I packed light.

A change of clothes, the small roll of cash I kept hidden under a loose floorboard, the silver crescent pendant still warm against my skin, and the medical bag I refused to leave behind.

Everything else could be replaced. I had done this enough times to know the difference between what mattered and what only weighed me down.

The news about the Lycan King still played on a loop in my head. Peter Reeves. The man whose mouth had been on me only hours earlier. The man whose wolf had called mine mate. The most powerful Lycan in the realm now knew my face. I needed to disappear before someone connected the woman from the Black Moon to the crescent murders.

I locked the apartment, left the key under the mat for the landlord who never asked questions, and took the back stairs. The morning streets of Ashford were already busy. I kept my head down, masked my scent as tightly as I could, and headed for the southern edge of the city where the train lines still ran without too many checkpoints.

I almost made it.

Three blocks from the station a black van pulled up alongside me. The side door slid open before I could react. Two vampire soldiers in dark tactical gear stepped out with the kind of speed only their kind possessed. One of them caught my arm. The other pressed something cold against the side of my neck.

“Don’t struggle, Miss Fallon,” the first one said, voice flat. “Orders are to bring you in alive.”

I twisted hard, driving my elbow toward his throat. He barely flinched. The second soldier activated the device at my neck. A sharp, electric pain raced through my body. My wolf surged in panic, but the charge disrupted whatever control I had left. My knees buckled. They dragged me into the van before I could draw another full breath.

The door slammed. The van pulled away from the curb with smooth, silent acceleration.

I forced my eyes open. The interior was dark, the windows blacked out. One soldier sat across from me, watching with the bored expression of someone who had done this many times. The other checked a tablet.

“She’s the one,” he said. “Confirmed. Clinic physician. Present at the last crime scene. And she matches the description from the Black Moon.”

My stomach turned. They already knew about last night.

“Where are you taking me?” I managed.

“Vampire territory,” the first soldier answered.

“The acting queen wants a word.”

Richard was still away on his journey. That left his sister, Rose, in charge. I had heard enough about Rose to know that “a word” rarely ended well for anyone who interested her.

The rest of the journey passed in tense silence. I tested the restraints they had locked around my wrists—silver-lined, strong enough to hold a Lycan. My wolf snarled uselessly inside my head. The masking on my scent was slipping under the stress and the residual charge from the device. If they looked too closely, if they took a deeper breath, they would smell more than wolf.

I could not let that happen.

The van finally stopped. Doors opened onto cold stone and the sharp scent of old blood. Vampire territory. They marched me through a side entrance of what could only be the royal compound, past guards who did not bother hiding their curiosity, and down a long corridor that smelled of damp and iron.

Rose waited in a high-ceilinged chamber lined with dark wood and older portraits. She was beautiful in the way only pureblood vampires managed—pale, elegant, and utterly without warmth. She looked me over the way someone might examine a stain on expensive fabric.

“So this is the clinic doctor who keeps appearing near our dead nobles,” she said. Her voice was soft, almost pleasant. “And who spent last night in the arms of the Lycan King, if the reports are correct.”

I kept my mouth shut.

Rose smiled without showing teeth. “Search her.”

The soldiers were thorough. They found the pendant almost immediately. One of them held it up to the light. The silver crescent caught the glow from the high windows.

Rose’s expression changed. The polite curiosity vanished.

“Well,” she said quietly. “That explains rather a lot.”

She stepped closer. “The crescent bloodline was supposed to be extinct. Yet here you are, wearing their mark, appearing at every fresh corpse, and somehow catching the attention of Peter Reeves himself. Tell me, Miss Fallon—did you kill them, or are you simply the next one scheduled to die?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.”

“Of course you didn’t.” She nodded to the soldiers. “Take her to the lower cells. I want a full interrogation. And keep the pendant. It may be useful.”

They dragged me down another set of stairs, deeper into the stone. The air grew colder. The cells were old, the bars reinforced with both silver and something that hummed faintly with residual magic. They shoved me inside one of them and locked the door with a heavy clang.

I landed hard on the stone floor. The charge from earlier still left my limbs heavy. I pushed myself up slowly and checked the damage—bruises, a shallow cut on my palm from the broken glass that morning, nothing that would kill me. My wolf paced restlessly behind my ribs, still trying to reach for the mate bond that now felt impossibly distant.

The corridor lights stayed on. Somewhere far above, Rose was already planning the questions they would ask me.

I leaned my head back against the cold stone and closed my eyes.

This was only the beginning.

I lost track of how long I sat in the dark before the door opened again.

The same two soldiers from earlier stepped inside, followed by a third vampire I had not seen before. He was older, thinner, with the calm, clinical expression of someone who had done this work for decades. He carried a small black case and set it on the stone floor without looking at me.

“Leave us,” he told the soldiers.

They locked the door behind them. The older vampire studied me for a long moment, then crouched so we were at eye level.

