The basement interrogation room beneath Volkov Tower smelled of damp concrete, old blood, and the sharp metallic bite of silver.

Nikolai Volkov stood in the shadows, arms crossed over his broad chest, his ice-grey eyes glowing with restrained fury. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows across his sharp jawline and the tense lines of his powerful frame. He had come down here after another sleepless night, hoping violence would quiet the storm raging inside him.

It wasn’t working.

His wolf had been uncontrollable since the moment Elena signed the dissolution papers yesterday. The bond between them felt like an open wound — raw, throbbing, refusing to let him forget the pain in her hazel-green eyes as she had looked at him with quiet defiance.

“Talk,” Nikolai growled at the man chained to the metal chair in the center of the room.

The prisoner — a low-ranking Silverfang wolf named Darius — was barely conscious. His body was covered in silver burns and deep lacerations from the recent border skirmish. Blood dripped slowly onto the concrete floor, each drop echoing loudly in the sterile space. He was dying. They all knew it.

Marcus stood to Nikolai’s right, expression grim. “He’s one of the survivors from the ambush on the coastal road. We’ve been… persuading him to talk for hours.”

Darius coughed wetly, blood flecking his lips. His eyes fluttered open, landing on Nikolai with a mix of fear and something almost like pity.

“You… want the truth, Alpha?” he rasped, voice broken. “About that night?”

Nikolai stepped forward, his presence filling the room like a gathering storm. “If you have something useful, speak it. If not, I’ll end your suffering right now.”

The dying wolf let out a weak, bitter laugh that turned into a cough. “Your precious savior… the one you’ve been parading around. She wasn’t the only one there that night.”

Nikolai’s entire body went rigid. His wolf surged violently to the surface, claws extending slightly from his fingertips. “Explain.”

Darius’s breathing grew more labored. “We hit you hard. Silver claws. Bullets. You fought like a demon… killed most of us. But you were done. Collapsed on the road in the pouring rain. We thought you were finished.”

He paused, grimacing in pain. “Then she came.”

Nikolai’s heart slammed against his ribs. “Lana.”

Darius shook his head slowly. “Not the dark-haired one. A different woman. Elegant. Chestnut hair. She got out of a fancy car… ran straight into the rain like she didn’t care about the danger. Dropped to her knees beside you and started healing. Golden light. Powerful. I’ve never seen anything like it. She was crying… whispering to you while she worked. ‘Stay with me… my Alpha.’”

The words hit Nikolai like a silver bullet to the chest.

His wolf *howled*.

Memories he had buried beneath gratitude and denial slammed back into him with brutal clarity — soft glowing hands, a gentle voice cutting through agony, the overwhelming scent of vanilla and jasmine wrapping around his fading consciousness. The way those hands had felt against his torn flesh. The way his wolf had recognized her instantly.

*Elena.*

Darius continued, his voice growing weaker. “You were delirious… but you gave her something. A medallion. Glowed in her hands. You said ‘Mine’ like you meant it. Then the other woman showed up later… the dark-haired one. She waited until the healer left, then took the medallion from the car. I saw it.”

Nikolai’s breathing grew ragged. The room seemed to tilt. His wolf was thrashing wildly inside him, demanding he go to Elena right now. To beg. To claim. To fix what he had broken.

“No,” he snarled, stepping closer. “You’re lying. Trying to save yourself.”

Darius coughed up more blood, his eyes glazing over. “Why would I lie… when I’m already dead? The healer… she risked everything for you. Stayed until you were stable. The other one? She just stole the credit.”

The dying wolf’s head lolled forward. His breathing slowed to shallow rasps.

Nikolai stood frozen, the weight of the revelation crushing him.

*Elena.*

It had been Elena all along.

The golden hands in his dreams. The pull he couldn’t explain. The way his wolf went feral every time she was near. The tears in her eyes when she had told him the truth in the garden.

He had called her a liar.

He had humiliated her publicly.

He had threatened her family and forced her to sign away their bond.

All while honoring a thief.

A low, broken sound tore from Nikolai’s throat. He turned sharply and slammed his fist into the concrete wall. The impact cracked the surface, sending dust and small debris raining down. Blood smeared across the grey stone from his split knuckles, but he barely felt the pain.

His wolf was in agony — howling, snarling, tearing at his insides with fury and grief.

*Our mate. We hurt our mate.*

Marcus stepped forward cautiously. “Alpha…?”

“Get him medical attention,” Nikolai ordered hoarsely, voice wrecked. “I want him alive long enough to repeat this to the pack elders if needed.”

He stormed out of the basement, taking the stairs two at a time. His chest heaved as he emerged into the main floor of the tower. The bond — now fully awakened and impossible to ignore — pulsed with Elena’s lingering pain from yesterday. He could feel her even now. Quiet. Strong. Devastated.

And he had done that to her.

Nikolai braced one hand against the wall, head bowed, raven hair falling across his forehead. The Moonshadow Medallion burned like fire in his pocket. He pulled it out, staring at the ancient artifact glowing faintly in his palm.

It had recognized *her*.

Not Lana.

Everything was fracturing.

The carefully constructed walls of gratitude and distrust he had built around himself were crumbling. And beneath the rubble was a truth so devastating it threatened to bring the Alpha to his knees.

He had chosen the wrong woman.

And the right one — the one fate had delivered to him in the storm, the one whosehands had pulled him back from death — was slipping further away with every cruel word he had spoken.

Nikolai closed his fist around the medallion until the edges cut into his skin.

“Elena…” he whispered into the empty hallway, voice raw with the first cracks of true regret.

His wolf whispered a single, haunting truth:

*You have to fix this.*

*Before it’s too late.*