Chapter 2

The servant's passage smelled like damp stone and forgotten things. It spiraled downward in a tight corkscrew, the steps worn smooth by generations of omegas who had used it to carry food and firewood to the lower levels without being seen by the Alpha's household.

I moved fast, one hand trailing the wall, the other clutching Mara's key. My wolf senses cut through the darkness — I could hear the drip of water, the distant clang of the furnace, and somewhere below, so faint it nearly killed me, the thin cry of a baby.

Kai.

I'd named him in secret, in the small room where I'd given birth with only Mara and the pack's retired healer present. Kai — it meant "keeper of the earth" in the old wolf tongue. A name for someone who would hold the ground when everything else fell apart.

The passage emptied into a narrow corridor that ran parallel to the dungeon cells. Through the gaps in the stone, I could see the flicker of torchlight. One guard, sitting on a wooden stool, scrolling through his phone. One of Vivienne's handpicked betas — young, sharp-jawed, wearing the new crimson armband that marked Vivienne's personal detail.

He hadn't been part of this pack six months ago. None of Vivienne's guards had. They'd arrived with her like a private army, and Alaric had simply… let them stay.

I pressed myself against the wall and waited. My wolf calculated the distance, the angle, the risk. I was a Luna — my wolf was stronger than most females in the pack, stronger than some males. But I was also sleep-deprived, malnourished from the stress of hiding a pregnancy, and running on nothing but fury.

Enough fury to level this whole dungeon.

The guard stood up, stretched, and walked toward the far end of the corridor — probably to relieve himself. The moment his footsteps faded, I slipped the key into the servant's door, pushed it open, and stepped into the dungeon.

The cells down here hadn't been used in years. Alaric's father had kept prisoners of war in them during the border conflicts, but Alaric had sealed the level after taking the Alpha title. The air was frigid, smelling of iron and neglect.

And there, in the last cell, on a pile of threadbare blankets that someone — Mara, I was sure — had smuggled down, was Kai.

My son.

He was awake, his tiny fists clenched, his grey eyes wide and searching. When he saw me, his face crumpled into the expression that all babies make when they finally see the person they've been crying for — half relief, half accusation.

Where were you?

"I'm here," I breathed, fumbling with the cell lock. The key didn't fit — this lock was different, newer, shinier. Vivienne had changed it.

Panic flared white-hot. I yanked at the bars. They didn't budge.

Kai started to cry — a real cry, the kind that echoed.

"Shh, baby, please—" I reached through the bars and touched his cheek. He was cold. His little body was cold. In a dungeon cell, in the middle of winter, my eight-week-old baby was lying on a stone floor with nothing but thin blankets.

Something inside me cracked.

Not broke — cracked. The way the earth cracks before a volcano.

I gripped the bars and pulled. My wolf surged forward, pouring strength into my muscles. The metal groaned. I pulled harder, a scream building in my chest. The bar on the right bent — just enough to create a gap.

I squeezed through, scraping skin off my shoulder, and gathered Kai into my arms. He was so light. Too light. Had they even been feeding him?

I tucked him inside my coat, against my chest, and felt his tiny body shudder with a sob before he burrowed into my warmth and went still.

"I've got you," I whispered into his dark hair. "I've got you and I'm never letting go."

The guard's footsteps were returning.

I moved.

Back through the gap, back through the servant's door, back up the spiraling passage. Kai was silent now — some primal infant instinct telling him to be quiet while his mother ran.

I emerged on the ground floor near the kitchens. The packhouse was dark and silent; it was past two in the morning. Through the window, I could see the moon — waning, but still bright enough to silver the snow outside.

Take what you can carry and leave pack territory.

Fine. I was leaving.

But not before I made one stop.

The Alpha's study was on the second floor. I found out the code to the door — 0917, the date of our mating ceremony. The date Alaric had looked into my eyes under the full moon and sworn, before the Goddess and the entire pack, that I was his forever.

Forever lasted seven years.

The door clicked open. I slipped inside.

The study was exactly as I remembered — oak desk, maps on the walls, the faint scent of Alaric's cologne. For a moment, my wolf ached. This room smelled like safety. Like home.

I crushed the feeling.

I went straight to the hidden panel behind the bookshelf. Alaric didn't know I knew about it — I'd discovered it three years ago while cleaning, but I'd never opened it, because I trusted him.

I didn't trust him anymore.

The panel slid open, revealing a small safe. I entered the code — the same one, because Alaric was arrogant enough to use one code for everything — and the safe clicked open.

Inside: documents. Stacks of them. Pack alliances, financial records, land treaties. And at the very bottom, a folder stamped with a red seal I didn't recognize.

I pulled it out and opened it.

My blood went cold.

It was a contract. Between Alaric and the Nightshade Pack — the most feared pack on the continent, led by Alpha Rhett Voss, a man known as the Butcher of the Eastern Territories.

The contract was a trade agreement. Weapons, territory, safe passage through Silver Fang land.

And the price?

Me.

The contract stated, in cold legal language, that upon dissolution of his mating bond, Alaric would deliver his former Luna to the Nightshade Pack as a "diplomatic gift" to ensure the alliance.

Dated six months ago.

Before Vivienne arrived. Before the accusations of barrenness. Before any of it.

Alaric hadn't fallen for Vivienne and decided to replace me.

He had sold me to Rhett Voss first, and then manufactured a reason to get rid of me.

Everything — the lies about my infertility, the arrival of Vivienne, the baby being dragged to the dungeon — it was all staged. All of it, so he could hand me over to a monster and call it politics.

Kai whimpered against my chest.

I folded the contract and tucked it into my coat.

Then I walked out of the packhouse, into the snow, and didn't look back.