Fiona POV:

A phantom pain tore through my chest, as if ghostly claws were ripping at my flesh. My heart pounded wildly in my ribcage, beating a frantic drumbeat in the suffocating darkness. I gasped for air, but the breath that filled my lungs was thick and damp, carrying the stench of mold and decay.

My eyes snapped open.

Dim, murky light filtered through the grime-coated wooden planks above me. I tried to raise my hand to touch my throbbing head, but something rough and tight bound my wrists. Coarse rope. It had scraped my skin raw, and a faint warmth told me I was bleeding.

The ground beneath me was cold, hard earth. A chill shot up my spine. I looked down, tracing the outline of my body. A simple dress, torn at the hem but otherwise intact. My legs, my arms… they were all there.

I was alive.

The realization hit me like a physical blow. I had been given a second chance.

A sharp crack came from outside—the sound of a heavy boot snapping a dry branch. My entire body went rigid. Every muscle tightened like a spring coiled by primal, suffocating fear. Danger.

My eyes swept the cramped space. A discarded bottle, a pile of moldy burlap sacks, and then, in the corner, a glint of metal. A rusty, bloodstained piece of sheet metal.

No time to think. I moved like a snake, slithering across the dirt floor. The muscles in my shoulders screamed in protest, but I ignored them. I stretched my fingers, tensed them, until my fingertips brushed the cold, sharp edge of the metal shard. I hooked it and pulled it closer.

The wooden door was kicked open with brutal force.

A massive silhouette stood in the dying light, blocking the exit. The stench hit me first—a nauseating mixture of rotting flesh and cheap alcohol that made my stomach clench.

The thug stepped inside. His lecherous gaze swept over me, a cruel, yellow-toothed grin spreading across his face.

"Awake, are you? Little beauty," his voice was low and raspy, like rusted iron grating against itself.

I forced the killing intent from my eyes, replacing it with a mask of pure terror. I made my body tremble, my breaths short and panicked.

"D-don't… don't come any closer," I stammered, my voice as faint as a mouse's squeak.

"Look what we caught," he growled, advancing toward me, each step thundering through the small shack. "A little bunny who can talk."

He reached for the collar of my dress. In that instant, as his body blocked the light, creating a perfect blind spot, my hands behind my back moved frantically. The sharp edge of the metal shard bit into the rope. It cut my fingers, but I felt no pain.

The last strand snapped. My hands were free.

The moment his rough, calloused fingers brushed the skin of my collarbone, the fear in my eyes vanished, replaced by a bone-chilling, absolute coldness.

"I said—don't touch me."

I kicked out violently, my feet slamming into his soft abdomen. The force propelled me backward across the dirt floor, buying me precious feet of distance.

He roared, a low, inhuman sound of pure rage. "You goddamn bitch—" and lunged, his massive hands reaching for me, trying to pin me down.

I rolled to the side, and his body crashed down where I had been an instant before. In the same fluid motion, I swung the rusty sheet metal and drove it deep into the fleshy part of his thigh.

I had aimed for his femoral artery.

Warm blood splattered across my cheek. He screamed, a piercing shriek of agony. "Ah—! My leg! My—!" He clutched at his thigh. His assault faltered.

I didn't give him time to recover. I yanked the heavy silver hairpin from my messy bun. With the precision honed from a lifetime of fighting to survive, I lunged forward and drove the tip straight into his neck.

"You—" His eyes widened in shock, a gurgling sound coming from his throat. "How—"

He clawed at the hairpin as blood gushed from the wound. Then his massive body crashed to the ground with a dull, heavy thud.

I stood over him, my chest heaving. I pulled out the hairpin, wiped the blood on his filthy shirt, and slid it back into my bun.

My hands moved quickly, patting down his pockets. A folding knife. Car keys. My chances of survival had just increased.

"One down," I whispered.

A chorus of howls came from the woods, closer this time.

His accomplices. I had to leave. Now.

I ran to the back of the shack and found a small, dilapidated window. I shoved it open, ignoring the splintering wood that snagged at my dress, and jumped through.

My feet landed in a puddle of muddy water. The cold soaked through my thin shoes, but I didn't stop. I ran for my life, plunging into the vast, dark expanse of the redwood forest.

Thick fog rolled in, clinging to the ancient trees, swallowing the path ahead. Branches whipped across my face and arms, tearing at my skin, but I kept running on instinct.

The howls grew louder, closer. "She ran! After her! She can't have gotten far!"

Fear and adrenaline mixed into a toxic cocktail in my veins, driving my legs faster, faster.

I didn't see the gnarled tree root snaking across the forest floor.

My ankle twisted violently. A cry of pain tore from my throat as I lost my balance and pitched forward into the darkness.

I braced myself for the impact with hard dirt and stone.

Instead, I collided with something solid and warm. A wall of muscle.

An arm wrapped around my waist like an iron band, steadying me with startling ease. An aura of immense power, the presence of an apex predator, washed over me, stealing my breath.

I tilted my head back, my heart lurching in my chest. My terrified gaze met a pair of deep, laughing phoenix eyes.

