At midnight, the ghost of Black Hollow comes to claim its debt.

The lingering remnants of the broken contract ignite inside Anastasia's veins without warning.

Anastasia wakes with a scream trapped behind her teeth. 

It is a violent, thrashing backlash—she writhes across the heavy blankets, her spine arching as the phantom golden chains of her former pack tighten to crush her lungs.

Anastasia bites down hard on her lower lip to stop herself from making noise. Blood fills her mouth almost instantly. Good. Better that than screaming loud enough for the western wolves outside to hear.

Another wave hits. Her wolf writhes inside her—panicked, injured, trying instinctively to reconnect to something that no longer exists.

Kaelen.

The thought alone triggered fresh agony. No no no. Not after standing before the entire pack and tearing the bond apart like she meant nothing.

Pain slammed through her again.

This time Anastasia couldn't suppress the broken sound that escaped her throat.

The bedroom door opens quietly. Draven steps inside, crossing the room to where Anastasia lies half-conscious, her body trembling violently from the contractual torture.

Anastasia jerks violently upright. 

"Easy," Draven's voice cuts through the pain low and steady.

Anastasia's vision swims. Another pulse of backlash tears through her before she can speak.

He kneels beside the bed, uncapping a small silver vial of dark blue liquid—the bond stabilizer. With practiced, unhurried precision, he lifts her head just enough to press the glass against her split lips.

"Drink," he commands softly.

The potion tastes like mountain ice and mint. The moment it hits her throat, the white-hot pain beneath her ribs begins to recede into a dull, manageable ache.

Her vision blurs, the exhaustion of the backlash finally catching up to her. 

Draven steps back out into the hallway and closes the door behind him.

He does not return to his quarters. Instead, he takes up a position directly outside her threshold, leaning his broad shoulders against the wooden wall. The storm rages outside the cabin, but inside, the hallway is dead silent.

Draven stays there for an hour, keeping watch in the dark until the frantic, ragged rhythm of her breathing shifts into the slow, steady cadence of deep sleep.

----

By the time the morning sun bleeds a cold, watery gray through the frosted windows, the violent tremors have fully subsided.

Anastasia drags herself out of bed, her limbs heavy as lead. When she wipes her face, her fingers come away with the dark, dried bloodstains left over from her midnight torment. She looks bewildered, her silver-blue eyes hollowed out by sleeplessness as she surveys the pristine, quiet room.

She approaches the bedroom door and pulls it open.

Nobady's here, but a small, burning oil lamp.

Footsteps click precisely down the corridor.

An older maid approaches, carrying a tray of fresh linen. Her posture is immaculate, her silver-streaked hair pinned back with military precision.

This is Greda—Draven's most trusted household authority, a woman who executes the Wolf King's directives with the unyielding discipline of a general.

Anastasia steps into her path, her voice raw and cracked. "Who left this lamp here?"

Greda stops. She dips her head in a measured, perfectly composed bow, but her lips remain firmly sealed.

"I know you can hear me," Anastasia presses, her exhaustion making her sharp. "I'm Anastasia. Was someone here last night?"

Greda's eyes soften by a fraction of a millimeter as she takes in the dried blood on Anastasia's lips, but her expression remains an impenetrable mask.

----

Miles away, across the frozen border, the pine forest echoes with a different kind of silence.

Kaelen Varros drops to his knees in the deep drifts. His fingers, raw from the cold, claw through the packed ice until they find what his wolf has been tracking—the crushed, frozen remnants of medicinal herbs. The very moonroot Anastasia always kept in her satchel, now trampled and buried beneath a fresh layer of frost.

His heart stops. To a tracker, this sight carries only one brutal conclusion. A weak, rejected healer, bleeding and packless, losing her supplies in a blizzard of this magnitude, cannot survive.

Kaelen stares at the crushed green leaves staining the white snow. The realization hits him like a physical blow to the chest, shattering the fragile crown he has just inherited.

She's dead.

He doesn't fight his wolf this time. The beast explodes to the surface, and Kaelen tilts his head back toward the pale morning sky. A horrific, mournful howl tears from his throat, ripping through the quiet pine forest.

Deep within the western fortress, far from the sound of Kaelen's grief, Draven Thorne stands before a massive slate sand table. Blue candles burn low in the corners of the war room, casting a cool, dim light across his face. His eyes, usually a sharp silver-blue, turn a dangerous, luminous shade of white-blue beneath the shadows.

His large hands rest on the wooden frame of the table as he studies the troop movements.

"Double the perimeter along the western ridge," Draven commands quietly, his voice vibrating through the stone room. "If a single scout from Black Hollow breaches the valley, take their heads. Do not report it to me until it is done."

Rowan, standing at his flank, moves a black iron marker across the sand. "That puts three full battalions at her doorstep, Alpha. It's a royal deployment for a single safehouse."

"Then let it be a royal deployment," Draven replies coldly, his gaze never wavering from the map.

Back in the cabin hallway, Anastasia refuses to back down. She follows Greda down the stairs, her steps uneven but persistent.

"Greda, stop. If I am a guest, I have a right to know who is guarding me. If I am a prisoner, I have a right to know my sentence."

Greda reaches the bottom of the stairs and turns. No matter how persistent Anastasia's questioning, the experienced maid before her remains as still as a stone statue, not uttering a single word.