The ground is cold beneath my knees.
I barely notice it.
Cam's weight is slumped against me still weak, blood crusted in her hair where she hit the ground. Her breathing is shallow but steady and alive. She keeps falling in and out of consciousness. Thank the Goddess, she's alive. My hands are buried in her jacket, gripping fabric like I can anchor her to the world if I just hold on hard enough.
Enoch is pacing in front of us, wolf pacing beneath skin that wants to tear free. His eyes keep darting to the tree line, ears straining for sounds that aren't there. The bond between them hums—tight, frantic, terrified. I feel it even without meaning to. Like a live wire stretched too far.
The woods are wrong.
Too quiet. Too still.
Night has settled fully now, the canopy above swallowing moonlight until everything feels narrow and suffocating. The air smells damp, metallic, wrong. My skin prickles with it. Emma presses hard against my ribs, hackles raised, snarling low and vicious.
This is a trap.
I know it the way you know when you've stepped too close to the edge of something and gravity has already made its decision.
Then the slow clap echoes through the trees.
Once.
Twice.
Mocking. Deliberate.
My head snaps up.
She steps out from behind an oak like she owns the forest.
Seraphina.
Her smile is sharp and ugly and pleased, lips curling as her gaze drags over us—over Cam unconscious in my arms once again, over Enoch shaking with barely leashed violence, over me on my knees like she planned it that way.
"Gullible bitch," she says lightly, tilting her head. "I knew you'd come for this tramp."
Something in me snaps.
I'm on my feet before I realize I've moved, fury roaring up so fast it burns. "You touch her again and I will end you," I growl, voice shaking with the force of it. "You think this makes you powerful? Luring me out like a coward?"
She laughs.
Actually laughs.
"Oh please," she scoffs. "Don't flatter yourself. This isn't about power. It's about finally watching you fall."
She steps closer, boots crunching over leaves, eyes glittering. "Do you have any idea what it was like growing up next to you? Everyone is whispering about Samantha this, Samantha that. So special. So tragic. Poor little orphan. The pack practically tripped over themselves trying to save you."
My stomach twists.
"They looked at you like you were something," she continues, venom dripping from every word. "Like you mattered. Like you were destined for more. And me? I was invisible. Forgotten. The Alpha's daughter and still somehow second to the girl with no bloodline worth mentioning."
"You abused me," I snap. "You humiliated me. You slept with my partners just to hurt me."
"And you still had their attention," she snarls suddenly, mask cracking. "You still had everything."
Cam stirs in my arms, groaning softly.
Her eyes flutter open, unfocused—but when they land on Seraphina, they sharpen instantly.
"Oh," Cam rasps, voice weak but vicious. "Look. It's the jealous cunt herself."
Seraphina stiffens.
Cam smiles, blood on her teeth. "Must be exhausting, spending your whole life mad that no one loved you. Maybe if you weren't such an evil, worthless snake, people wouldn't have avoided you like the plague."
Seraphina's face twists.
Before she can respond, laughter rolls out of the darkness.
Deep. Male. Familiar.
My blood turns to ice.
Two figures step out from the shadows like they've been there the whole time.
Alpha Jered.
Valen.
For a second, my mind refuses to accept it. It skids uselessly around the image, grasping for some other explanation. Some other reality.
But Jered is still wearing the same smug smile he always did. The one that never reached his eyes. Valen's face is flushed with rage, his gaze locking onto me with something feral and possessive.
My chest tightens.
"No," I whisper. "No—this doesn't—"
Jered chuckles. "Surprised, little healer?"
The memories slam into place all at once. The neglect. The quiet cruelty. The way they always looked at me like I was something to be tolerated. The way Valen watched me when he thought I wasn't looking.
This wasn't a coincidence.
This was the design they wanted for me.
Valen's eyes drop to my neck.
To the mark.
He explodes.
"YOU LET HIM MARK YOU!" he roars, voice cracking with fury. "You fucking slut!"
Emma erupts inside me, screaming obscenities so vicious they make my vision blur.
Valen storms closer, eyes wild. "You spread your legs for that worthless piece of shit? That was mine. You were meant to be mine. Your virginity was supposed to be mine!"
I stagger back like he's struck me.
Seraphina wrinkles her nose. "Gods, why would you even want something so trashy?"
"Shut up," Valen snaps at her without looking. "She's always been mine."
I want to vomit.
Enoch moves.
He steps between us in a blink, shoulders squared, a snarl tearing from his chest. "Back away from her."
Valen lunges.
The impact is brutal—fists and claws and snarls, the two of them crashing into each other in a blur of motion. Enoch fights like a storm unleashed, every strike fueled by terror and rage and the desperate need to protect.
Seraphina moves fast.
Too fast.
She grabs Cam by the hair, yanking her upright as she comes to consciousness just long enough to realize what's happening—
—and then Seraphina smashes the butt of a blade into her skull.
Cam goes limp.
"CAM!" Enoch screams.
The sound is raw. Broken. It rips through the forest like a wound.
Valen lunges for me again.
I don't even have time to raise my hands—
—but Enoch is there.
He slams into Valen, throwing him back with a roar that shakes the trees. He raises his arm, claws extending, ready to finish it—
Pain explodes.
A wet, choking sound leaves Enoch's throat.
His body jerks.
I see it.
The silver-tipped dagger buried in his lower back.
Time stops.
Dirge stands behind him.
My heart shatters.
"No," I breathe. "No—no—"
"If something happens… If I don't," He gurgles. "Cam won't be alone. She is stronger than she knows."
"You will be fine, she will always have you. She will always be with you, because you are not dying tonight." I say, fearing the truth of my words.
Dirge's face is pale. His hands are shaking.
Alpha Jered laughs.
A rich, satisfied sound.
"Poetic, isn't it?" Jered says calmly. "The healer betraying the warrior."
He laughs harder, "his son in law at that."
Enoch stumbles.
He turns slowly, disbelief etched into every line of his face.
"Dirge…" he whispers.
Dirge's eyes fill with tears.
"I'm sorry," he chokes. "She killed her… she has to be stopped"
Enoch collapses to his knees.
The bond screams.
I feel it tear through the air like glass shattering.
Emma howls inside me, pure, animal agony.
I rush forward, catching Enoch as he falls, my hands slick with blood, my heart beating so hard it hurts.
"No," I whisper, over and over. "Stay with me. Please. Stay—"
Jered steps closer.
"End of the line, White Wolf."
The forest closes in.
And I know—
with terrifying certainty—
This was never about luring me out.
This was about destroying everything I love.