C2

Maristella Winterfang

The dark obsidian phone buzzed in my hand, vibrating with the freezing pulse of a rejected bond. I pressed the mark to connect, my breath raspy and raw in the silent carriage.

"What is it?" Alaric’s hard voice hit me like a whip, laced with the heavy, unyielding snap of an Alpha's impatience.

"Do not push your shift too late tonight, Lord Thorncroft," I said, my voice completely stripped of my usual soft omega submission. "It will drain your wolf's blood."

"I have pack matters to oversee," he growled cold, ending the link before I could breathe another word.

I stared at my small, heavy reflection in the glass, my four-foot-five frame sitting dense and sturdy against the leather seat, my deep dark skin flushed hot with suppressed rage. My omega wolf whimpered under my ribs, her spirit dying a little more with every beat of my heart.

Three years ago, I fell into the churning rapids near the Silverhoof Trail by Moonlake, my short legs caught in the deadly river weeds until I was drowning. Alaric had dove into the freezing currents, his massive five-foot-eight muscular frame ripping through the water to pull me out, forcing his own breath into my lungs until I woke up.

I fell in love with my savior, erasing my true noble heritage, throwing away my pride, and making myself into a quiet, obedient female just to fit inside his Alpha Manor. I begged for six months until he agreed to the mate-oath, but for three long years, I was nothing more than an convenient warm body in his bed.

The carriage jerked to a stop outside the iron gates of the Thorncroft Alpha Manor, and my communication tablet flashed red with a message from an unverified signal.

I tapped the screen, and my breath hit a wall as my pupils snapped tight.

It was a crystal-clear image of my bare-chested husband stretched out across a fur bed, and lying right against his broad collarbone was Ysoria Blackbriar, smiling slyly at the lens.

A wave of pure, violent heat crashed through my gut, followed instantly by a sharp, tearing cramp deep in my lower belly. I gasped, clutching my stomach as a gush of slick, hot blood poured between my thighs, staining my inner skirts red.

"My pup..." I gasped, my small hands clawing at the leather seat as the phantom scent of a dying blood-bond filled my nose.

I slammed my foot on the carriage floor, driving like a madwoman to the Moonclaw Healing Hall, but by the time the lower shamans dragged me onto the stone slab, the faint, tiny heart-thrum inside my womb was gone. The betrayal of my Alpha had severed the seed before it could even take root.

When I stumbled back into the quiet halls of the Alpha Manor hours later, the empty silence felt like a victory.

"You saved my life from the river, Alaric," I whispered to the empty stone walls, wiping the tears from my dark face with the back of my hand. "And then you bled me dry until my child died inside me."

I walked straight into his private sanctuary—a hall I was forbidden from entering—and pulled the official mate-severance parchment from his heavy desk, the document he had signed and threatened me with months ago when I questioned Ysoria's place in his pack.

With a shaking hand, I picked up the ink quill and wrote my full, true birth name across the bottom line: Maristella Winterfang.

I pulled the heavy one-carat silver mate-band off my finger, dropping the useless metal onto his oak desk, right next to the signed severance.

I packed my single travel bag in less than five minutes, taking nothing that his pack resources had bought me. Standing before our portrait on the wall, I lifted a heavy stone candleholder and smashed the glass frame to pieces.

I pulled out my python-skin fire striker—a weapon from my past I hadn't touched in three years—and sparked a flame directly onto the canvas, watching his cold face burn into ash.

I pressed the emergency line on my device, dialing the exact number I had locked away three years ago.

"Speak," a heavy, rough voice barked from the speaker after four long rings.

"B-brother," my throat hitched, tears threatening to spill over again.

Silence hung heavy on the other side, followed by the loud thud of a chair violently hitting the stone floor.

"Maristella?!" Torren Ashvale roared into the line, his pack-leader aura vibrating through the speaker. "Where the hell are you?! What did that Thorncroft bastard do to you?!"

"Do not come here, Torren," I cut in softly, taking a deep, shuddering breath as my wolf straightened her back inside me. "I am coming home. The Winterfang lineage is returning to the Ancestral Keep."

"If he laid a hand on you, Maristella, I will march the Ashvale warriors into the Thorncroft Moon Dominion and rip his throat out myself," Torren snarled, his breath heavy with raw anger.

"I will handle my own vengeance," I said quietly, ending the call before he could track my position.

I hired an outsider servant to clear the burnt glass from the manor, paying double in raw gold coins, and stepped into a hired transport bound for the territorial border.

As the transport sped past the Frostfang Capital Roads, I opened my device one last time, typing a direct message to Alaric’s private line.

A male who cannot control his heat around a Blackbriar hound is no Alpha—he is just a rutting beast. Thank you for killing the last piece of respect I had for you.

I powered down the device, pulling the glass crystal out and throwing it straight out the window into the mud.

My small, heavy body leaned back against the coarse cushions as the transport crossed the ridge toward the Winterfang Ancestral Keep, my dark eyes fixed on the full moon above as my true wolf woke up inside my chest, hungry for blood.