CHAPTER 30

Helena's pov

The wind off North Ridge didn’t just howl it bit and carried the sharp scent of crushed pine and old frost.

I was at the edge of the clearing, my dark coat wrapped tightly around my shoulders.

Fifty yards ahead, the rotting timbers of the abandoned hunting lodge loomed against the jagged skyline like a bleached ribcage.

Snow swirled around my boots in lazy, white eddies, but behind my calm exterior, every nerve was wired tight, humming like a plucked wire.

'We’re in position.' the voice slid through my mind warmly like a hearth fire. It was Jarrett. He and the vanguard were invisible in the treeline, flanking the perimeter, their scents masked by the bitter mountain gale.

I didn't turn to look but I just kept my gaze fixed on the broken front doors of the lodge, giving a tiny, almost imperceptible twitch of my fingers to acknowledge his bond.

'Wait for my lead,' I thought back, projecting absolute composure across our link. 'Don't move until I draw Kade out.'

'I don't like you being the bait, Helena.'

'He ordered me to come alone. If he smells a trap before he speaks, he’ll run.' I took a slow breath, letting the icy air burn my lungs to keep me focused. 'He won't run from me.'

The rusty hinges of the lodge door shrieked against the quiet of the mountain.

Three figures stepped out onto the sagging wrap-around porch. The two on the flanks were hulking silhouettes, they were Kade’s top enforcers, heavy-set rogues reeking of blood-lust and unrefined aggression. But it was the man in the center who drew the air from my chest.

Kade was draped in a heavy, fur-lined coat, his graying hair slicked back from a face carved by violence and dark ambition.

Between the two enforcers, whimpering like a beaten stray, was a fourth man. He was shoved down the rotting wooden stairs, tumbling into the snow at Kade’s feet. It was Brent.

My stomach churned with cold disgust. He looked pathetic.

His face was a swollen watercolor of purple and yellow bruises, his lip split wide, his left eye swollen shut.

He wasn't wearing any coat even in the freezing weather, his body trembled violently as he scrambled backward in the snow, looking between Kade’s boots and my advance.

"I brought her!" Brent’s voice cracked, high and desperately, echoing off the rock faces of the ridge. "Kade, look! She came! Just like I said she would! I set the trap, I gave you the location, that means my debts are clear, right? We’re square! Tell me we’re square!"

Kade didn't even look down at him. He simply rested a heavy, scuffed boot against Brent’s chest, pinning the groveling man into the snow with casual disdain.

"Quiet, Brent," Kade said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that carried easily across the clearing. "You’re ruining the mood."

I took three measured steps forward, stopping just outside the lodge’s shadow. "Let him go, Kade. Your fight is with me."

"Fight?" Kade chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. He pressed his boot down slightly harder, earning a muffled groan from Brent. "There’s no fight here, Helena. Just a long-overdue debt collection. I must admit, I was surprised when this little worm crawled into my camp, offering up his former Luna in exchange for his gambling debts and his useless life. But I suppose cowards always know how to find each other."

Brent sobbed, his hands clawing uselessly at Kade’s boot. "Helena, please... tell him! Tell him you forgive me! Just give him what he wants!"

I ignored Brent entirely. He was a ghost to me now, a hollow shell of a man who had sold his soul piece by piece. I kept my eyes locked on Kade. "You got what you wanted. I’m here. Alone."

"Alone," Kade repeated softly, his amber eyes scanning the surrounding forest with practiced suspicion. He sneered, satisfied for the moment that his perimeter guards hadn't raised an alarm. "Just like your foolish parents were."

A sharp pang struck my chest, but I forced my posture to remain iron-rigid. "Leave my parents out of your mouth. A stray band of rogues caught them in the storm. You had nothing to do with it."

Kade stared at me for a long second, and then he threw his head back and laughed out, his laugh was a booming, cruel sound that made the birds scatter from the surrounding pines.

"A stray band of rogues?" Kade wiped a tear of amusement from his eye, leaning forward resting his elbows on his knee, crushing Brent further. "Is that the fairytale Jarrett’s pack fed you to help you sleep at night? That it was just a tragedy? A wrong place, wrong time accident?"

