My voice cut the hospital air like a sharpened fang steady, low, impossible to ignore. It felt strange to hear it coming from Riley's throat, but the intent behind it was mine: owned and dangerous.
My mother no, the woman who'd claimed me as her daughter stared, wet-eyed and frantic, the scent of worry clinging to her like perfume. Grant Ashbourne looked at me as if I'd grown a second head: puzzled, affronted, the kind of cold appraisal that had once made Riley shrink smaller than a pup.
I couldn't parse every memory that belonged to Riley, but I knew the imprint of fear when I felt it. The way my knees wanted to give whenever Grant stepped closer told me everything I needed to know: he had been a tyrant, not a father. Why else would a she-wolf choose silence in the dark over walking down a marked aisle?
I tightened my hand around Lewis's steel against leather when he made the faint, polite motion to pull away. I wouldn't let him slip away. Not now. Not when the map of my revenge had finally come into reach.
My eyes found his. I wore my resolve like a second pelt: unflinching, cold. The look said the same thing to him as it said to everyone else in the room: try to leave, and I will drag you back by the pack bond itself.
Lewis breathed out, a quiet sound that might have been a sigh or the release of a held storm. His voice was the same as it had always been controlled, measured, the voice of an Alpha who understood how to wield calm as a weapon. "Very well," he said. "The bonding will stand, but given Ms. Ashbourne's condition, I will delay the ceremony six months. She must recover."
Six months. The word landed like a winter wind. Too long. Time was a hunting ground; the prey I wanted would not wait idly while I healed. Camilla and Julian would parade, they'd solidify lies, they'd dig their roots deeper into the pack. I had been given back a life, but time to sit and breathe would drown any chance of striking first.
I had no intention of waiting for justice to wither at the edges. I wanted spectacle. I wanted the pack to see them stripped of their masks in the open square beneath the moon, where truth bites deepest. The wedding that had been stolen from me would not be the place of my humiliation it would be the battlefield of their undoing.
Lewis had files. He had the kind of cold dossiers that could fell reputations faster than any fang. He kept them close, folded away beneath the polite armor of his family's secrecy. Perhaps he'd wrapped them in restraint out of respect for the Hale line. Maybe he still played at honor. I could not fault him for caution, not yet. But if I wanted the truth unearthed, I needed to sit at his side inside the den, not watching from the hedgerows.
And I needed to know what Camilla plotted now that I was, in their eyes, gone. My death had not injured her; it had groomed her. The Morrigan shares that would fall to her, the sympathy that would be spun into advantage those were not ends but beginnings. If I did nothing, she'd build.
"No," I said.
Silence slotted into the room like a waiting wolf. Every head snapped toward me as if the word itself had snared them. I didn't flinch.
"Tomorrow morning at eight, we go to the registry," I continued. The words left me like a decree. "We sign the bond. We take the certificate."
Lewis's brow lifted, a single ridge of surprise. He regarded me with the careful caution of a predator testing the scent of a stranger. "Ms. Ashbourne," he said slowly, "marriage is not some blade to sheathe grudges with. It should never be used to settle scores."
"Then what is it to you?" I asked, and there was no hiss of malice in it only the steel-cold clarity of purpose. "Do you not wish to be bonded?"
He did not answer with words; his silence bared the truth. It wasn't a refusal to wed in principle. It was a refusal to bind himself to Riley or perhaps to any who carried that scent now. He looked through me, past the borrowed skin, toward a memory maybe as real as mine: a ghost of someone he could not have.
That was not my concern.
I held his hand just a fraction tighter. "This engagement is no longer for debate," I said, low enough that only those close could hear the wolf beneath the words. "Whether you agree or not, we marry tomorrow."
My "mother" gasped, stumbling forward, her voice a frantic plea. "Sweetheart, think "
I didn't let her finish. Grant stood like a statue carved of winter marble face closed, calculating, eyes like black chips. He watched me as if waiting to see whether I would crack or bite.
The room shrank to the circle of breath between my chest and Lewis's. My fingers flexed against his palm; the pressure was my tether to the plan I'd pulled into being. Would he yield? Would he step into the registry and make our bond legitimate? Would he let go of whatever phantom held his heart?
If he said yes, it meant something I hadn't dared to whisper yet: the man who'd kept his past tied to his ribs for so long might finally loosen the ropes. Or it meant he too was a careful liar, ready to bind for appearances while keeping his mouth closed and his files locked.
Either way, marrying him tomorrow gave me what I wanted: proximity, legitimacy, the perfect mask. It would place me at the center of their world, under their scrutiny, where a single truth could topple the edifice they'd built.
I breathed in. The air tasted of antiseptic and old money and moonlight waiting on a hinge. My heartbeat was steady, a drumbeat to call a herd.
"Will you stand with me, Alpha?" I asked, softer now, but with the same barbed resolve. "Will you sign and make us bound, so I can begin to take back what's mine?"
Lewis's eyes flicked to Grant, to my mother, then back to me. The silence stretched thin as wire. Around us the pack waited, not knowing whether this was bravado or a vow the moon itself would witness.
In that suspended moment, I saw everything I had been and everything I could be: dead, reborn, dangerous. I had already stepped into a life I did not earn and I intended to make sure no one would ever be able to erase me again.
…
His voice slid through the sterile air of the infirmary like a low growl, rich and controlled the kind of tone only a dominant wolf could hold without needing to raise it.