The man wore a strange silver fox mask that covered half his face, gleaming coldly in the fragments of moonlight filtering through the canopy.

"Let go—" my voice caught in my throat.

He lowered his head, tilting it slightly, as if examining an interesting little creature.

"You run fast," his voice was low, laced with a lazy amusement. "But that's not the direction you should be going."

My body went rigid in his arms. His scent—cold cedar and something wild and dangerous—flooded my senses. My hand instinctively tightened around the handle of the folding knife hidden in my sleeve.

"Who are you?" I forced myself to ask, my voice cold and hard.

He didn't answer. He just tightened his arm and lifted me off the ground as easily as if I were a kitten.

Behind us, the howls echoed through the forest again, closer this time.

"Here they come," he murmured, not a trace of tension in his voice. "You killed their friend. They'll tear you apart."

"What do you want from me?" I asked through gritted teeth.

The lips beneath the silver fox mask curled upward, forming a dangerous arc.

"To save you," he said. "But it's going to cost you."

Fiona POV:

Trapped in his embrace, I twisted my torso, using my core strength to try and break the iron grip on my waist. It was like pushing against a mountain. He didn't budge.

Abandoning the escape, I shifted to offense. The silver hairpin I'd just used to kill was still in my hair. My right hand, a blur of motion, snatched it and stabbed toward the exposed column of his throat.

A low, throaty chuckle was his only response. His left hand shot up, catching my wrist in a grip that felt like a vise.

A sickening crunch of bone sent a shockwave of pain up my arm. I bit down on my lip to keep from screaming, the coppery taste of blood filling my mouth. My left hand was already moving, pulling the folding knife from my sleeve and slashing toward his abdomen.

His eyes, visible above the mask, glinted with something that looked like amusement. He leaned back just enough for the blade to slice through empty air. At the same time, his right arm pulled me forward, off-balance.

I crashed into his chest, the impact knocking the wind from my lungs. The scent of cedar, sharp and overwhelming, flooded my senses, making my head spin.

Pain was a distant roar. I fought through it, raising my knee and driving it upward with all my might, aiming for the one spot that makes any man vulnerable. This wasn't a duel; it was a street fight for my life.

The amusement in his eyes vanished, replaced by a sudden, chilling cold. His thigh muscles tensed, hard as rock, meeting my knee with a dull thud that sent a jolt of agony back up my own leg.

Before I could react, he twisted my arms behind my back, the captured knife clattering to the forest floor. With a grunt of exertion, he shoved me forward, slamming my body against the rough bark of a massive redwood tree.

My cheek scraped against the coarse surface, the friction tearing the skin. Tiny beads of blood welled up.

I struggled, thrashing against him, but his strength was absolute, immovable. A chasm of despair opened in my chest. The power difference between us was too vast.

His tall, hard body pressed against my back, caging me. I could feel the heat radiating from him, an unnerving, excited warmth that made my skin crawl.

He lowered his head, the cold edge of his silver mask brushing against my ear. A shiver, purely physiological, wracked my body.

He inhaled deeply, the sound a soft hiss right next to my ear. His nose was almost touching the small, bleeding scratches on my neck. He was scenting me.

I felt a strange shift in him. The raw, violent energy that had been pouring off him in waves seemed to quiet, just for a second. It was as if his inner wolf, which I sensed was a raging, feral beast, had been momentarily soothed by the scent of my blood mixed with my own natural lily fragrance.

The shift was fleeting. A spark of something new lit in his eyes—a flicker of shock, followed by a possessive, almost insane fervor.

Then, his tongue darted out.

The wet, slick muscle traced a path over the tiny beads of blood on my neck.

A jolt, like a weak electric current, shot through me. Revulsion and a primal fear churned in my stomach. "You son of a bitch," I spat, the words laced with venom.

I tried to slam the back of my head into his face, but he simply tilted his head, avoiding the blow with contemptuous ease. The movement pulled at the scraped skin on my cheek, sending a fresh sting of pain across my face.

His long, elegant fingers clamped onto my chin, forcing me to turn my head and meet his gaze. The amusement was back, mixed with a terrifying curiosity.

I stared at that half-hidden face, my mind racing, desperately trying to place him. Where had I seen those eyes? That cruel curve of his lips?

"Are you one of Chaz's dogs?" I snarled, throwing out the name like a stone, trying to gauge his reaction.

At the mention of Chaz, the mockery in his eyes deepened. A cold, dismissive laugh escaped his lips. "That pathetic Alpha? You have terrible taste in men."

His tone, dripping with aristocratic disdain for my fiancé, confirmed it. A fatal misjudgment. He wasn't working for Chaz. He was something else entirely. Something far worse.

My strategy had to change. Now.

I let my body go limp, feigning exhaustion, hoping he might loosen his grip.

He noticed the shift instantly, but instead of relaxing, his arms tightened, pressing me harder against the tree. He wasn't falling for it.

"Don't," he whispered, his voice a low, gravelly rasp against my ear. "Don't try your little tricks on me. You're my prey now."

I could barely breathe. My chest was crushed against the unyielding bark, my lungs burning. Survival instinct, raw and powerful, took over again.

