C1

Serena POV

"Serena, open your eyes."

I gasp, cold air violently tearing into my lungs as my eyelids snap open.

"Look at me when I speak to you."

The metallic tang of poison still burns the back of my throat. My throat tightens, a dry heave racking my body as I claw at my skin, searching for the jagged scars from the prison floor. There are no scars. The suffocating stink of rust and urine is gone. Instead, the heavy, suffocating scent of fresh white roses and dark pine fills my nostrils.

Silk. Smooth, pristine white lace wraps around my waist. Candles flicker across a massive four-poster bed, casting long shadows against polished mahogany. Outside the grand arched windows, distant, thunderous howls echo through the valley.

The pack is celebrating. The political marriage alliance is complete.

"Did you hear a single word I said?"

My heart violently thuds against my ribs like a trapped bird. My hands fly to my neck, expecting the chemical burn that tore my insides apart while the prison television flickered above my head. On that screen, my sister Maren had been smiling, her hand resting delicately on Kael’s arm while I bled out on concrete.

I hate you both, I had thought with my dying breath. I hate you both so much.

Yet here I sit. Smooth skin. Unscathed palms. No caked layer of heavy, clownish makeup smeared across my cheeks. No gaudy, revealing dress I had deliberately worn to humiliate him at our welcome feast.

Alive.

"I asked you a question, Serena."

My gaze snaps upward. Standing near the tall glass windows, ten feet away, is Kael Thorne. Supreme Alpha of the Crescent Pack. My husband of three hours. He wears a fitted black shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, his posture carved from jagged ice. His golden eyes look down at me with absolute, unbroken indifference.

"I am not going to repeat myself," Kael says, his voice flat, devoid of a single drop of warmth. "Get under the covers and rest."

My hands shake against the silk sheets as the brutal reality hits me. The poisoned meal delivered to my cell came from my family. Maren’s sweet, soft lies had guided my every move in my past life. ‘Make Kael hate you,’ Maren had whispered back then. ‘Scream at him in front of the elders. Demand a divorce. Threaten to jump off the pack cliffs if he doesn't sign the papers and let you go to your true love.’

And I had listened. I had made Kael’s life a living hell. I had thrown tantrums, paraded my ex-lover’s letters in his face, and humiliated him until he finally broke and granted the separation. I thought I was running toward freedom. Instead, Maren and my ex were waiting in the shadows with a vial of venom.

Kael hadn't discarded me. I had forced him to let me go.

Before I can even force a breath out of my lungs, a low, savage roar echoes directly inside my skull.

She’s awake… the mate bond is still fragile. Stay away. Any shock and I could hurt her.

I freeze, my body locking up instantly. The voice isn't in the room. It isn't a memory. It is a deep, primal rasp laced with raw terror and a dark, suffocating devotion. It is not Kael’s cold, clipped speaking voice. It is the wild, ancient spirit of his wolf.

"Why are you staring at me like that?" Kael asks aloud, his tone sharp, his golden eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. He doesn't move an inch closer. He keeps a strict, deliberate distance between us.

She smells like fear and roses… don’t come closer, the savage voice inside my mind growls, frantic and bleeding with pain. I am already fighting the blood. One wrong move and the beast take her. Keep away from her!

I stare at him, my jaw trembling. In my past life, I only saw monsters. I saw the cold Alpha who signed the decree after I threatened suicide for the tenth time. I never heard this. I never knew the beast inside him was screaming in pure, unadulterated agony while I acted out Maren's twisted script.

"Serena," Kael steps back, his heel clicking heavily against the marble floor. "Do not push me tonight."

If I touch her, I will mark her, the wolf’s voice howls inside my head, practically tearing my mind apart with its intensity. If I mark her now, the curse will tear her body to pieces. Let her hate us. Let her stay far away where she can breathe.

The realization hits like an iron blade straight through my chest. The coldness isn't disgust. The distance isn't hatred. It is a desperate, starving cage built to keep me alive.

"You need to sleep," Kael says, turning his side to me, his human face an unreadable mask of granite. "Do not leave this room tonight. I have business in the study."

"Business?" My voice rasps out, dry and weak.

"Pack business," he lies smoothly, without a flicker of emotion in his eyes.

