THE WRECKAGE

EVELYN

I am going to die.

The thought isn’t frantic or hysterical. It is calm. Cold. Just like the snow biting into my bare skin.

The blizzard is a white wall of fury. The wind howls like a dying animal, whipping my hair across my face, blinding me. My feet are numb. My hands are blue. The pain in my chest—the gaping, bleeding wound where the mating bond used to be—is so intense that it makes the freezing temperature feel like a mercy.

Get up, a voice whispers in my head.

It’s not my wolf. My wolf is silent, curled into a ball of agony, dormant from the rejection. This is something else. This is the primal instinct of a mother.

Move. Or they die.

The twins.

I gasp, forcing air into my burning lungs. I push myself up from the snowbank where Kael threw me. My limbs feel like lead. I stumble toward the garage, slipping on the ice, scraping my knees against the pavement.

I don’t have my duffel bag. I don’t have my coat. I don’t have my phone.

But I have a secret.

Three months ago, when Elena first announced she was returning to the city, I had a bad feeling. A premonition. I taped a spare key to my car underneath the rear bumper of my old SUV—the clunky vehicle Kael hated because it wasn't a luxury brand.

I reach the garage. My fingers are so stiff I can barely curl them, but I force them to work. I claw at the underside of the bumper. The tape is frozen, hard as rock. I rip a fingernail, bleeding onto the snow, but the key falls into my hand.

Thank the Goddess.

I scramble into the driver’s seat. The engine sputters, protesting the cold, before roaring to life. I don’t wait for the heater. I slam the car into reverse, tires spinning on the ice before finding traction.

I tear out of the driveway, the gates opening automatically for the vehicle’s transponder.

I don’t look back at the mansion. I don’t look back at the light in the master bedroom window.

I drive into the white abyss.

Ten minutes. That’s how long I make it before I see the headlights.

I’m on the winding cliff road that leads out of the pack territory. To my left is a sheer rock face; to my right, a hundred-foot drop into the ravine below. The visibility is near zero. I’m driving by instinct, gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles are white.

Then, bright beams flood my rearview mirror.

A black truck. Lifted. No license plates.

My heart hammers against my ribs. Is it Kael? Did he change his mind? Is he coming to bring me back to the dungeons?

The truck accelerates. It’s moving too fast for the icy conditions.

It slams into my rear bumper.

The impact snaps my head back. My car fishtails, skidding toward the guardrail. I wrestle with the wheel, pumping the brakes, screaming as I narrowly avoid the edge.

“If you are found on my lands by sunrise, you will be hunted down.”

Kael’s words echo in my mind. But this… this isn’t a hunt. This is an execution.

The truck hits me again. Harder this time. Metal screeches against metal. Shattered glass rains down on me as my rear window explodes.

They aren’t trying to run me off the road. They are trying to kill me.

Elena. It has to be her. She couldn’t risk me surviving the cold. She needs a body. She needs a tragedy to cement her place as the grieving, supportive Luna.

I won’t let you take them, I snarl, a surge of adrenaline cutting through the cold.

I slam my foot on the gas. My old SUV groans, pushing forward. I take a sharp turn, drifting dangerously close to the edge.

I see the headlights of the truck in my side mirror. The driver creates a pit maneuver, clipping my back tire.

It’s a perfect hit.

Time slows down.

My car spins. The world tilts. The guardrail—a flimsy piece of metal meant for summer tourists, not winter storms—buckles like paper.

I feel the sickening lurch of gravity as the ground disappears beneath my tires.

We are falling.

I scream, but no sound comes out. I wrap my arms around my stomach, curling my body forward, trying to become a shield for the tiny sparks of life inside me.

Please, I pray to the Moon Goddess. Take me. But save them.

The impact is deafening.

Crunching metal. Shattering glass. A sudden, violent stop that throws me against the airbag.

Then, darkness.

KAEL

The whiskey burns my throat, but it doesn’t numb the ache in my chest.

I stand by the window of the study, staring out at the blizzard. The wind is howling, rattling the panes.

It’s been an hour.

Is she dead yet?

The thought comes unbidden, vile and intrusive. I push it away. She is a rogue now. She tried to kill Elena. She tried to kill my heir. She deserves this.

I look at the glass in my hand. It’s shaking.

Why is my hand shaking?

I rejected her. The bond is severed. I should feel nothing. I should feel relief.

But I don’t. I feel… hollow. I feel a phantom pain in my left side, a coldness that no amount of alcohol can chase away.

