Chapter 5

Cold water hit my face like a slap.

I gasped, choking, and my head jerked forward on instinct—only to meet the bite of restraints. Leather around my wrists. Metal at my ankles. A strap across my chest.

A lab.

Dim and humming, lit by a single overhead bulb that turned everything the color of bruises. Glass vials lined a table. Silver instruments gleamed in trays like teeth.

My heart thudded once, hard.

Seraphina was bound to the chair beside mine, hair damp, cheeks streaked with tears, eyes wide in perfect terror.

Footsteps approached—steady, impatient.

The door swung open.

Kade walked in.

For a split second, Seraphina surged against her restraints, sobbing. “Kade—Kade, thank the Moon—”

He crossed the room to her first.

Of course he did.

But then his gaze cut to the shadows behind us, and I followed it.

Phil stepped into the light with a grin that didn’t belong on a wolf.

The pack’s “scientist”—the one who’d supplied Kade with weapons and tools to swallow the neighboring territory without open war.

People called him brilliant. People also whispered his name like a warning.

Kade’s voice was ice. “Let them go. I’ll pay you.”

Phil laughed. “Pay me?” He tilted his head. “Who wants money when they can have a miracle?”

Kade’s jaw clenched. “Name your price.”

Phil walked closer, boots scraping the concrete. “You named it yourself. The day you took my work and promised me a she-wolf to study.” His eyes flicked to me, gleaming. “You forgot. So I came to collect.”

“I’ll kill you,” Kade said.

Phil’s grin widened. “Maybe.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a syringe.

The liquid inside wasn’t clear.

It was dark, viscous—like ink that had learned to hunger.

“Silver-toxin,” he said softly, reverent. “A few drops. Five seconds. Even an Alpha’s heart stops.”

My stomach went cold.

Phil stepped behind our chairs, and the needle hovered—closer to Seraphina’s throat than mine.

Seraphina’s breath hitched, eyes rolling in panic.

Kade moved, fast—too fast for a human eye—but Phil only chuckled.

“Try,” Phil said. “See what happens first. Me… or her.”

Kade froze.

The room held its breath.

And then Kade looked at Seraphina’s tear-streaked face—at her trembling mouth, her wide, pleading eyes—and something in him broke the way it always did when she was the one bleeding.

“I choose Seraphina,” he snapped.

The words hit me like a clean blade.

Phil’s expression turned satisfied.

The next second, a boot slammed into my chair.

The restraints released with a sharp click, and I was shoved sideways—dragged, dumped, kicked through a metal door that opened into darkness.

I hit concrete hard enough to see stars.

The door slammed above me.

Bolts slid into place.

Seraphina’s sobs faded into distance.

So did Kade’s voice.

---

The basement smelled like rust and old fear.

Phil came down later with a clipboard and sterile gloves, like he was about to dissect an animal.

He didn’t bother speaking kindly. “Let’s see what you’re worth.”

Cold sensors pressed to my skin. Needles. Light in my eyes. Fingers at the back of my neck, probing the ruined gland.

I flinched when he touched the puncture.

Phil hummed. “Interesting.”

He hooked something onto my wrist—silver and sharp—and I felt the bond inside my chest twitch and sputter like a dying wire.

Phil watched the readings.

Then his brows rose.

He leaned closer, eyes gleaming with irritation and fascination. “Your wolf-soul is gone.”

The words were flat, clinical.

“And the connection’s collapsing on its own.”

He stared at me like I’d betrayed him by being broken already.

“You’re useless,” he said finally, voice turning ugly.

The first blow landed without warning.

Then another.

Pain bloomed across my ribs, my jaw, my shoulder. My knee screamed. I tasted blood and iron and humiliation.

One punch after another, mixed with endless insults.

Finally, after he roared out, "This disgusting and rotten world - ", the heavy instrument all fell down together.

Then, my right leg lost its sensation.

But the beating did not stop.

Phil stopped when he got bored.

He dragged me upstairs by my hair, shoved me into the night, and dumped me at the edge of the pack’s territory like trash.

“Go,” he spat. “Crawl back to your Alpha.”

I did crawl.

I climbed back in. For the final release.

I had thought I would die somewhere, but in the end, I stood there, dragging my crippled legs, and returned to the old house.

Then, Kade rushed out. The car had already been parked at the entrance.

But when he took one look at my bruised face and bloodied clothessaw me.He frowned—annoyed, not afraid.

“Why didn’t you answer my call?” he demanded,“I was calling you through the link.”

I stared at him.

He continued, already turning away from me. “Seraphina’s running a fever. The ice water shocked her system.” His tone softened for the first time—just for her. “I’m going to her. Rest.”

He walked past me like I was a piece of furniture knocked out of place.

I’d been gone “just” a day.

So he thought I’d come back intact enough to be scolded.

I didn’t correct him.

There was nothing left to explain.

Because while he was talking, I realized it: the last echo of the mark had finally gone still.

No pull. No hum. No heat.

Zero.

When his footsteps disappeared down the hall, I turned and left again.

The punishment hall awaited like a final mouth.

The elder handed me a small vial of black liquid.

“No wolf,” he said. “No bond. No return.”

I lifted it.

Drank.

The bitterness burned all the way down, and something in me shut like a door.

I walked out of the territory at sunrise.

And from that moment on—

I no longer needed to look back.