The cold night air whipped against my face as I sprinted through the dense, shadowy canopy of the Whispering Woods. Behind me, the muffled sounds of the celebration faded into a haunting silence. My lungs burned, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the bleeding void in my chest where the mating bond used to be.

"He rejected us," a tiny, fragile voice whimpered inside my head. It was my inner wolf, Nova, who had always been too timid, too small to ever surface during the pack's transformation rituals.

"Let him go," I thought back, gritting my teeth as sharp branches scraped against my bare arms. "We don't need him. We don't need any of them."

Ahead of me, the trees abruptly cleared. The ground sloped sharply downward into a terrifying abyss. The Whispering Cliff. Legend said that wolves who fell here never survived the rocky rapids far below, and that the wind carried away their lost souls. It was the ultimate escape route from a life of pack-bound misery.

Footsteps crushed the dry leaves behind me. Heavy, rhythmic, and terrifyingly fast.

"Elena! Stop right there!"

Jaxon's voice cut through the darkness like a blade. Panic surged through my veins. He didn't want me, yet he was chasing me? To finish the humiliation? To lock me away in the pack dungeons for daring to flee his judgment?

I burst through the final line of brush and skidded to a halt at the very edge of the precipice. Loose pebbles tumbled over the side, disappearing into the black, roaring void below.

A moment later, Jaxon stepped out of the shadows. His chest heaved, his eyes glowing a fierce, feral gold in the moonlight. For a split second, a flash of raw panic crossed his expression-a strange, instinctive terror that his wolf felt at seeing me so close to the drop.

"Step away from the ledge, Elena," Jaxon commanded, his Alpha voice vibrating with a desperate edge that didn't match his cold words from earlier. "Don't be a fool."

"A fool?" I let out a hollow, bitter laugh, the sound lost to the howling wind. I turned to face him, the toes of my shoes hanging over the sheer drop. "What else is left for me here, Jaxon? You made it clear. I'm a half-blood. A weakling. A stain on your precious Bloodmoon Pack."

"That's an order," he snarled, taking a slow, cautious step forward, his hand outstretched as if he could grab me. "You belong to me. The bond-"

"The bond is dead," I interrupted, my voice sharp and steady. "You killed it the moment you spoke those words."

"Elena, don't-"

I didn't let him finish. With one final look into the eyes of the man who had shattered my world, I leaned backward.

"See you in hell, Alpha."

"NO!" Jaxon roared, lunging forward with supernatural speed.

His fingers grazed the fabric of my dress, but he was a fraction of a second too late. Gravity caught me, pulling me downward into the dark, freezing embrace of the night. The rushing wind roared in my ears, and right before the darkness swallowed me completely, a strange, burning heat flared deep within my bones.

A voice-deep, powerful, and entirely foreign-echoed not just in my mind, but vibrated through the air around me.

"We survive."

Three years.

That's how long it took to bleed the last remnants of Elena Brooks out of my system.

I swirled the amber liquid in my crystal glass, staring out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of the executive suite. Down below, the glittering skyline of New York City buzzed with human life-unaware of the supernatural world hiding right beneath their noses.

"The merger papers are ready for your signature, Ms. Vance," my assistant, Sarah, announced, her heels clicking briskly against the imported Italian tile.

I didn't turn around. I couldn't. I was too busy adjusting the collar of my charcoal-grey tailored suit, making sure it hid the jagged, silvery scar cutting across my collarbone-a permanent souvenir from the night I fell off the Whispering Cliff.

"Did you secure the downtown real estate block?" I asked. My voice wasn't the soft, timid whisper of the girl who had cried in a ballroom three years ago. It was cold. Low. Tempered by steel and absolute survival.

"Yes," Sarah hesitated, clutching her tablet tighter. "Though... there's a complication with the primary investor. They insisted on a face-to-face meeting tonight. They're flying in from out of state."

I finally turned. A smirk played on the edge of my lips, though my eyes remained dead. "Let them come. I didn't spend three years building this empire to be pushed around by some out-of-town investors."

"Right. Um, about that..." Sarah swallowed hard, tapping her screen. "The lead investor is the CEO of the Bloodmoon Corporation. A conglomerate owned by the Vance family pack."

The glass in my hand cracked.

A sharp shard bit into my palm, but I didn't feel the pain. The name echoed in my skull like a gunshot. Vance. Jaxon.

Three years ago, I thought I was jumping to my death. Instead, the river had washed me ashore miles away, half-dead and burning with a fever that nearly killed me. When I woke up, Nova-my wolf-wasn't weak anymore. The near-death trauma had ripped away whatever was holding her back, forcing her to awaken with a fury that matched my own. We built a new life, a new identity, and a billion-dollar real estate firm from the ashes.

And now, fate had decided to drag me right back into the lion's den.

"Cancel it," I whispered, the rage finally bubbling beneath my skin.

"We can't," Sarah stammered. "If we pull out now, we lose everything we've worked for. They're holding the final contracts."

I closed my eyes, taking a slow, grounding breath. The old Elena would have panicked, would have run away, would have hid.

Not anymore.

I opened my eyes, a dangerous, cold fire burning in the depths of my irises. Let him come. Let Alpha Jaxon Vance walk into this room and see the ghost he tried to murder.

"Fine," I said, my voice dropping an octave, flat and chillingly calm. "Bring him up."