C6

"Do it, and I'll make sure you never walk out of this territory alive."

I don't even blink as Landon Pierce slams the heavy brake of the Blackwood Range Rover, the tires screeching against the rain-slicked pavement right outside the underground entrance of the Crownvale Moon clinic.

Across the marble threshold of the Blackveil District's most notorious clinic, half a dozen rogue enforcers from the Ashford Pack stand guard. Their claws are already half-sheathed, their eyes glowing faint amber under the harsh fluorescent lights of the hallway. They aren't doctors. They are muscle, sent by Malcolm Ashford to make sure whoever tried to undo his orders pays in blood.

I step out of the high-powered vehicle, my boots hitting the wet asphalt with a quiet, deliberate thud. I don't wear expensive pack silks or carry a pure-blood crest. Just a black leather jacket, faded denims, and a canvas bag slung over my shoulder. My body carries the curve and weight of a human born without the sleek, unnatural genetics of a shifter, but the air around me freezes the second my soles touch the threshold.

Edwin Clarke—loyal elder of the pack who secretly kept me fed when the Ashfords treated me like garbage—is pinned against the cold tile wall by two heavy-set shifters.

"Miss Darcy!" Edwin rasps out, his breath coming in ragged gasps as his ribs strain under the pack enforcer's grip. "You shouldn't have come! Alpha Malcolm... he ordered Sornk Mercer to lock down the facility!"

From the shadows of the main hallway, Dr. Elise Warren steps forward. She doesn't wear a lab coat. She wears the ceremonial iron-trimmed robes of an Ashford senior ritualist, her curly blonde hair pulled back, her posture radiating pure, untouchable arrogance.

She glares down at me like I'm a stray dog that wandered onto sacred pack grounds.

"Look what the gutter washed in," Elise sneers, her voice echoing off the stone walls. "The human trash the Ashford Pack threw out yesterday thinks she can step into Crownvale Moon and command our ritualists? You don't carry wolf blood, girl. You have no authority here."

"I don't need an Alpha's mark to know your blood-binding failed," I say, my voice steady, slicing straight through the thick tension in the hall. My hands stay shoved deep into the pockets of my jacket as I walk forward, not pausing for a single beat. "You injected Piper Ashford with Zetro Vesper to force her shift. You didn't check her inner core. Her blood is tearing her organs apart right now."

Elise’s face darkens instantly. "Shut your arrogant mouth! Piper is the true-blood heiress of Malcolm and Celeste Ashford! Her body is pure! The reaction was caused by her own exhaustion, not my ritual design!"

"Half an hour," I interrupt, stopping three feet away from her. "The internal blood tearing hasn't stopped. The Moon Yetako shock from your illegal compound has stripped her wolf of its natural healing. If the core tear isn't sealed with silver-thread extractions in thirty minutes, her heart will burst, and your precious Alpha's heir becomes a corpse."

Edwin's eyes widen in terror. "Miss Darcy... can she be saved?"

"Not by a hack who reads old scrolls upside down," I reply, my eyes locking onto Elise.

"You dare insult my rank?!" Elise shrieks, her claws lengthening as her wolf instinct flares in rage. "You're a powerless, fat human girl! You were discarded by the Ashfords because you're nothing! You have no pack, no bond, and no right to breathe the same air as pure-bloods!"

She lunges forward, aiming a sharp, clawed hand straight for my throat to force me to my knees.

I don't step back. I don't dodge.

I reach out, grab a handful of her perfectly styled blonde curls, and yank down—hard.

"Ah!"

A shrill, pathetic scream echoes through the hallway as her balance shatters. Before her wolf instincts can react to the sudden shock of a human moving faster than a shifter, I grab the back of her head and slam it straight into the cold tile wall with a sickening thud.

CRACK.

Blood sprays across the pristine white tiles as Elise groans, her knees buckling beneath her. I hold her by the hair for one extra second, forcing her bloodied face to meet my gaze.

"You talk too much for someone who almost murdered your Alpha's daughter," I whisper, my voice dropping into a register so cold it makes the surrounding guards freeze in their tracks.

I let go. Elise hits the floor like a sack of wet flour, clutching her broken nose and sobbing through the blood running down her lips.

The two pack enforcers holding Edwin immediately release him, their hands flying to their weapons, but a sudden, massive presence fills the hallway behind me.

Landon Pierce steps through the entrance. His posture is relaxed, a dangerous, crooked grin on his face, but the raw, oppressive pressure rolling off his skin makes the Ashford enforcers take two fast steps backward. Landon isn't just an ally. He's an unbonded rogue whose blood carries the scent of a hundred butcheries.

"Touch her," Landon purrs, his eyes flashing a vivid, terrifying crimson, "and I'll peel the hide off your backs before your Alpha even knows you're missing."

The guards hold their breath, completely paralyzed.

I step over Elise’s groaning body without giving her a second glance. My eyes sweep the hallway until they land on a young, pale female shifter standing near the ritual chamber doors, holding a tray of silver instruments.

"Dr. Marcus Holden?" I ask.

"Y-Yes, Miss Darcy!" Marcus stammers, dropping to one knee instinctively under the suffocating weight of the tension in the room. His hands tremble, but his gaze is filled with pure awe.

"Prep the inner circle," I order, my words fast, sharp, and stripped of all fluff. "Clean out the sulfur burners. I need four silver-tipped binding needles, three ounces of moon-blossom resin, and a cold iron bowl. Now."

"Yes, ma'am!" Marcus scrambled to his feet, sprinting toward the heavy double doors of the chamber.

"Wait!" Elise gasps from the floor, wiping blood from her chin as she struggles to sit up. "You can't let her in there! She's a human! If she touches the blood altar, the Ashford Pack will hunt every single one of you down! Alpha Malcolm will have your heads!"

I pause at the heavy oak doors, turning my head just enough to catch her trembling reflection in the dark glass paneling.

"Tell Malcolm Ashford that if he wants his true daughter to live, he can come down to the Blackveil District himself," I say, my voice carrying zero emotion. "And tell him to bring the severance papers he made me sign. Because when I walk out of this room, the debt the Ashfords owe me gets collected in full."

I push the heavy doors open and step inside, the heavy iron lock clicking behind me with a final, decisive thud.

The ritual room smells of burnt sage, ozone, and fresh wolf blood. On the central stone slab lies Piper Ashford. Her face is ghostly pale, her fingernails turned a deep, bruised purple as the Zetro Vesper poison eats through her veins. Her chest rises in frantic, shallow gasps, her life force waning by the second.

Marcus stands beside the stone table, his hands shaking as he holds the silver-tipped needles. "Miss Darcy... the core tear is deep. Without an Alpha's blood to stabilize her, the extraction will kill her within seconds. We don't have an Alpha here!"

"We don't need one," I say calmly.

I pull off my black leather jacket, tossing it onto a side chair, and roll up the sleeves of my simple white shirt. I reach into my canvas bag and pull out a small, unadorned iron vial sealed with dark red wax.

Marcus gasps, staring at the vial like he’s looking at a ghost. "Is that... pure bloodline marrow? Where did you get that? That’s forbidden magic!"

"Keep your mouth shut and hold her shoulders down," I command, stepping up to the stone slab.

I snap the wax seal off the vial. The moment the air hits the liquid inside, a low, hum of dark energy ripples through the room, causing the silver needles on the metallic tray to rattle violently.