“My name is not important,” he said. “What matters is that you answer my questions. The faster you do, the less this will hurt.”

I said nothing.

He opened the case. Inside were several thin silver instruments and a small device that hummed faintly with residual magic. He selected one of the instruments and turned it slowly between his fingers so the light caught the edge.

“You were present at the scene of the third crescent murder,” he began. “You work at a clinic that treats supernaturals off the books. You carry a silver crescent pendant identical to the mark left on the victims. And last night you spent several hours in the private company of the Lycan King. Those are facts. Now I want the rest.”

Still I said nothing.

He sighed, almost politely, and pressed the silver instrument to the inside of my wrist. The burn was immediate and vicious. My wolf snarled. I locked my jaw and kept my eyes on the far wall.

“Who are you really, Miss Fallon?”

I made no noise as the entire surrounding became really quiet waiting for my answer.

“Who gave you the pendant?” He spoke up trying to force words from my mouth but I didn’t yield as I still held my tongue.

“Did you kill the nobles, or are you working with the person who did?”

I paid him no attention as my mouth was kept shut. He moved the silver higher, along the sensitive skin of my forearm as he noticed I wasn’t going to talk. The burn deepened and I could feel my sweat forming beads at my temples. I tasted blood where I had bitten the inside of my cheek.

“You are making this harder than it needs to be,” he said. “Rose is not a patient woman. She believes the crescent bloodline has returned to finish what it started decades ago. If you are part of that bloodline, cooperating is the only way you leave this cell alive.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” I managed through clenched teeth.

“Then explain the pendant.”

“It was my father’s.”

“And where is your father now?”

“Dead.”

“Convenient.” He set the silver aside and picked up the humming device. “This will be less pleasant.”

He pressed it to the side of my neck. Pain exploded through my nervous system—white-hot, electric, designed to scramble both human and supernatural senses. My wolf howled inside my skull. My vision blurred. I tried to keep the masking on my scent intact, but the device tore at every layer of control I had left.

He asked the same questions again. And again. Each time I refused to speak, he increased the intensity.

I lost count of how many times the device activated. Time stopped meaning anything. There was only the pain, the cold stone under me, and the steady, patient voice asking about the crescent, about my parents, about Peter Reeves, about why a simple clinic doctor would be carrying a symbol that had not been seen in decades.

At some point my body decided it had endured enough.

The power I had kept locked down for years finally slipped its leash.

It did not come as a controlled release. It tore out of me in a raw, uncontrolled surge—neither fully wolf nor fully anything else. The air in the cell thickened. The silver-lined bars sparked violently. The device at my neck shorted out with a sharp crack and a burst of acrid smoke. The interrogator was thrown backward against the far wall hard enough to leave a crack in the stone.

I collapsed onto my side, gasping, every muscle trembling. The power receded as quickly as it had come, leaving me hollow and shaking, but the damage was done.

Alarms began to sound somewhere above. Boots pounded down the corridor. The cell door flew open. Guards poured in, weapons drawn, staring at the scorched bars and the unconscious interrogator.

One of them dropped to a knee beside me, eyes wide with something close to fear.

“What the hell is she?”

Another guard swore under his breath. “That’s not a normal wolf. Did you feel that? That didn’t feel like Lycan power either.”

The word spread through the corridor like fire.

She must be a Hybrid.

They hauled the interrogator out and left two guards posted outside the cell with orders to shoot if I so much as moved wrong. I stayed on the floor, cheek pressed to the cold stone, trying to force air back into my lungs. My wolf was quiet now, exhausted. The rest of what I was had retreated again, but the mask was gone. They had felt it. They knew I was more than I claimed.

I closed my eyes and listened to the distant chaos of soldiers reporting what had happened. I could barely use my wolf powers as the silver deadened her powers for a while but I knew Rose would know within minutes. And once Rose knew, the information would travel.

Peter Reeves would soon hear that the woman from the Black Moon was a wolf hybrid currently locked in a vampire dungeon.

I had no idea whether that knowledge would bring him running… or make him decide I was too dangerous to save.

Either way, the secret I had protected for years was no longer entirely mine and I have failed my parents.

Peter POV

I was still in my study when the second report arrived.

The first one, hours earlier, had been about the failed assassination attempt. That had been expected. Messy, but expected. Someone always tried. Someone always failed. But the second report was different.

My mind went ballistic as I read it.

“This can’t be true,” I spoke silently to myself as I read the report again, this time slower than the other. In front of my desk stood the intelligence officer stood silent yet waiting for my command.

The second report had not only the exact description of the woman I had been looking for, but also news I hadn’t expected. It contained a revelation that made the air in my lungs feel suddenly too thin.

Apparently, the report said this woman whom I believe should be the one I had taken to the penthouse two nights ago had been seized by vampire soldiers in Ashford that morning.