"Alright," Lewis said finally, the weight of his gaze steady on me. "If this is the path you choose, I hope it's truly what you want. The Moon doesn't take kindly to those who regret their vows."
The tension that had coiled in my chest finally broke loose. A shaky breath escaped me, and I met his eyes with quiet conviction.
"I won't regret it," I said softly, though my pulse beat wild beneath my skin. "Not now. Not ever."
He didn't answer. He only watched eyes pale and unreadable, the storm behind them locked tight. It was like standing before an Alpha suppressing his instinct to command, his scent all frost and steel.
When I turned to Grant, my voice carried a new edge colder, more resolute, the kind that came from the wolf buried deep within me.
"Now you can stop worrying," I said. "I'm not going to use threats or my life to force my will anymore."
His lip curled, his aura flaring, pressing against me like a challenge. "This is the daughter you raised?" he snapped at my mother. "Look at her defying her Alpha like a feral pup!"
My mother's eyes brimmed with tears, but there was no fear in her scent only heartbreak. "She became this way because you crushed her spirit, Grant! You broke her and called it discipline. Don't you dare put this on me."
Grant's claws flexed slightly before he caught Lewis's gaze and just like that, his dominance faltered.
He cleared his throat, forcing composure. "Mr. Hale," he said stiffly, "forgive this… family matter. I appreciate your discretion. If this were to reach the council, it would tarnish the Ashbourne pack's standing. Allow me to see you out."
He wanted to speak to Lewis alone a private exchange between Alphas.
Lewis gave me a brief nod. "Ms. Ashbourne," he said smoothly, his tone returning to its usual glacial calm. "Rest. Heal."
"Thank you," I whispered.
The moment they left, the room grew quiet again. My mother moved closer, her trembling hands brushing through my hair. The scent of her grief was soft bitter and tender all at once.
"I'm so sorry," she murmured. "I should've protected you. I failed you, my pup."
Her words pierced through the icy layers of my chest. For a heartbeat, I let myself lean into her warmth into the illusion of a mother's love.
"You don't need to worry anymore," I whispered back. "I won't run toward death again. I'll survive. I'll fight. Lewis may be broken in body, but he has a heart stronger than most Alphas. Marrying him… is my choice."
She exhaled shakily, pressing her forehead to mine. "Then may the Moon watch over you. I pray you mean what you say."
When she finally left the room, I waited until her footsteps faded down the corridor. Then, I moved.
I stripped the hospital coat from the rack, slipped it on over my gown, and tied a mask across my face. The sharp scent of antiseptic and blood hung in the air, but my pulse was calm steady with purpose.
Grandma.
My wolf stirred at the thought, a low hum of longing echoing in my chest. I needed to see her, to tell her I was still alive reborn, stronger. That I would protect her now, not the other way around.
The Ashbourne infirmary sprawled like a fortress white walls, silver trim, polished floors reflecting faint moonlight through tall windows. The perfect blend of human modernity and pack hierarchy. Nurses and healers passed by, each giving respectful nods to the Alpha family crest on my borrowed coat.
I slipped through the corridor with my heart thrumming fast. The scent of roses and iron still clung faintly to me, a reminder of the blood I'd shed for this second chance.
When I reached Grandma's recovery chamber, my excitement faltered because standing just beyond her door were two scents I knew too well.
Vivian and Malcom.
My biological parents.
I froze, half-hidden behind the shadowed corner of the hall. Their voices carried soft but ragged.
Vivian was crying into Malcom's shoulder, her perfume thick with sorrow. "The patrols said Elena's trail went cold by the river. They think she's gone…"
Malcom exhaled heavily, the scent of smoke and frustration rolling off him. "Keep your voice down. If Mother hears, it'll only make her weaker."
Vivian collapsed to her knees, sobbing so hard her scent soured with despair. "Where is she, Malcom? Why haven't they found her body?"
He lit another cigarette, smoke curling like ghostly tendrils. "If there's no body, there's hope she's alive. Stop mourning her like she's dead."
I watched them from the shadows.
Once, their words would have gutted me. Once, I would've mistaken that display for love. But now? There was only emptiness.
They mourned me too late. They cared only when my absence made them uncomfortable not when I cried for them, not when I was drowning. The bond that tied us as family had long since snapped.
I waited until their scents began to fade down the hall. I couldn't face them not yet. Not while wearing another wolf's skin.
I turned away, steps light, moving back toward my room. The corridors were quiet until I heard it.
The faint, rhythmic sound of wheels gliding over the marble floor.
I didn't need to turn to know who it was. His scent cold rain and cedar reached me before his voice did.
"Riley."
My breath caught. I turned, and there he was.
Lewis sat in his sleek black wheelchair, silver accents glinting under the hospital's dim lights. His posture was poised, his presence as commanding as any Alpha's despite the lack of movement in his legs. His eyes that unrelenting storm-grey locked onto me, dissecting every breath I took.
My pulse stumbled. He was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that came before a predator struck.
He looked me up and down from the stolen coat to the mask I hadn't fully removed and I could tell he'd already pieced together what I'd done.
When he spoke again, his voice was smooth, almost gentle, but it carried the authority of a wolf who'd learned how to kill without raising his claws.
"Where have you been?"
The question hung in the air, sharp and heavy and for the first time since returning to life, my wolf shivered.
Because beneath that calm tone was something primal. Something that said he could smell every secret I thought I'd buried.