Serena POV

An hour later, I was standing on the private helipad of the Ashford family estate.

The deafening roar of helicopter blades filled the air as my father, Elder Ashford, landed. He was the Chief Elder of the Werewolf Council, the man whose signature controlled the flow of silver from the northern mines and the loyalty of the eastern packs.

He stepped out, his presence a palpable weight in the air that caused the guards around us to instinctively bow their heads. He hugged me tightly, his scent of ancient cedar wood bringing a profound quietude that settled the frantic beating in my own chest.

"My beautiful daughter," he rumbled, pulling back to look at me. "Where is Felix?"

A bitter smile touched my lips.

"He refused to come. He said my bloodline is too low, and he's busy trying to court Elder Ashford's White Wolf daughter."

My father's pupils contracted, the gold in his irises hardening to a dangerous, metallic sheen.

"That ungrateful street dog," he said, his voice carrying a low resonance that made the crystal glasses on a distant sideboard hum. "He's a lowly Rogue at his core. He only sits on that Council because you poured your fortune into his campaigns and called in every political favor I could grant."

I looked down at my hands, remembering the night Felix experienced his first Shift.

His bloodline had been so mixed and impure that his bones were breaking, his body tearing itself apart from the torment of his bones grinding against one another as they reshaped themselves. I had abandoned a multi-national board meeting to feed him my own blood—drawn from the oldest of White Wolf lines, rich with the ancient magic that could quiet the rebellion in even the most unstable veins.

He had cried in my arms, begging to become my mate.

"I'll never let him place his teeth on my neck," I told my father, my voice hard and resolute.

"Good," my father said, his expression turning ruthless. "You never officially registered your bond with the Council. It's time we find you a true Alpha, Serena. A mate worthy of a White Wolf."

I nodded, but deep inside, a cold and patient calculus was taking shape behind my eyes.

Before I found a new mate, I needed to completely destroy the man who thought he could use me and throw me away.

The game Felix thought he was playing had just reversed itself. And he didn't even know the rules yet.

Serena POV

The werewolf commercial district was located in the hidden center of the city. It was a place where high-ranking Pack members bought their pure silver weapons and custom gowns.

I walked down the cobblestone street, the cold wind whipping my hair across my face.

As I passed a high-end boutique, the door swung open.

Felix walked out, surrounded by several other Council members. Clinging to his arm was Jessica, the owner of the boutique. She had doused herself in synthetic pheromones to mimic a high-class female in heat. The cloying sweetness of her perfume clung to the air like damp rot.

One of the Council members stopped laughing and pointed in my direction.

Felix turned his head, and the moment his eyes landed on me, his nostrils flared in a reflexive attempt to block my scent, and he took a half-step back as if I were a source of contagion.

"What are you doing here?" he snapped, his voice loud enough for the entire street to hear.

"Felix," I said quietly, stepping forward. "Are you really doing this?"

Jessica giggled, leaning her heavy breasts against his arm.

"Oh, Felix, is this the low-level human-smelling girl you told me about?" Her eyes travelled from the hem of my dress to my face, with the slow, dismissive appraisal one might give a piece of furniture left on the curb. "Are you seriously stalking a Council Beta? You don't belong here."

The other wolves in the group burst into loud, mocking laughter.

The muscles in my back and shoulders seized, a coil of violent energy demanding release.

Felix did not defend me.

Instead, he looked at his friends and shook his head.

"She's nobody," Felix declared loudly, playing to his audience. "We never completed the Marking, and we never registered with the Council. She's not my mate."

He spoke of me as one would a faulty mechanism, a thing of no consequence that had ceased to function as desired.

"She's just a human plaything I kept around for stress relief. Honestly, having my wolf blood act up near her was the worst luck of my life."

A strange stillness descended, muffling the sounds of the street.

I remembered him kneeling in the pouring rain, his clothes soaked, begging me to let him join my Pack as a submitting mate.

I stood rooted to the cobblestones, each breath a conscious effort against the constricting band of outrage around my chest.

"You seem to forget the truth, Felix," I said, my voice ringing clear through the cold air. "I remember a dying Rogue on his knees in the mud, begging to submit to my Pack because he had absolutely nothing."

The laughter of the Council members died. A stunned silence fell over them, their expressions slack with disbelief.

A male begging to be a submitting mate to a supposedly low-level female was a massive blow to his pride.

Felix's face turned pale, and then flushed with a dark, mottled red.

"You're lying!" he roared, stepping toward me with his fists clenched.

He took a deep breath, trying to regain his arrogant posture.

"Listen to me clearly, Serena. Because of our past, I'll show you mercy." He lifted his chin, looking down at me. "I can offer you a position as a bottom-tier Omega maid in my new household. That's the best you'll ever get."

I stared into his eyes, feeling nothing but a chilling emptiness.

"I'd rather die than serve a pathetic, ungrateful coward like you."

Felix bared his teeth, his eyes flashing yellow.

"Then rot in the streets!" he spat. "You're an unmarked, broken female. No Alpha will ever want a flawed vessel that no true Alpha would deign to fill!"

I did not blink. I simply turned around and walked away.

Behind me, I could hear Jessica's shrill laughter and Felix's boasting voice rising above the crowd. Let him enjoy his borrowed glory for a few more hours. The time for public reckoning was approaching, and when it came, every wolf on this street would remember exactly what they had witnessed here today.