He drilled a hole straight through my palm.
He gave Joyce the precious healing serum for a tiny scratch, while leaving me with permanent nerve damage, claiming my pain was the only way to pay his life debt to her.
He calls this justice. He calls me the villain.
But he is a blind, arrogant fool.
He doesn't know that fifteen years ago, it was me who crawled into that burning car. It was my White Wolf blood that healed him. Joyce just stole the credit when I passed out.
Looking at the smoking hole in my hand, the last ember of love finally died.
I opened my secure server and messaged his sworn enemy, Alpha Dalton.
"I have the fortress blueprints. The price is extraction."
Tonight, his submissive wife dies, and the Architect goes rogue.
Chapter 1
Alana POV:
The sound of bone surrendering to force was louder than I expected. It cracked through the silence of the master bathroom like a gunshot-a wet, sickening snap.
I fell to my knees, clutching my left hand. The pain was blinding, a white-hot spike driving straight into my nervous system. It wasn't just physical; it was the crushing weight of his Alpha aura, a gravitational force designed to make every instinct in my body scream submit.
"You didn't answer her call, Alana," Austen said.
His voice was flat, clinical. He stood over me, adjusting his cufflinks, looking at me not as his wife, but as an inconvenience on his schedule.
"I... I was in the shower," I gasped, sweat stinging my eyes as my body tried to knit the shattered metacarpals back together. But I was weak. My healing was sluggish, suppressed by years of stress.
"Joyce needed her medication. Because you were 'in the shower,' she had a panic attack. She could have died."
He stepped over me and walked out. He didn't look back.
I curled into a ball on the cold floor. My phone buzzed. Joyce.
It was a selfie. She was holding a glass of champagne, and on her finger sat a ring made of moonstone-a relic supposed to amplify healing. The Blood Moon Pack heirloom. My birthright.
Look at how it glows, Alana, the text read. My skin feels so soft. Does your hand hurt? Don't worry, Austen is coming to comfort me now.
A sob caught in my throat. I wanted to scream, but the air around me suddenly grew heavy again. Austen's voice sliced through my mind, an intrusive, icy broadcast.
Clean yourself up. You smell like distress. It upsets Joyce.
The Mind-Link. For most, a tool for love. For me, a leash.
I dragged myself up. The pain in my hand throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I needed to know why. Why did he hate me so much? I had done everything. I had hidden my true nature, my White Wolf lineage, just to be the obedient Omega he wanted.
I slipped out of the bathroom. The house was quiet. Austen had left for the guest wing.
I moved like a ghost toward his study. I knew about the audio logs. Austen was a tech mogul; he recorded everything, a habit born of paranoia. I sat at his desk, bypassing his biometric encryption with a few keystrokes from my good hand. I designed these firewalls. Breaking them was like opening a door I'd locked myself.
I found the file dated today. Play.
Austen's voice filled the room, sounding weary. "I broke her hand today. The ninety-sixth punishment."
Pause.
"It makes me sick," the recording continued. "Every time I hurt her, my wolf howls. He scratches at the back of my mind, calling her Mate. But I have to suppress him. I owe Joyce a life debt. She pulled me from the burning wreckage when the Rogues attacked fifteen years ago. She lost her ability to shift because she burned her core to save me."
I froze.
"Alana is the price I pay," Austen's voice said. "Her pain pays my debt to Joyce. Justice is more important than the Moon Goddess's pairing."
The recording ended.
Justice? He called this justice?
Fifteen years ago. The Rogue attack on the highway.
Memory hit me like a physical blow. I was seven. The burning car. The boy with dark hair, chest crushed. The smell of gasoline and copper.
I didn't run. I crawled into the wreckage. I placed my small hands on his chest. I felt the strange, silver fire of my White Wolf blood-a lineage hunted to near extinction-pour out of me. I pushed every ounce of my life force into him until the darkness took me.
When I woke up in the hospital, my parents swore me to secrecy. They will hunt you, they said.
Joyce hadn't saved him. Joyce had found us after I passed out. She had stolen my miracle.
"You fool," I whispered. "You blind, arrogant idiot."
A sharp pain twisted in my gut. Rejection. My inner wolf, usually dormant, lifted her head. She was a creature of snow and starlight, and she was weeping.
He punishes us for saving him, she whimpered.
I couldn't stay. If I stayed, he would kill me, piece by piece, believing he was righteous.
I opened a secure browser.
To: Alpha Dalton, Silver Creek Pack.
From: The Architect.
Subject: The Fortress Blueprints.
I have the designs for the anti-Rogue bastions you wanted. The price is extraction.
Dalton was Austen's sworn enemy. Ruthless, but fair.
Send.
I looked down at my hand. Swollen. Purple. The pain brought clarity. Austen didn't just break my bones; he broke the illusion.
I wasn't his wife. I was his scapegoat.
The scapegoat was going rogue.