Lydia POV
"She's possessed!" Marcus screamed, backing away from the oak tree. "Look at her eyes!"
I stared in fear as Kira sat up in Damon's arms, her eyes glowing solid silver like twin moons. When she smiled, it wasn't Kira's gentle look. It was something cold and hungry.
"Hello, pack," she said in a voice that sounded wrong. "Miss me?"
Damon clutched the golden bottle in his hand. "Kira, fight this. I know you're still in there."
"Kira?" The thing wearing her face laughed. "There is no Kira anymore. There's only us."
My heart hammered against my ribs. This was my fault. I'd spent three months watching our Alpha treat his mate like garbage, and I'd done nothing to stop it. I'd seen Kira crying in the halls, practicing alone in the basement, trying so hard to be worthy of a guy who wouldn't even look at her.
I should have helped her. Should have been the friend she badly needed instead of following pack politics like a coward.
"Give her the antidote," I said, moving forward.
"It won't work now," Elder Vera whispered. "The joining is complete."
"Try it anyway!"
Damon turned the vial toward Kira's lips, but she moved faster than lightning. Her hand shot out and knocked the cure from his grip. The glass shattered against the oak tree, golden liquid soaking into the ground.
"Oops," she said with fake innocence. "Clumsy me."
"That was our only chance," Vera breathed.
"No." I refused to accept it. "There has to be another way."
Kira's silver eyes locked on me, and I felt like a mouse being watched by a snake. " Lydia Chen. The loyal Beta female who's deeply in love with her Alpha."
Heat filled my cheeks. "That's not true."
"Isn't it?" Kira tilted her head. "I can smell the jealousy on you. All those nights you watched him ignore his mate and wished he'd pick you instead."
The claim hit like a slap. Yes, I'd liked Damon. Yes, I'd sometimes thought what it would be like to be his chosen mate instead of watching him suffer with someone he didn't want. But I'd never acted on those thoughts.
"I've been loyal to this pack for five years," I said through hard teeth.
"Loyal to the pack, maybe. But not to the woman who needed you most." Kira's smile turned nasty. "How many times did you walk past her room and hear her crying? How many times did you watch pack members mock her and say nothing?"
Each word was a knife to my soul. She was right. I'd failed Kira when she needed a friend most.
"You want to know why I never helped her?" The truth tore out of me. "Because I was scared. Because I remember what it feels like to be the outsider everyone hates."
Five years ago, I'd joined this pack as a refugee. My original pack was killed by rogues, and the Steele Pack took me in out of duty, not kindness. For months, I'd been the unwanted stranger trying to show I belonged.
"I worked twice as hard as everyone else," I continued. "I took every insult, every mean joke, every test they threw at me. And when I finally won their respect, I was terrified of losing it."
"So you sacrificed an innocent girl to protect your position," the thing wearing Kira's face said. "How noble."
"I'm not proud of it!" I shouted. "But I'm here now, aren't I? I'm trying to help!"
"Too little, too late, Beta."
Kira stood up, her moves graceful and predatory. The silver glow in her eyes was spreading, creeping down her face like liquid mercury.
"The real question is," she continued, "what are you willing to sacrifice to save her now?"
Before I could answer, Kira lunged at Elder Vera. I threw myself between them, taking claws across my shoulder that should have come from a normal dog. Instead, they burned like acid.
"Lydia!" Damon caught me as I stumbled.
The cuts weren't healing. Whatever Kira had become, her claws carried some kind of poison that stopped werewolf regrowth.
"Interesting," Kira mused, studying her silver-stained claws. "The joining gave us new skills. I wonder what else we can do?"
She raised her hand, and power rolled off her in waves. Trees groaned and bent away from her. The ground cracked under her feet.
"This is what happens when you suppress an Alpha bloodline for ten years," she said with Maya's cold smile. "All that power builds up like water behind a wall. And when it finally breaks free..."
