drop in pressure.

It felt like the air before a lightning strike, when the sky turns green and the birds go mute. A sudden, heavy weight settled over the banquet hall, pressing down against the polished stone floor.

The wolves closest to me were the first to feel it.

Two Ironcrest elders standing near the exit cut off their laughter mid-sentence. Their smiles vanished. Their eyes widened, their heads jerking slightly as their nostrils flared. Wolves live by scent and aura, and whatever was leaking from my soaked, ragged clothes wasn't the sweet, broken smell of an Omega anymore.

It was vast. It was ancient. It was the scent of pure, untamed sovereignty.

Behind me, the sound of marching boots faltered.

The three warriors who were rushing to tackle me slowed down. Their heavy steps became uncertain, dragging against the floor.

"Get on with it!" Juliette urged from the center of the room, though her voice lacked its earlier bite. She held the phone higher, trying to recapture the moment. "Pin her down! Show everyone what happens to a—to a—"

Her words died in her throat.

Her hand began to shake. The camera tilted downward, aiming uselessly at the carpet.

The warriors stopped five paces behind me. They didn't draw their weapons. They didn't bark orders. Their broad chests heaved as their inner wolves began to whine in panic, sending frantic distress signals through their nerves. Their instincts screamed at them to drop their chins, to tuck their tails, to back away from the predator they had been foolish enough to chase.

The chatter in the ballroom died out completely. A dead, unnatural silence swept from the doorway all the way back to the terrace.

Across the room, inside the massive limestone hearth, the roaring fire made a soft, hissing sound.

The golden flames, which had been leaping toward the chimney, suddenly flattened out. The fire bent sideways, dipping toward the stone floor, curling downward as if the heat itself was bowing to something greater in the room.

I took a slow, steady breath, feeling my strength knit back together in my blood.

Then, I turned around.