The rest of the report felt like a death sentence as I read.

It stated that she was a physician at one of the local clinics and had been present at the scene of the last Crescent murder. She had last been seen leaving the Black Moon with an escort.

“With me in disguise,” I whispered to myself as I realized she’s the one I’ve been searching. I continued reading.

She was currently being held in the lower cells of the vampire royal compound under Rose’s direct authority.

I read the last sentence twice.

Rose had her.

Wannabe princess has her.

That wasn’t the worse part. They were calling her a hybrid which information had been gotten minutes it was presented to me.

Arrrrgggghhh

I set the paper down carefully so I would not crush it between my fingers.

“You’re certain it’s the same woman?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Multiple independent confirmations. Physical description, location history, and the timing all match. The vampires have already begun interrogation.”

Interrogation. That word landed like a blade cut to my skin.

My wolf, which had been restless since the moment I left her in that penthouse, surged forward so hard I had to lock my jaw to keep from shifting right there in the study. The pull I had felt the night I met her was intense. It was the same pull that made me carry her out of the Black Moon without asking her name. I could still feel it roaring back to life with a force that left me momentarily breathless.

I had told myself it was merely attraction and I wouldn’t spun myself into lies and deceit. It was what I termed Temporary madness. You know, the kind of intense, fleeting connection that sometimes happened between strong Lycans and someone interesting.

I had walked away the next morning because she refused to come with me and because an assassination attempt demanded my presence in the capital. I had left her behind like a fool.

Now she was in a vampire cell, and Rose was the one asking the questions.

“How long have they had her?”

“Approximately six hours, Your Majesty.”

Six hours. More than enough time for Rose to do any real damage.

I stood and walked to the window, needing the distance, needing the cold glass under my palm to keep the wolf from taking control. The capital spread out below under a pale afternoon sky. Somewhere behind those distant mountains, in a dungeon that smelled of old blood and silver, the woman whose scent I could still remember was being questioned for crimes she almost certainly did not commit.

I didn’t just know if the statement I said to myself was true or any means to catching our mystery murderer

“What exactly are they charging her with?”

“Suspicion of involvement in the crescent murders. Possession of a silver crescent pendant matching the mark left on the victims. And… a likely association with you.”

Of course. Rose would use every scrap of information she could.

I turned back to the officer. “Has the Council been informed?”

“Not yet. I brought the report directly to you as instructed for any matter concerning the Black Moon incident.”

“Keep it that way for now. No one outside this room hears a word until I decide otherwise.”

He bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Send for Kael. And prepare a full tactical convoy. We leave for vampire territory within the hour.”

The officer’s eyes widened slightly, but he only nodded and left to carry out my orders.

I remained standing at the window long after the door closed. My reflection in the glass looked colder than I felt. I could feel my wolf inside snarling continuously, demanding movement, demanding blood if necessary. It seemed like he did not care that she had been labeled a hybrid even if I wasn’t so sure of that assumption neither did he care about the old decrees my father had left behind concerning impure bloodlines. It only cared that the woman who had looked at me like she was daring the world to break her was now at the mercy of someone who specialized in breaking people.

I thought about the way she had felt under my hands. The quiet, stubborn refusal when I asked her to come with me. The flash of something almost like fear when I mentioned the crescent bloodline. She had been running long before the vampires took her. I should have forced the truth out of her that morning. Instead I had respected her silence and walked away.

That mistake was no longer acceptable.

Kael entered without knocking, as he had for the last twenty years. He took one look at my face and closed the door firmly behind him.

“How bad?” he asked.

“They have her. Rose has her. They’re calling her a hybrid and interrogating her for the crescent murders.”

Kael’s expression did not change, but I saw the slight shift in his stance. “And we’re going to retrieve her.”

“Yes.”

“The Council will lose their minds.”

“The Council can file a formal complaint after she’s out of that cell.”

He studied me for a long moment. “This is about more than the murders, isn’t it?”

I did not answer. I did not need to. Kael had been at my side long enough to recognize when my wolf had already made a decision the rest of me was still catching up to.

“I’ll have the convoy ready in forty minutes,” he said. “Full escort. No advance notice to the vampires.”

“Good.”

He paused at the door. “Peter. If she really is a hybrid…”

“Then I’ll deal with that after she’s safe in our territory.” My voice came out flatter than I intended. “Not before. She’s a wolf before anything else.”

Kael nodded once and left.

I returned to the desk and read the report one final time. Every line felt personal. The clinical description of her appearance. The note about the pendant. The confirmation that she had been taken only hours after I left her.

Somewhere in those six hours she had gone from the woman who had fallen asleep in my arms to a prisoner in a vampire dungeon.

I folded the paper, slipped it into the inner pocket of my coat, and strode out of the study.

The wolf inside me had already chosen.

I was going to get her back.

Whatever she was.