Lightning crackled between her fingers. Not normal werewolf power—something darker, more dangerous.
"Kira, please," I gasped, putting my hand to my burning shoulder. "I know you're angry. You have every right to be. But this isn't you."
"You're right. This isn't just me." Her voice blended with two different tones now. "This is me and my sister, working together for the first time in ten years. We're going to fix this broken world."
"By destroying it?"
"By burning out the parts that don't work and starting fresh." She pointed at the pack members cowering behind trees. "Look at them, Lydia. Look at how they treat anyone who's different. Anyone who's weak. Anyone who doesn't fit their perfect little mold."
I looked at my packmates and saw the truth in her words. These same dogs had made Kira's life miserable for months. They'd mocked her, excluded her, treated her like a sickness they might catch.
"They're scared," I said softly.
"They should be. Because we're done being scared of them." Kira's power flared brighter. "The age of lying is over. Wolves are superior to people in every way. We're faster, stronger, we heal from almost anything. Why should we live in their shadows?"
"Because murder is wrong," Damon said strongly.
"Is it? How many wolves die every year because people poison our water and cut down our forests? How many children starve because human cities push us out of our hunting grounds?"
She had a point, and that scared me more than her silver eyes.
"There has to be another way," I urged.
"There is. Join us." Kira held out her hand. "I can sense your dog, Lydia. She's tired of being thankful for scraps. Tired of proving herself to people who will never truly accept her."
My wolf stirred inside me, answering to the call. For a moment, I felt the heady pull of her power. The promise of never having to bow my head or bite my tongue again.
Then I remembered something.
"You're wrong about one thing," I said, fighting against the urge in her voice.
"What's that?"
"Someone did accept Kira. Someone saw her worth from the very beginning. " I looked at Damon, whose face was twisted with sadness and guilt. "She just couldn't see it because he was too scared to show it."
Kira's expression flickered. For just a second, the silver in her eyes dulled.
"Love isn't always loud," I continued desperately. "Sometimes it's quiet. Sometimes it's a man staying awake all night because he's afraid his mate might leave if he stops watching. Sometimes it's sleeping in your office because you're scared that if you lie next to someone, you might care too much to survive losing them."
"You're lying," Kira said, but her voice trembled.
"Ask him. Ask Damon why he really avoided you."
All eyes turned to our Alpha. He looked broken, beaten, but when he spoke, his voice was steady.
"Because I loved you from the moment I saw you," he said simply. "And love has only ever brought me pain."
The silver glow in Kira's eyes fluttered like a dying light.
That's when I realized something that made my blood freeze.
The remedy wasn't destroyed. When Kira knocked the vial from Damon's hand, I'd been watching the ground. The glass shattered, yes, but it had fallen in a small puddle of rainwater.
The yellow liquid was still there, diluted but not gone.
I started moving toward it, trying to be relaxed. If I could just reach it, maybe collect enough in my palm...
"Don't even think about it, Beta."
Kira's hand closed around my throat, pulling me off the ground. Her strength was inhuman now, frightening.
"You think I don't know what you're planning?" she whispered. "You think I can't smell your desperate hope?"
She was choking me, and my cuts still weren't healing. Black spots danced in my view.
But as I stared into those silver eyes, I saw something that made me smile through the pain.
A single drop of normal, human tears rolling down Kira's cheek.
"She's still fighting," I croaked. "Kira's still in there, and she's stronger than you think."
Kira's grip tightened. "Not for much longer."
That's when I heard it—a sound that made my heart stop. Howling in the distance. Not from our pack.
Rogues. Dozens of them. Coming fast.
"Maya's backup plan," Kira said with a grin that showed too many teeth. "Did you really think we'd come alone?"
Through the trees, I saw shapes moving. Wolves with red eyes and foam at their mouths. The sick ones. The rogues who'd been given the same serum that was making Kira into a monster.
"Welcome to the new world order," she said as the first of the mad wolves burst into the open. "Hope you're ready to bleed."