MasukRhea’s POV “It means,” Eryx said evenly, “that the transformation is not gentle. It will demand her entire system. Her organs, her wolf, her bloodline. If her physical strength does not match the spiritual escalation, it will rupture her from within.” Alpha Malric moved so fast I barely registered it. His hand closed around Eryx’s throat, forcing him back against the iron restraint. The chains rattled violently. “You will choose your words carefully,” Alpha Malric said, his voice low and lethal. Eryx did not retract the statement. “The choice is hers. I will not lie to secure her cooperation.” My body felt split down the center. Terror coiled in my stomach, thick and suffocating. At the same time, something inside me burned brighter. Freye’s face appeared in my mind again, not fragile this time, but laughing and alive. I inhaled slowly, trying to steady the shaking in my hands. My palms were damp. My heart would not slow. “If I do this,” I asked, forcing the words through trem
Rhea’s POV “There are things I still cannot tell you,” Eryx said evenly. Eryx straightened slowly despite the chains biting into his wrists, and though Alpha Malric still stood close enough to snap his neck if he so desired, there was something unnervingly composed about him. “You will tell me everything that concerns my territory,” Alpha Malric replied, his voice smooth and controlled, but there was steel beneath it. “You are in no position to ration truth.” Eryx’s gaze shifted briefly to him before returning to me. “My roots. The pack I come from, I cannot name it.” Lyria let out a sharp breath, rolling her eyes. “How convenient.” “It is not convenience,” Eryx answered. “It is survival. Most of my pack is extinct. The rest of us exist in fragments. We are spoken of in old records and dismissed as folklore. Naming us invites attention we do not wish to draw.” Alpha Malric’s eyes narrowed slightly. He began to circle Eryx slowly, like a predator assessing prey that may
Rhea’s POVThe cold didn’t bother me half as much as the silence between us.My confession still clung to my skin like the rainwater soaking through my dress. Every word I had said in the garden felt exposed now, hovering somewhere between Alpha Malric and me, raw and unfiltered. I had admitted I chased luxury. That I chose survival over dignity. That I saw Theon as a doorway instead of a man. Even though Alpha Malric had not judged me, even though he had called it bravery, the shame had not vanished. It simply settled quieter, heavier.Lyria walked ahead of us, her stride brisk, but I could tell she was listening. She had seen us standing too close in the garden. She had noticed the tension. Lyria missed very little.“You both look like you tried to drown each other,” she muttered, glancing back at us as we turned into the stone corridor leading to the holding wing. “Should I be concerned?”“I’m fine,” I answered too quickly.Alpha Malric’s voice followed, lower, smoother. “Focus on
Alpha Malric’s POV“I schemed the whole thing.”She said it like a confession and a challenge at the same time, lifting her chin slightly as though daring me to judge her for it. I did not speak. I simply watched her. The rain softened to a steady curtain around us, and even before she continued, I could feel it. The shame. It rolled off her in quiet waves, subtle but unmistakable, like heat rising from scorched ground.“I know it will come as a shocker,” she went on, inhaling slowly. “But when I was living on the streets, when I had nothing, when hope was just a stupid word people with full stomachs liked to preach, I started wandering into the elite districts on purpose. I would walk those polished streets like I belonged there. I would observe.”Her mouth curved faintly, but there was tension in it.“No one wanted anything to do with a stray,” she said. “But I knew one thing. I was a very beautiful woman.”Despite the heaviness of the night, I almost smiled. “You are.”She rolled h
Alpha Malric’s POV“Theon?” I repeated, my voice lowering instinctively as the name settled between us like something foul. She was shaking, and not from the cold. I had felt bodies tremble before, warriors before battle, subordinates awaiting judgment, but this was different. This was not fear of the present. This was fear resurrected. Her breath turned uneven, thin, scraping out of her lungs as though each inhale had to fight its way through memory.“I don’t know where to start,” she whispered, her fingers curling into the soaked fabric of my shirt. “After I leave… what next? I can’t go back to him. I can’t.” Her voice cracked violently. “And my daughter. What if he isn’t taking care of her? What if she needs me right now and I’m not there?”The way she said that nearly undid me, like a punch to my gut because I knew I was partially responsible for keeping her here. Sure I knew her daughter was down with an uncommon sickness, but witnessing it now first hand at its early stage? I c
Rhea’s POV I ran harder, my laughter breaking into breathless wheezes as the cold rain soaked deeper into my skin, clinging to me like a second pulse. My wolf stirred inside me, delighted by the chaos of it, by the freedom of movement, by the way the storm erased everything else. For a few reckless seconds, I felt unburdened. Alive in a way that did not ache. Alpha Malric caught me just before I reached the stone archway. His arm locked around my waist and the world tilted violently as he tackled me sideways into the wet grass. The impact knocked the air from my lungs and I landed flat on my back with a splash, rain pelting my face as laughter burst out of me in wild, uncontrollable waves. “You—” I gasped between breaths, pushing at his shoulder while trying to inhale. “You tackled me!” “You challenged me,” he replied, hovering over me, one knee braced beside my hip to keep me pinned. “That was unfair,” I protested, laughing so hard my ribs hurt. “You weigh like three of