I let my eyelids flutter closed, pretending to submit. But trapped between our pressed bodies, hidden in the small gap where my wrists were pinned behind my back, the fingers of my right hand inched along the waistband of my dress. They brushed against a familiar shape—the hard, narrow cylinder of the silver hairpin, which must have slipped from my bun during the struggle and snagged on the fabric.

I closed my hand around it, the sharp point digging into my palm.

I slowly lifted my head, letting tears of genuine pain and frustration well in my eyes, making them glisten in the moonlight. I would wait for the perfect moment, for the instant his guard was at its lowest, and then I would drive this pin through his eye.

Fiona POV:

His gaze dropped to my tear-filled eyes, a flicker of something unreadable in their depths. It was a minuscule opening, a crack in his predatory focus. It was all I needed.

My free left hand shot up like a striking viper.

My target wasn't his throat or his eyes. It was the mask.

My fingers hooked around the sharp, sculpted edge of the silver fox. He sensed my intent a fraction of a second too late, jerking his head back.

I held on, digging my nails into the mask's edge, my other hand still pinned behind me. I felt one of my nails scratch the skin of his cheek, but I didn't care. With a surge of desperate strength, I ripped the mask from his face.

The leather strap snapped with a faint, crisp sound. The silver mask tumbled from my grasp, landing with a soft thud in the mud and leaves.

At that exact moment, a gust of wind tore through the canopy, pushing aside the thick clouds that had been obscuring the moon. Cold, white light poured down, illuminating the clearing, illuminating his face.

My breath caught in my throat. My vision narrowed, focusing on the face before me. It was a face sculpted by gods, brutally handsome and yet radiating an aura of absolute, chilling malevolence.

The deep-set peach blossom eyes. The high, aristocratic nose. And there, at the corner of his left eye, a faint, almost invisible tattoo-a dark, swirling pattern that I knew was the mark of the royal bloodline.

The memories hit me not as a flood, but as a tidal wave, a tsunami of pure terror that shattered the fragile walls of my new reality.

I knew that face.

It was the face of the tyrant who had led the Alpha King's armies into Redwood Creek in my past life. The face of the monster who had ordered the execution of hundreds of rebels, their heads mounted on pikes at the town entrance.

The heir to the Southern Ridge Pack. The beast whispered to have a curse that made his inner wolf uncontrollably feral.

Damien Vanderbilt.

The name echoed in the silent, screaming chambers of my mind. A cold dread, so profound it felt like death itself, seized my heart. My right hand, the one that had been ready to strike, began to tremble uncontrollably.

The silver hair pin, my last weapon, my last hope, slipped from my nerveless fingers. It fell to the ground, its soft clink against a stone lost in the roaring of blood in my ears.

Damien watched the recognition, the sheer, soul-deep terror, dawn on my face. The playful, predatory amusement in his eyes vanished, replaced by an instantaneous, murderous ice.

He hated that look. The look of fear people got when they saw his true face.

His hand shot out, not to restrain me, but to kill. His fingers, strong as steel, wrapped around my throat.

The world dissolved into a blur of pain and pressure. He lifted me effortlessly, my feet dangling inches above the ground, my back scraping against the rough tree bark.

Air. I needed air. My hands flew to his wrist, trying to pry his fingers away, but it was like trying to bend iron bars. The futility of my struggle was absolute.

A deafening roar erupted from deep within his chest, the sound of his inner wolf unleashed. A wave of pure Alpha command washed over the forest, a suffocating pressure that made the very air tremble.

My lungs were on fire. Black spots danced in my vision. The phantom pain of being torn apart in my past life flared in my chest, merging with the real agony of suffocation.

The PTSD hit me with the force of a physical blow. The forest around me warped, the trees twisting into the jeering faces of Chaz and Jasmine, laughing as they watched me die all over again.

A broken, keening sound tore from my throat. Tears, born of physical agony and a mind shattering under the weight of trauma, streamed from my eyes.

A hot tear splashed onto the back of his hand, the one crushing my windpipe. The heat of it, so starkly different from the cold night air, seemed to startle him. He flinched, just slightly.

With the tears came the scent. My fear, raw and undiluted, intensified my natural lily fragrance, mixing with the tang of blood. The unique aroma, which had only momentarily quieted his beast before, now flooded his senses.

It was an antidote. A balm. A command to the monster inside him to be still.

The crimson glow in his eyes faded by a fraction. The pressure around my neck lessened, just enough.

Air. Sweet, life-giving air rushed into my burning lungs. I exploded into a fit of desperate, hacking coughs, my body sagging against the tree like a marionette with its strings cut.

I gasped, my vision slowly clearing. I looked up and saw him staring down at me, his expression a maelstrom of confusion, fury, and something else... something I couldn't name.

But it didn't matter. The terror of my past life, of him, had already won. My heart was beating too fast, an engine pushed far beyond its limits.

The world began to spin. The sounds of the forest, the distant howls, my own ragged breathing-it all faded away into a dull, rushing sound.

My hands fell limply to my sides. My eyelids, heavy as lead, slid shut.

The world went black.

Just before I lost consciousness, I felt his arms catch me as I fell, pulling my limp body against his chest.