FAZER LOGINSienna's POVThe morning sun felt like a physical weight against my eyelids. I tried to roll away from the heat, but the light followed me, persistent and sharp. I groaned, my head throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache that made every movement feel like I was pushing through deep water.When I finally forced my eyes open, I had to blink several times to clear the film of sleep. This wasn't the hostel. The air was too clean, filtered and heavy with the scent of sandalwood and a sharp, cedar-like musk that lacked the warmth of Damien’s forest scent.This was the cold, metallic tang of a different seat of power. I sat up slowly, my skin sliding against silk sheets that felt far too luxurious for someone who had just tasted the dirt of a warehouse floor. This was Alpha territory, but not one I recognized."Where am I?" I whispered. My voice sounded thin, stripped of its marrow. I looked around the room. It was massive, stone-walled, and filled with dark wood furniture that looked like it h
Damien's POV "Who are you?" I didn't move. I kept my eyes locked on the shadow. My voice came out steady, heavy with Alpha weight, but the air had changed. It felt static, like the moment before lightning strikes. The silence pressed against my eardrums until all I could hear was the slow thud of my own heart. "Look where you are," the shadow replied. The voice didn't travel through air. It ground through my bones like a landslide. Cold wind kicked up from nowhere, smelling of damp earth and something long dead. My head spun. The walls blurred into grey streaks. I gripped my skull, nails digging into skin as the floor dissolved beneath my boots. I wasn't falling. I was simply elsewhere. I stood on an endless floor of dark, stagnant blood. It didn't ripple. It didn't splash. It sat there like a mirror made of iron and shadow. I reached for the pack link, for the familiar scent of forest—nothing. The mental map I always carried was blank. My instincts were blind. "What is this pl
Sienna's POV"Impossible. She's wolfless. How can a human bear the mark of the Moon Goddess?"Clara's voice cracked, a jagged sound in the stagnant air of the warehouse. She stammered, her fingers trembling as she pointed at the shimmering mark on my skin. The air felt thin, smelling of ozone and the sour, metallic tang of fear.I kept my arm locked, muscles screaming. Beneath the skin, the "blessing" was nothing but a hollow glow, a desperate trick of the light fueled by the ring's humming resonance. My mind instinctively started drafting an exit, calculating the seconds until the shimmer wavered and died. If Duke looked closer, the illusion would shatter, and I would be gutted where I stood.Duke rose from his dais. He didn't move like a man. He moved like a landslide, silent and absolute. His face remained a mask of analytical cold, but a subtle twitch tightened the corner of his jaw, the only sign that reality had just stepped outside his calculations. It was a flicker of somethin
Sienna's POV His gaze landed on me the moment Clara pointed her finger. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, frantic and hollow. I forced my face down, eyes tracing the damp, oil-streaked dirt to avoid the monster on the dais. If I didn't look, maybe the weight of his stare wouldn't crush me. What was she doing here? The realization turned my stomach, a cold, oily slick of dread settling in my gut. She hadn't just found me; she had orchestrated this whole nightmare. She had deceived Kael and led me straight into this industrial slaughterhouse. My pulse spiked for the red-haired girl trembling beside me. She had risked everything to slide the ring into my palm, and now she was paying the price in blood. I stayed paralyzed, caught between the suffocating gravity of Duke’s presence and the desperate, useless need to save the only person who had shown me mercy. "Sienna. Look at you. You’re shaking." Clara’s voice drifted from several yards away, light and sharp.
Sienna's POV"Duke," I gasped.The name felt like a jagged stone in my throat.As he sat upon the dais, the floorboards groaned beneath my knees. This wasn't the roaring dominance of an Alpha. It was ancient, silent, and yet he seems calm.Duke sat high above us on a makeshift throne of scavenged metal and dark velvet. We knelt on damp earth, looking up like ants.To my left, a rusted gate groaned on its hinges, vibrating with the muffled sounds from the business area. I caught a glimpse of a girl my age, her hair the same tangled copper as mine, staring blankly at a water-stained wall while a wolf counted a stack of bills.The market wasn't just a place. It was a tally of trading.My heart hammered. I stared at the dirt, my mind spiraling back to a memory I had buried years ago. My father reaching out through a dying mindlink after he had been framed.I was twelve, terrified, but his voice had been steady."I am alive, Sienna," he had whispered through the pack stone. "The man who sa
Sienna's POV My chest tightened with a pressure so visceral I thought my ribs might snap. Every breath was a jagged struggle—a reminder of the arena fight that had drained the marrow from my bones. I had nearly lost my life on that blood-stained sand, but the physical exhaustion was a hollow ache compared to the sight of Damien. He was on the verge of death. The air in the room stood stagnant, heavy with the scent of ozone and encroaching rot. I brushed my trembling hands over his skin. The cold was unnatural—a grave-like chill that seeped into my own marrow. Gray, necrotic stone claimed him, expanding from his fingertips toward his jaw in a silent wave of petrification. I could feel his wolf. A fractured, distant presence. Whimpering in agony. The bond between us, that golden thread of fate, frayed under the weight of the curse. "Damien." My voice barely carried. "You look cold." A ghost. Thin and brittle. Without my wolf to lend me strength, I felt fragile. A candle flame fl







