LOGINRAY'S POVI said it.I meant it.At least that was what I told myself standing in that room with Daniel staring at me and Levi's face doing something I refused to look at directly."Ray—" Daniel started."It's logical," I said. "Victor needs the bond at full strength. We break the bond before the full moon. His plan falls apart.""Rejecting a fated bond doesn't just hurt," Daniel said carefully. "It causes physical damage. To both wolves.""I know.""Permanent damage.""I know.""Ray—""I know, Daniel."The room was quiet.I hadn't looked at Levi since I said it.I looked at him now.His face was controlled. Completely. The kind of controlled that had been built over four years of never letting anything show. His jaw was set. His eyes were steady.But his hands were still at his sides in the exact way they'd gone still in the clearing when the bond first hit."It's the right move," I said."Is it," he said quietly."Victor needs us bonded. We unbond. His plan falls apart.""Nothing ab
LEVI'S POVDaniel's face said everything before his mouth did."Who," I said.He pointed at the name on the paper.I read it again. Like reading it a second time would change what it said.It didn't."That's not possible," I said."I verified it three times." Daniel's voice was very quiet. "Access logs. Communication records. Financial transfers through a neutral corridor account." He paused. "It's him."Ray was looking at me. "Who is it."I didn't answer immediately.The name on the paper was someone I had trusted completely. Someone who had been inside Crimson Ridge since before my father died. Someone who had stood at my shoulder through four years of rebuilding and never once given me a reason to look twice."Levi." Ray's voice was low. "Who."I turned the paper toward him.He read it.His face gave nothing away. "I don't know that name.""Ryan Blake," Daniel said. "Crimson Ridge Beta. Victor's right hand before the assassination." He looked at me. "We thought he disappeared after
RAY'S POV"Zayn's room," Levi said, "Tonight."We moved.The room was small and neat. The kind of neat that meant always ready to leave.Bed made, surfaces clear, nothing personal anywhere."He knew we'd search it," I said."Yes." Levi checked the cabinet, empty. "He cleared everything.""Not everything." I crouched by the bed. Checked the frame, nothing. Moved to the floorboards near the window. Pressed each one, the third from the wall gave slightly. I worked the edge up with my knife.A hollow space underneath.Letters, sealed. No markings, no names.I handed them to Levi.He opened the first. Read it. His jaw tightened. "Patrol routes, gate schedules, compound layout." He opened another, "Names of every wolf with senior clearance.""How many.""Eleven.""Three years. Eleven transmissions." I looked at the empty room, "Victor had everything he needed to walk in here whenever he wanted.""He was waiting for something specific," Levi said."The full moon.""Yes."Levi folded the lett
LEVI'S POVThe door opened without a knock.Ray walked in. Placed a folder on my desk and stepped back.His eyes were doing something I hadn't seen before. Not rage, but something colder, something that had gone very quiet and very still."Your father," he said, "Your father ordered it."I looked at the folder. Then at him."Did you know.""No.""He's your father Levi.""He's been dead for four years.""Has he." His jaw tightened, "Because that contract didn't sign itself.""I didn't know about Shadowmoon and I didn't know about that file." I held his gaze, "I found out the same night you did.""Mina had that file for three years."I said nothing."Three years," he said again, quieter, which was worse. "While I was out there carrying forty seven names thinking it was my fault."Still nothing I could say to that."I'm going to talk to her," I said."I already did.""What did she say.""That she was waiting for the right moment." His voice was flat, "Three years of right moments came an
RAY'S POVI couldn’t sleep.I sat on the floor with my back against the wall and stared at the barred window and thought about markers, about contracts, about a handler who found me two years ago in the neutral corridor and offered me a cleaner life and I took it because I was tired and hollow and not thinking clearly enough to ask the right questions.Two years of thinking I was free while someone held the string.The bond hummed in my chest. Quieter now than it had been in the clearing. Not the roaring chaos that had nearly taken my knees out. Something steadier, something that knew exactly where Levi was in this building without me having to look for him.That was new.That was a problem I didn't have the energy to deal with tonight.I pressed my fist against my sternum and breathed through it and my wolf pressed back from the other side like it was trying to tell me something I already knew and wasn't ready to hear.The door opened.A woman stepped in.Small. Golden skin, dark hai
LEVI'S POVI didn't sleep.Not because of the breach. Not because of the moved markers or the patrol report sitting on my desk unsigned but because of him.Ray Carter was two floors below me and the bond hadn't been quiet for a single second since I walked out of that room.I sat at my desk and tried to think like an Alpha.Someone moved his markers, someone adjusted his contract before it reached him. Someone wanted a rogue former Alpha inside my territory tonight and went to considerable trouble to make it happen quietly.Why.I couldn't focus.Forty minutes of trying to build a threat assessment and I kept coming back to the same moment. His eyes finding mine. Everything, the patrol, the rain, five years of running this pack alone, dropping away like it had never existed.I pressed two fingers to the inside of my wrist.My pulse was not normal.The bond didn't ask for permission. It didn't wait for the right moment. It just arrived and rewrote everything and left me standing at a







