第1章

I was trapped in the blacked-out animal facility for three hours.

The research building stood ten feet away, every window blazing with light.

I sat alone in the darkness, clutching my lab notebook, completely forgotten.

The rash on my arms spread wider, inch by inch.

Lina had been assigned to the animal facility that night.

But she said she was scared, and Arthur excused her from the shift.

My feelings didn't matter.

By 10:30 p.m., a young werewolf from the neighboring lab opened the animal facility door. By then, I had lost all feeling in my body.

When he asked if I was okay, I pulled the soaking lab coat tighter around myself, shook my head, and said the words I'd learned by heart.

"I'm fine."

Seven years ago, when I first joined the lab, a test animal suddenly went wild. Terrified, I huddled in a corner.

Arthur dropped everything and came straight to me.

"Irene, what are you afraid of? I'm right here with you."

Later, he told me to be independent.

"In research, no one can always be there to bail you out."

So I became exactly that.

Independent enough not to reach out through the mind-link when my wolf lost control.

Independent enough not to tell him when I was hurt.

Independent enough to never let Arthur know when I was falling apart.

But today, I finally realized that not everyone had to learn to be strong.

Lina didn't.

All she had to do was call his name, and someone would fix everything for her.

By the time I got back to the apartment, it was almost eleven.

The door opened, and warm golden light fell across Arthur's face.

A glass of water and cold medicine sat on the table.

For a split second, I thought he had been waiting for me.

When he heard me come in, he looked up, his brow furrowing immediately.

"What happened? You look terrible."

The familiar tone, the familiar concern. For a moment, I almost let myself believe he still cared.

Arthur saw that I wasn't speaking and assumed I was still upset. He softened his voice.

"I heard about what happened at the animal facility. You must have had a rough night."

My heart gave a small flutter, and a bittersweet warmth stirred in my chest despite myself.

So he did still care about me.

But his next words shattered that thought.

"Lina is a newbie. She's scared of those things. You're different. You're used to it."

The air went dead silent.

The warmth drained from my body in an instant. When I spoke, my voice was thick with congestion.

"So you weren't worried about me getting hurt? You just wanted me to take her place?"

Arthur frowned and looked away.

"Irene, don't always think the worst of people. It was just a small favor."

Just then, his phone rang, breaking the silence between us. He answered right away.

A girl's tearful voice came through the phone.

"Arthur... my computer crashed again, and my data is all messed up. What should I do?"

Arthur got to his feet at once.

"Don't panic. I'll come take a look."

He was ready to rush out for her, but he had barely reacted when his mate came home soaked and sick.

I raised an eyebrow.

"You're going out this late?"

His hand paused as he reached for his jacket.

"She's alone in the lab."

I watched him hurry toward the door and gave a quiet laugh.

"I was alone in the animal facility too."

Arthur stopped for a moment. Then he gave me the same answer I'd heard countless times before.

"You need to be more independent."

Those few words sank in like a needle. Small, but impossible to ignore.

For years, I had taught myself that relying on my mate made me weak.

Once the door closed behind him, I looked at the rash spreading across my arms. For the first time, I realized how ridiculous it all was.

I opened my laptop and logged into the Institute's internal system.

The page loaded.

A familiar name appeared on the screen: I.A.

Arthur and I had built this database together three years ago.

Back then, I couldn't even design a simple experiment by myself. He didn't rewrite my protocol for me. He would simply push my notebook back toward me.

"Figure it out yourself."

So I did.

My first experiment. My first animal model. Even the raw data for the paper I had recently submitted.

Everything was stored here.

Arthur was the one who named the database I.A.

"This will be our secret base."

I stood for Irene. A stood for Arthur.

I entered the password. The moment the database opened, my wolf eyes narrowed sharply.

The records in the main data folder had been tampered with. Experiment protocols. Key parameters. Raw data.

I refreshed the page, but nothing changed.

I had redesigned those experiments hundreds of times and spent countless sleepless nights on that research. All of it, unrecognizable.

My hands trembled as I opened the activity log. An unfamiliar name appeared on the screen.

Lina Brooks.

I stared at her name for a long time. Long enough for the last flicker of hope deep within my wolf to go out.

In the past, I would have gone straight to Arthur.

"Could this be some kind of misunderstanding?"

But not this time.

I calmly opened the permissions page and found Lina's account.

Click.

Delete.

Confirm.