“Kael?”

Elena is sitting on the leather sofa, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She has a bandage on her forehead. She looks fragile, beautiful, and utterly terrified.

“Is she gone?” she whispers.

“Yes,” I say, my voice rough. “She’s gone.”

“I’m so afraid,” Elena says, tears spilling down her cheeks. “The look in her eyes… she wanted to kill me, Kael. She was jealous. She kept screaming that she was pregnant, but… I knew she was lying. She just wanted to hurt the baby.”

I clench my jaw. Evelyn lying about a pregnancy to stop me from rejecting her—it was a low blow. Desperate. Pathetic.

“You’re safe now,” I tell her. “She can’t hurt you.”

My phone buzzes on the desk.

I pick it up. It’s Gamma Marcus, head of the patrol units.

“Report,” I bark.

“Alpha,” Marcus’s voice is urgent, fighting against the roar of the wind in the background. “We found a vehicle. Route 9, near the ravine.”

My blood runs cold. “A vehicle?”

“It’s the Luna’s… I mean, the Rogue’s SUV. There was… there was an accident, Alpha. It went off the cliff.”

The glass in my hand shatters. Shards slice into my palm, but I don’t feel it.

“Is she…” I can’t finish the sentence.

“The car is on fire, Alpha. The explosion… nothing could have survived it. We’re trying to put it out, but the storm…”

I hang up.

I don’t remember running to the garage. I don’t remember driving. I just remember the red haze of panic that blinds me to the icy roads.

I arrive at the ravine twenty minutes later.

The scene is a nightmare.

Police lights flash against the snow, painting the world in violent strokes of red and blue. Gamma Marcus is standing by the broken guardrail, looking down.

I shove past him.

Down in the gully, a hundred feet below, is a twisted heap of burning metal. The fire is raging despite the snow, a pyre in the darkness.

“Kael!” Marcus grabs my arm as I try to climb over the rail. “It’s too dangerous! The gas tank is unstable!”

“Let me go!” I roar, throwing him off with a burst of Alpha strength.

I scramble down the slope, sliding on the ice, tearing my suit, ruining my shoes. The heat hits me as I get closer. The smell of gasoline. The smell of burning rubber.

And the smell of…

I stop.

Lying in the snow, thrown clear of the wreckage by the force of the blast, is a piece of fabric.

I pick it up. It’s scorched, singed at the edges, but I recognize it.

It’s the scarf she was wearing. The grey wool scarf I bought her for Christmas two years ago because I didn’t know what else to get her.

I clutch it to my chest. I inhale deeply, trying to find her scent.

Burnt rosemary. Vanilla. And blood.

I look at the inferno. There is no body. There is nothing left to bury.

The hollow feeling in my chest expands, swallowing me whole. A scream builds in my throat, a primal sound of loss that defies logic. I hated her. She tried to kill my mate. She was a monster.

So why does it feel like I just died?

I fall to my knees in the snow, clutching the burnt scarf, and for the first time in twenty years, the Alpha of the Obsidian Pack weeps.

EVELYN (Somewhere in the dark)

Pain.

That is the only thing that exists.

I am cold. So cold.

I open my eyes. I am lying in the snow, hidden by a cluster of pine trees. The car is burning below me. I managed to crawl out. I managed to drag myself away before the tank blew.

My leg is broken. I can see the bone pressing against the skin. My head is bleeding.

But my hands are on my stomach.

Thump-thump.

Faint. Weak. But there.

They are alive.

I hear sirens above. I hear shouting. I hear… Kael?

No. He thinks I’m dead. He has to think I’m dead. If he finds me, he’ll finish what Elena started.

I have to move. I have to disappear.

A shadow falls over me.

I flinch, expecting a wolf. Expecting death.

“Easy now,” a deep, gravelly voice says.

I look up. A man is standing over me. He is wearing a long black coat. He has silver eyes and a scar running down his cheek. He smells like rain and old magic.

A Rogue.

“Please,” I whisper, my vision fading. “Don’t kill me. My babies…”

The man kneels. He looks at the burning car, then back at me. He smiles, but it’s not a cruel smile. It’s a sad one.

“I’m not going to kill you, little wolf,” he says. “I’m going to make you a Queen.”

He scoops me up into his arms effortlessly.

“Sleep now,” he commands. “When you wake up, Evelyn is dead. And the retribution begins.”

I let the darkness take me.