I have to chain myself in the basement before the moon hits the peak, his wolf snarls in desperate agony inside my head. I can't let her hear the chains. I can't let her see what I am becoming. She deserves an Alpha, not a monster that will bleed her dry.

A sharp gasp slips past my lips. Flashbacks crash through my mind—Maren placing the poison in my cell, the forged documents accusing me of treason, the news broadcast showing Kael standing cold and silent next to Maren. I used to think he traded me for her. But looking at him now, seeing how his jaw tightens at the mere mention of my family, the truth unravels.

"Is Maren waiting for you?" I ask, the name tasting like ash on my tongue.

Kael’s eyes flash with a sudden, lethal sharpness. "What does your sister have to do with this?"

She put her hands on Serena earlier, the wolf snarls viciously, a wave of dark, violent rage crashing through the mental link. I want to rip Maren's throat out. She touched my mate with those fake, poisonous smiles. If she comes near Serena again, I will tear the pack house down.

My fingers dig into the bedsheets so hard my knuckles turn white. He hated her all along. Even in my past life, when Maren fed me lies about how Kael secretly loved her, it was all a illusion.

"Answer me, Kael," I demand, my chest heaving as raw emotion threatens to choke me. "Are you going to her?"

"My movements are none of your concern," Kael says, his voice dropping an octave, cold enough to freeze the blood in my veins. "Your job is to play the obedient Alpha female in public and stay out of my way in private."

Look at her trembling, the wolf groans, a sound of absolute, broken despair. You are terrifying her, you fool. Push her harder. Make her hate you so she runs before the blood curse takes us both. Save her from us.

"I see," I whisper.

"Good that you understand," Kael says coldly. He turns toward the heavy mahogany door, his hand reaching for the brass handle. "Go to sleep, Serena. This marriage is political. Nothing more."

The spoken words cut like a serrated knife, intentionally sharp, meant to drive me away just like I drove him away in our first life.

But inside my skull, the beast breaks. An agonizing howl of pure, unadulterated loss vibrates through my soul.

Stay away from me… please, the wolf begs, sobbing in a dark, feral agony that makes my own heart ache until I can barely breathe. Any shock and I could hurt you. I cannot… I will not… lose you again.

Lose me again?

The words echo in the silence of my mind like thunder. My breath hitches. He knows. Or his wolf knows. The past wasn't just my nightmare—it was a tragedy that broke him too.

Kael pushes the door open, step by step preparing to walk out into the dark, preparing to chain himself in the deep stone vaults beneath the den just to keep his claws off my skin. He thinks he is protecting me by building a wall of ice. He thinks I am going to cower in this bed, play the foolish victim, and let Maren manipulate me into destroying us all over again.

Not this time. No more heavy makeup, no more fake lovers, no more letting Maren pull my strings.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. The cold marble floor hits my bare feet, grounding me.

"Kael."

He stops at the threshold, his shoulders tense, rigid as steel. He doesn't turn around. "I told you to rest."

"Look at me," I say, my voice steadying, burning with a fire that wasn't there in my past life.

He slowly turns his head, his golden eyes carefully blank, a wall of pure frost thrown up between us to hide the monster clawing at his ribcage. "What?"

"You think you can hide behind that face?" I step forward, the white lace of my gown brushing against my ankles. I take another step, closing the distance he worked so hard to create, until I am standing right in front of him, smelling the pine and rain radiating off his skin.

Kael flinches, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle ticks violently in his cheek. "Serena, get back."

Don't touch me, the wolf screams in sheer panic inside my head, his wild heart hammering against my mind. I'm losing control—she's too close, the scent is too strong, I'll bite her, I'll ruin her—

I reach out, my bare hand hovering an inch from his chest, right over his wild, racing heart. "I heard you."

Kael’s impassive mask shatters. His golden eyes widen in absolute horror, the air completely rushing out of his lungs as his wolf freezes in dead, terrifying silence inside my head.

Before he can pull away or deny it, a loud, urgent knock shatters the quiet of the corridor.

A guard's panicked voice bleeds through the heavy wood. "Alpha Kael! Forgive the intrusion, but your burner phone in the study just rang—it's an encrypted message from the rogue border."

Kael’s eyes snap to the door, his entire body going taut, but it’s the wolf's voice that violently explodes inside my mind, cold and lethal:

It's her ex-lover... he thinks Serena is alone tonight.