CHAPTER 4 — "Dr. Cross"

Sera's POV

And she was right.

There the car was. A suited bodyguard stood by the side, holding the back door open.

The black armored SUV handled the steep mountain roads with an aggressive, mechanical precision. I sat in the backseat, my hands clenched into tight fists against the cold leather, staring out into the pitch-black wilderness. We had been driving for over two hours, crossing borders that weren't marked on any human map. The pull in my chest — the agonizing, invisible thread tying me to Caden — was stretching tighter and tighter, threatening to snap my ribcage open. Every mile away from the Crescent Moon territory felt like an active execution. I groaned at the stinging pain.

When the vehicle finally slowed, it wasn't at a hospital or a hidden rogue shelter. The headlights washed over a massive, reinforced concrete compound built directly into the sheer rock face of the mountain. Steel blast doors groaned open, and the SUV rolled into a heavily fortified subterranean garage. Guards in sterile, tactical gear stood at every corner, their eyes sharp, their posture signaling military-grade training.

The back door was thrown open from the outside. A woman stood there, wearing a sharp charcoal suit over a crisp white shirt. Her dark hair was pulled back into a flawless, unforgiving bun. She didn't look like a pack doctor. She looked like a general.

"Get out, Sera," Dr. Maren Cross said, her voice cutting through the heavy hum of the garage. "You look like a corpse walking. Let's get you inside before your wolf gives up entirely." She held her hand out for me.

I took her hand and stepped out of the vehicle, my legs trembling, but I kept my chin high.

'It's time I accepted my fate. I have tried to hide and run from the truth. It is high time I take action into my own hands, and if this is the woman my mother trusted, then she will know what to do.' I stared straight at Dr. Maren, my gaze blurry but unwavering.

I am ready.

Maren let out a low, dry sound that might have been a laugh. "Good. You'll need that anger where we're going. Follow me."

She led me through a maze of sterile, white corridors that smelled faintly of antiseptic and ozone. There were no pack banners here. No symbols of allegiance. It was entirely detached from the world I had known for the last six years. She ushered me into a spacious office lined with ancient leather-bound books and high-tech monitors displaying complex biological readouts.

"Sit," Maren said, gesturing to a sleek leather chair across from her metal desk. She didn't offer me tea or blankets. She didn't ask if I was comfortable. She just leaned against the edge of her desk and stared at me with calculating, piercing green eyes. "Your mother was a fool for staying as long as she did, but she was smart enough to keep my number hidden. Tell me exactly what happened tonight."

"Caden betrayed me," I said, the words tasting like acid on my tongue. The tears were threatening to fall now. "He brought a female named Lyra into our bed. My son... Eli... he ran to her. Like I didn't matter. Caden had divorce papers already signed by the elders. He said I was nothing but a vessel to carry a strong Alpha heir. Me. He told me my wolf was weak, that I didn't have the stomach for leadership, and he threw me out like I was nothing — like all those years meant nothing."

The tears came down, flooding my face and streaming to my lips.

Maren listened without interrupting, her expression shifting from cold evaluation to a dark, simmering disdain. "A vessel. Is that the lie they fed you?"

"What do you mean?" I asked, leaning forward, my hands gripping the armrests. "He said my bloodline was a high-yield match for his lineage. That's why he married me. Is this true? Was my mother aware of this?"

"Caden is an arrogant boy playing with matches in a powder keg," Maren scoffed, straightening up and walking behind her desk. "Your bloodline isn't just a 'rare match' for his pathetic lineage, Sera. Your bloodline is Ashborne. It is an ancient, sovereign strain that predates the modern pack system by thousands of years. It doesn't produce 'strong heirs' for lesser Alphas. It carries a genetic resonance that makes standard Alpha commands completely useless against you. Someone went to extraordinary lengths to chemically and mentally suppress your wolf from the moment you hit puberty so you would never realize what you actually are."

What is she talking about?

The room seemed to tilt. I shook my head, my mind racing. "No. That's impossible. My father was a beta, my mother was—"

"Your mother was an Ashborne who fled the burning of the Northern sanctuaries," Maren interrupted, her voice dropping into a harsh, unyielding register. "She hid in the Crescent Moon pack because she thought obscurity would keep you safe. She thought if you married the Alpha's son, you would be protected. She didn't realize she was walking right into the jaw of the trap." Maren shook her head in disapproval.

"Why would Caden hide that from me if he knew?" I demanded, my voice rising as fury began to replace the shock in me.

"Because an Ashborne woman cannot be controlled, Sera. If you had awakened, Caden would have been kneeling to you, not the other way around," Maren said. She leaned across the desk, her eyes locking onto mine. "But we have more immediate problems. You want to break the mate bond. You called me because you want the severing — am I right?"

"Yes," I said instantly. "I want him out of my head. I want him out of my soul."

"Let's be entirely clear about what you are asking for," Maren said, her tone turning lethal. "The severing ritual is not a medical procedure. It is an act of absolute, visceral violence against your own biology. I have to use a specific, forbidden frequency to shatter the spiritual and physical anchor of the bond. It feels like being flayed alive from the inside out. Most wolves who attempt it go completely mad from the agony. If your will wavers for even a millisecond, your wolf will die, and your mind will shatter into a thousand pieces. And even if you survive... it leaves a permanent mark. You will never be the same woman again."

"Good," I growled, standing up, my chair screeching against the floor. "The woman I was let a tyrant take her son. The woman I was let a mistress laugh in her face. I don't want to be her anymore. Let's start the ritual tonight."

Maren stared at me for a long, silent moment. A slow, dangerous smile finally curved her lips. "You have your mother's temper. But you need to understand the true scale of the monsters you are fighting. Caden did not orchestrate this divorce on his own. He doesn't have the intellect or the foresight. He is just an arrogant Alpha — a frightened one, if you knew what to look for."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, a sudden, cold dread pooling in my stomach. "He had the papers ready. He said he had been planning it for months." I pointed out.

"Caden is a pawn executing orders from a shadow he can't even see," Maren said smoothly. She reached into the top drawer of her desk, pulled out a faded, matte photograph, and slid it across the cold metal surface toward me. "Look at it."

I stepped forward, my breath hitching as I looked down. In the photo, a young, radiant woman with my exact jawline was smiling at the camera. My mother. But standing directly beside her, his hand resting possessively on her shoulder, was a man with sharp, ruthless gray eyes. A man wearing an expensive, tailored suit, sporting the heavy gold signet ring of the pack's governing council.

It was a face I had seen at every formal dinner, every pack execution, and every holiday for the last six years.

"No," I whispered, my voice trembling as the world shattered all over again. "That's... that's impossible."

"It is entirely possible," Maren said, her voice dropping like a hammer. "That is Elder Rowan. Caden's father. He was your mother's handler before she escaped, and he is the one who engineered your entire life."