THESSALY POV
I woke up choking.
My throat was on fire. My lungs felt like someone had filled them with acid. I couldn't breathe, couldn't scream, couldn't—
"THESSALY!" Senna's voice, panicked and distant.
I rolled out of bed and hit the floor hard. My vision blurred. The room spun.
Poison. Someone poisoned me.
"MATES!" my wolf screamed inside my mind. "Call our mates! They'll help us!"
No. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. I wouldn't be weak and helpless and need THEM to save me—
My body convulsed. Pain ripped through my stomach like knives.
Fine. FINE.
I didn't know how to use the mate bond to call for help, but my wolf did. She threw her head back inside my mind and HOWLED.
The door exploded inward.
Caspian burst through first, followed immediately by Lucien, Dax, and Kieran. All four of them were shirtless, like they'd been sleeping—or trying to sleep—and felt my distress through the bond.
"Thessaly!" Caspian dropped to his knees beside me. "What happened? What's wrong?"
I tried to answer, but blood came out instead of words.
"HEALER!" Lucien roared. "GET THE HEALER NOW!"
Dax was already running. Kieran stood frozen, staring at me with horror on his face.
Caspian gathered me into his arms, cradling me against his bare chest. His skin was warm. Safe. My wolf purred even while my human body was dying.
"Stay with me," he whispered, his voice breaking. "Please, Thessaly. Don't leave. I just found you. You can hate me forever, but please don't die."
Senna rushed over, her face pale. "What happened? She was fine when we went to bed!"
"Poison," Kieran said flatly, his nose twitching as he scented the air. "Wolfsbane. In the room somewhere."
Lucien started tearing the Luna suite apart, searching. He knocked over the nightstand, ripped open drawers, threw pillows—
"Here!" He held up a vase of flowers. The moonflowers Caspian had brought me earlier. "The water. Someone put wolfsbane in the water."
My heart sank. Even dying, I felt the betrayal like a punch.
Caspian had poisoned me. His "apology" flowers were actually a murder attempt.
But Caspian looked just as shocked as everyone else. "I didn't— Thessaly, I swear on my life, I didn't put anything in that water. Just flowers. I would NEVER—"
"Someone tampered with them after you left," Kieran interrupted, still sniffing the air. "Recent scent. Female. Not Senna." His eyes went hard. "Rowena."
Of course. The Luna who'd spent seventeen years making my life hell wasn't about to stop just because I turned out to be royalty.
Dax crashed back through the door with an old woman I recognized as the pack healer. She took one look at me and started barking orders.
"Lay her down flat. Hold her still. This is going to hurt."
"What are you going to do?" Senna asked, her voice shaking.
"Purge the poison. It's the only way." The healer pulled out a wicked-looking syringe filled with glowing green liquid. "But wolfsbane is deadly to wolves. Even with treatment, she might not survive."
"She'll survive," Caspian said, his voice deadly calm. "Do whatever you need to do."
The healer jabbed the syringe into my chest.
I SCREAMED.
It felt like fire and ice and electricity all at once, racing through my veins, burning everything it touched. My back arched off the floor. Caspian and Lucien held me down while I thrashed and screamed and died and lived all at the same time.
Then I started vomiting.
Black, toxic sludge poured out of my mouth. The poison, being forced out of my system by the healer's magic.
It went on forever. Purging and screaming and pain that made me wish I actually WAS dead.
Finally, FINALLY, it stopped.
I collapsed against the floor, gasping. Everything hurt. But I was breathing. My vision cleared slowly.
The first thing I saw was Caspian's face hovering over mine, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"You're okay," he breathed. "Thank the Moon Goddess, you're okay."
I wanted to push him away. Wanted to tell him not to touch me. But I was too weak, and honestly? His arms around me felt good. Safe. Right.
My stupid wolf purred with satisfaction.
The healer stood, wiping her hands. "She'll live. But she needs rest. And someone needs to find whoever did this before they try again."
"Oh, we know who did it," Lucien said, his voice colder than I'd ever heard it. "And she's going to pay."
"Rowena's gone," Dax announced, appearing in the doorway again. "I just checked her rooms. Empty. She ran."
Alpha Thorne pushed into the room, his face gray with fury. "What happened?"
"Your MATE tried to murder mine," Caspian snarled. "Wolfsbane in the flowers I gave Thessaly. Rowena poisoned her."
The Alpha closed his eyes. For a moment, he looked a thousand years old.
"I'll find her," he said quietly. "And I'll deal with her personally."
"Good," I croaked, my voice raw from screaming. "Because if you don't, I will. And I won't be nice about it."
Senna squeezed my hand. "That's my girl."
The healer gave me something bitter to drink—medicine, she said—and told everyone to get out so I could rest.
The four mates looked like they'd rather cut off their own arms than leave me, but they obeyed.
Caspian was the last to go. He paused at the door, looking back at me with such raw pain in his eyes that my traitorous heart actually ached.
"I'm sorry," he said softly. "I wanted to give you something beautiful. Instead, I almost killed you."
"You didn't poison me," I said, too tired to be angry. "Rowena did."
"But she used MY gift as the weapon. If I hadn't brought those flowers—"
"Then she would've found another way." I pulled Senna's blanket tighter around me. "Just... go, Caspian. I'm tired."
He left, closing the door quietly behind him.
Senna helped me into bed—new sheets, new pillows, everything from the poisoned room thrown out. She curled up beside me like we used to do as kids when we were scared.
"You could've died," she whispered.
"But I didn't."
"Thessaly, this is serious. Someone in this pack wants you dead bad enough to use wolfsbane. That stuff is BANNED. Possessing it is a death sentence."
"I know."
"You can't stay here. It's not safe."
But where else could I go? I had no pack, no family, no home except Silvercrest. And my four mates were here, which meant my wolf would never let me leave even if I wanted to.
I was trapped.
"We'll figure it out tomorrow," I said, my eyes already closing. The medicine was pulling me under. "Right now, I just need to sleep."
Senna stroked my hair until I drifted off.
I dreamed of white wolves and moonlight and someone calling my name...
I woke up hours later to complete darkness.
Senna was gone. The bed beside me was cold.
"Senna?" I called out, my voice hoarse.
No answer.
I sat up slowly, my body still aching from the poison. The room was too quiet. Too empty.
Something was wrong.
I got out of bed and stumbled to the door. Locked. From the outside.
My heart started pounding.
"SENNA!" I screamed, pounding on the door. "SOMEONE! HELP!"
Nothing.
Then I smelled it. Smoke.
I ran to the window and looked out.
The entire west wing of the Alpha house was on FIRE. Massive flames climbing the walls, thick black smoke pouring into the sky.
And through the window across the courtyard, I saw her.
Rowena.
She stood in the moonlight, watching the fire with a smile on her face. In her hands, she held something that made my blood run cold.
Senna. Unconscious. With a knife to her throat.
Rowena looked up and met my eyes through the window.
Then she mouthed two words: "Come alone."
The window in my room SHATTERED. Not from the fire. From power.
Thaddeus climbed through, his silver eyes blazing.
"Time to choose, my queen," he said. "Come with me now and I'll save your friend. Or stay with your pathetic mates and watch everyone you love burn."