My blood ran cold. "What are you talking about?"

"It wasn't an accident, girl," Kade purred, his expression darkening into something monstrous. "There were no 'stray' rogues on North Ridge twenty years ago. Every blade that cut into your father’s flesh, every throat-tear that bled your mother dry was done under my explicit command."

The world seemed to pause after he said those words, the wind died all of a sudden. The rustle of the trees faded into a ringing, deafening silence.

'Helena,' Jarrett’s panicked voice cut through my mind. 'Helena, hold on. We're moving in.'

'Stay back!' I roared through the link, a wave of raw, wild power lashing out so hard it temporarily stunned Jarrett’s bond.

Kade took a step down the stairs, leaving Brent squirming in the slush. "Your father was a proud man, Helena. Too proud. He was harboring the young Alpha heir, the true bloodline that stood between me and complete dominion over these mountains. I gave your parents a simple choice: hand over the boy, and walk away into obscurity. But they chose honor. They chose to bleed on the frozen dirt rather than bow."

He took another step closer, a gloved hand going to the hilt of the silver blade at his belt. "They died begging for mercy, Helena. And now, twenty years later, you’ve walked right into the same trap. History really does repeat itself."

Inside my chest, something shattered like the shattering of a cage that had held my true nature suppressed for years under the weight of grief, self-doubt, and the lies of my past.

The truth didn't break me. It set me on fire.

A sound tore from my throat, it was a deep, vibrating frequency that shook the snow from the branches above.

"What the—" Kade froze, his eyes widening.

The air pressure in the clearing dropped instantly. A suffocating heat burst from me, melting the snow in a ten-foot ring around my boots. My eyes, usually a calm, storm-gray, flamed into a brilliant, incandescent gold.

*Crack.* The sound of my bones shifting was like thunder breaking over the ridge.

I didn't just Shift, I unleashed a dormant power that tore through the mountain air.

A blinding, silver-gold aura flared around my form, rising like visible flames, radiant and terrifying.

The raw, unfiltered pressure of a True Alpha lineage erupted from my core, slamming into the clearing with the force of a physical shockwave.

Kade’s two heavy enforcers gasped, clutching their heads as the sheer weight of my aura struck them.

"Attack her!" Kade bellowed, drawing his blade, his voice laced with sudden, edge-of-a-cliff panic. "Kill her now!"

The enforcers tried. They surged forward, baring their fangs, preparing to leap but as my transformation completed, the creature that stood before them was not a mere wolf.

I was a majestic, towering Alpha beast, my fur a shimmering coat of snow-white and brilliant silver, my golden eyes burning with divine fury.

The aura radiating off me wasn't just strength, it was command. It was the ancient, undeniable authority of the apex bloodline.

The moment the enforcers hit the perimeter of my golden aura, their instincts overrode their orders.

The primal wolf within them recognized true royalty, and it revolted against their master's command.

With whimpers of terror, the first enforcer dropped his weapons, slamming hard onto his knees in the slush.

His head pressed flush against the frozen ground, his neck exposed in absolute, instinctual submission.

The second enforcer hit the snow a second later, trembling violently, whining like a punished pup, completely unable and unwilling to raise a claw against me.

Even Brent, crawling on the ground, buried his face in his hands, screaming as the crushing weight of my majesty pressed him into the mud.

Kade stood alone on the snow-covered slope, his blade shaking in his grip. The sweat on his forehead was turning to ice in the winter air, his face pale as chalk as he stared at the terrifying, luminous Alpha wolf towering over the clearing.

I took a step forward. Behind me, the treeline erupted. Jarrett and dozens of pack warriors burst from the shadows, drawing their weapons and completely surrounding the lodge.

But none of them fired. None of them moved. They simply stood in awe, watching me claim the ridge.

I fixed my blazing golden eyes on Kade, letting out a low, bone-deep growl that vibrated through the earth itself.

The hunt was over and the execution was about to begin.