The echo of the iron doors closing behind Eva had barely faded from the stone rafter beams.

Three hours.

Within mere hours of Eva's departure, the structural peace of the Blackwood fortress shattered completely.

A frantic, echoing alarm bell began to ring from the northern watchtower.

CLANG.

CLANG.

CLANG.

The heavy brass strokes cut through the low, tense murmurs lingering in the Grand Hall.

The main heavy wooden doors burst open for the second time that night.

A young vanguard scout stumbled into the aisle, his leather uniform completely soaked, his chest heaving as he dropped to one knee before the dais.

"Alpha!" the scout gasped, his fingers digging into the slush on the floorboards. "The... the lower courtyard! The sacred water well!"

Killian Vance didn't look up from the fractured granite of his altar.

His thick fingers were still embedded in the stone cracks he had carved with his own bare nails.

"Speak," Killian commanded, his voice a low, mechanical frequency that made the nearby torches flicker.

"The water," the scout stuttered, a thick bead of cold sweat rolling down his jawline. "The main supply well is found contaminated with lethal silver-poison."

"Two tracking hounds drank from the lower trough."

"They... they liquefied from the inside out within forty seconds, sir."

The entire room went rigid.

A thick, suffocating silence dropped over the senior council elders.

Silver-poison.

The absolute corporate execution fluid of the supernatural world, a substance that systematically shuts down a werewolf’s cellular core.

"It’s her," Tanya Bennett’s voice sliced through the silence, loud and sharp.

She stepped down from the second tier of the platform, her ruined white silk dress rustling against the wet stone steps.

She held her chin high, her eyes widening with a calculated, theatrical horror.

"The rogue," Tanya yelled, turning her body toward the crowded rows of elite warriors. "The traitor’s daughter did this before she ran!"

"She poisoned our life source!"

Tanya reached inside the heavy wool folds of her winter cloak.

With a dramatic, sweeping motion of her arm, she threw a heavy object down onto the center of the muddy aisle floor.

CLATTER.

A short, double-edged iron dagger slid across the stone, stopping right in the center of a melting grey snowdrift.

The handle was wrapped in cheap, frayed hemp twine.

The exact design used by the lowest-tier kitchen servants.

"I found it lying right on the stone lip of the well casing," Tanya lied, her voice dropping into a breathless, trembling register.

"It's Eva’s dagger."

"The orphan stole it from the vanguard armory last week."

"She left her signature at the crime scene because she wanted us to know she was destroying us."

Eva’s stolen dagger lay perfectly in the center of the light.

The iron blade was coated in a strange, thick, milky-white residue that hissed faintly against the melting slush.

The furious pack elders surged out of their silver-trimmed chairs, their heavy leather combat boots pounding against the wooden tiers.

"High treason!" the oldest council member roared, his fist slamming directly onto the pommel of his broadsword.

"She tried to execute the entire bloodline in their sleep!"

"The runaway rogue's immediate execution for high treason is the only legal option!"

"No trials!" another elder barked, his fangs extending over his lower lip. "We hunt her down and bring her head back on an iron spike before sunrise!"

Killian Vance slowly lifted his head from the stone altar.

His 195cm frame straightened up, rising over the chaotic room like a dark mountain peak.

His dark gold hair was plastered against his forehead by the residual humidity of the hall.

Blinded by rage.

A violent, unadulterated storm of fury erupted behind his irises, wiping away the lingering traces of his earlier shock.

Feelings of betrayal, sharp and toxic, ripped through his chest-core.

He had thrown her out.

He had rejected the supernatural bond.

But his internal logic had still assumed she was just a powerless, broken Omega tool.

Now, looking at the milk-white residue on the weapon, his entire reality fractured further.

"Bring the blade to me," Killian whispered.

His voice didn't carry across the room—it didn't have to. The sheer dominant frequency of his words made every warrior close their mouth instantly.

A senior vanguard commander stepped forward, using a leather cloth to lift the short iron dagger from the slush.

He walked up the steps of the dais, holding the weapon out with a trembling forearm.

Killian didn't take the handle.

He leaned his face down, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled the chemical steam rising from the white residue on the iron edge.

His golden eyes snapped shut instantly.

The scent wasn't just raw silver.

It carried a sweet, metallic undertone that smelled of rotted roses and ancient, dried arterial blood.

The silver-poison is actually an ancient vampire mix.

A specific, high-tier chemical compound used exclusively by the leadership of the eastern coven during the border wars of the previous century.

The very mix that had killed his father.

The realization hit Killian’s central nervous system like an electrical shock.

She didn't just stumble into a mistake.

She was working with them.

She was the weapon his enemies had planted in his kitchen five years ago, waiting for the exact moment of his coronation to strike the fatal blow.

"Alpha?" the Chief Beta called out from the base of the platform. "The warriors are armed. The tracking hounds are at the gate."

"Give the execution order, sir."

Killian’s system flooded with a massive wave of adrenaline.

The physical pain of the rejected mate bond—the deep, rhythmic phantom stabbing inside his ribs—was entirely swallowed by the raw heat of his fury.

Thorin, his inner wolf, went completely feral inside his mind.

He wasn't whining for a mate anymore.

He was clawing for blood.

"She doesn't make it to the border," Killian growled, his lips pulling back completely to reveal his elongated white fangs.

A sudden, violent golden light exploded from his skin.

It wasn't the soft, cosmic glow of the Moon Goddess's bond.

It was the harsh, blinding radiation of a dominant predator preparing for a slaughter.

His broad shoulders expanded outwards, his black tactical shirt ripping down the center seams as his muscles mass shifted.

His spine elongated with a series of loud, wet pops.

With a deafening, localized roar that shattered the remaining glass goblets on the side tables, Killian shifted.

His human form vanished into a massive golden wolf.

The great beast stood over six feet tall at the shoulder, its thick, gold-furred chest rising and falling in violent, erratic movements.

Its massive front paws dug four inches deep into the structural wood of the dais, sending a spray of oak splinters across the elders' steps.

Its dark gold eyes burned through the thick torch mist.

Locked onto the front exit.

The giant golden wolf let out a short, terrifying bark that signaled the start of the vanguard hunt.

He leaped from the top tier of the platform, his massive frame clearing fifteen feet of open space to land heavily in the center aisle.

He didn't wait for the guards to open the doors.

The golden wolf slammed his shoulder directly into the heavy, iron-studded oak gates, breaking the brass locking bolts with sheer kinetic force.

The doors flew open into the dark.

Killian lunged forward into the blinding sheet of grey rain, his massive paws tearing through the deep snow drifts as he caught her scent on the wind.

Ozone.

Winter rain.

And the fresh, metallic tang of traitor’s blood.