(Maddox's POV)
The scent wouldn't leave him.
Night jasmine — soft, haunting, almost hypnotic — lingered in his mind like a question he didn't want to ask. It wasn't just perfume. It wasn't synthetic. It was real. Female. Wolf.
But he couldn't place it.
That fact unsettled Maddox Vale more than anything else that night.
He stood alone in the upper vault chamber, the reinforced door sealed behind him. Beyond it, the most guarded secrets of House Vale waited — relics, contracts, blood-bound items, even cursed totems from the War of Silvers.
Yet all he could think about was her.
The woman in the mask. The one who moved like a whisper and burned like a wildfire. Selene Noir.
She had looked at him with familiarity — no, something deeper.
Like she already knew what sins lived inside his chest.
He stared at the security monitor one more time. The static had cleared. Cameras were restored. His Beta had swept the entire penthouse. Nothing.
But the air still remembered her.
And so did he.
Rhys's voice buzzed through his comms. "System's clear. The anomaly lasted seventy-two seconds."
Maddox tilted his head. "What about her file?"
"Still nothing. Whoever she is, she has no digital footprint before last year. Not in Velmora. Not in any territory on record."
"That's not possible," Maddox growled.
"No birth license, no business record, no familial tie. Selene Noir is a ghost."
He turned toward the massive window behind his desk. The night beyond stretched black and wide, stars dulled by the city's glow.
She was out there.
And she wasn't just a ghost.
She was deliberate.
And dangerous.
His wolf stirred under his skin — restless.
"Find her," he ordered. "Every camera. Every angle. I want to know everything she touched. Every word she spoke. Track who she talked to."
"You think she planted something?"
Maddox's voice was ice. "I think she came here for me."
Downstairs, the ballroom had thinned out. The gala was ending. Cars lined up outside, the rich and wicked boarding them like emperors returning to their private kingdoms.
Maddox moved through the dispersing crowd like a shadow — nodding to donors, letting cameras catch his profile, pretending everything was under control.
But something inside him cracked.
A feeling he hadn't tasted in years.
Not since her.
Not since Magdalene.
She had been fire and spirit and stubborn loyalty.
Until he destroyed her.
Until she betrayed him.
Or so he had believed.
But now...
His steps faltered for the briefest second.
That scent.
Again.
Night jasmine. And beneath it... wolf ash. Memory. Moonlight.
He closed his eyes for a heartbeat.
It couldn't be.
In the lower surveillance wing, Rhys was scrubbing footage. The moment the static hit, all cameras had gone dark. But just before — a flicker. A frame.
A woman. Black dress. Mask. No ID tag.
Rhys paused the footage and zoomed in.
Eyes — storm gray.
Not contacts. Real. Unmistakable.
He tapped a key and split the screen beside it.
Pulled a buried photo. Eight years old.
Magdalene Rivers.
The resemblance was uncanny. Too uncanny.
But Magdalene was dead.
Wasn't she?
Maddox returned to his private suite, the gala long behind him. He unbuttoned his shirt slowly, each movement deliberate, like peeling away armor after war.
He stood before the mirror. Not as a billionaire. Not as an Alpha.
But as a man hunted by his own past.
He hadn't spoken her name in eight years.
Not once.
Not since the war.
Not since the betrayal.
He poured a glass of whiskey and stared into the darkness.
Selene Noir was a ghost.
But Magdalene Rivers had died screaming beneath the ashes of the Western Forest. He remembered the fire. The screams. The smoke. He remembered holding her body—
No.
No. He never found her body.
Only bones. Scorched beyond recognition.
He had assumed.
His grip tightened around the glass.
If it was her—
If it was Magdalene—
Then everything he had built rested on a lie.
And that lie was coming for him.
Meanwhile, across the city in a penthouse lit only by candlelight, Selene unzipped the back of her dress and let it fall in silence.
She stood at the center of her sanctuary — a hidden rooftop suite filled with antique maps, encrypted servers, and ancient tomes bound in wolfskin leather.
A shrine to a war no one else remembered.
She poured wine into a glass and tapped the side of a gilded frame.
Inside was a picture. Old. Torn. Burned along the edges.
A girl with wild dark hair and stormy eyes.
A boy beside her — intense, untouchable. Maddox Vale before the crown.
Before the betrayal.
She touched the glass.
"I wanted to save you," she whispered.
"But now…"
She turned to the table where a blueprint of Vale Tower was spread out — each floor marked, each blind spot notated.
Phase two awaited.
She pressed a finger against the lower vault.
Beneath it, sealed behind silver and blood-iron, was the Rivers inheritance. Land deeds. Wills. The ancient Alpha treaty once signed by both their fathers.
Maddox had buried it all.
Now she would dig it back up.
She opened her laptop.
Footage from the gala flickered onscreen.
Zoomed in on him.
The way his eyes had narrowed.
The way his body had recognized her even when his mind couldn't.
"He still feels me," she murmured.
And that was the key.
The mate bond hadn't died.
It had simply gone dormant.
Until tonight.
She closed the laptop.
And slid her silver dagger back into its sheath.
Phase two: Remember Me.
Back in the Vale Tower, Maddox tossed another file across his desk, frustration blooming in his chest like wildfire.
"Nothing," he muttered. "Not a single damn trace."
Rhys entered without knocking. "We may have a problem."
He handed Maddox a printed still from the footage.
She was barely visible — just her eyes.
But Maddox froze.
Gray.
Familiar.
Unmistakable.
His hand tightened around the paper.
"This isn't possible."
"She'd be twenty-five now. Right age. Right build."
"She's dead, Rhys. I buried her."
"Did you?"
The question hung like a blade between them.
Maddox's voice dropped. "You think she came back… to destroy me?"
"I think she never left. She's just been waiting."
A silence stretched.
Then Maddox stood.
Slow. Dangerous.
"If she's Magdalene… she knows every weakness I have."
Rhys nodded. "Which makes her more lethal than any wolf we've faced."
Maddox walked to the window, staring down at the city he ruled.
"You said she didn't exist before last year?"
Rhys confirmed. "Selene Noir is a manufactured identity. Bank accounts, false passport, ghost servers."
Maddox's heart thudded.
A plan that complex could only mean one thing:
She'd been planning this for years.
Rhys's phone buzzed.
He answered.
"What?"
A voice crackled through the other end. Panicked. "There's been a break-in."
"Where?"
"The vault. Basement level."
Rhys turned to Maddox.
"It's happening."
Maddox's eyes blazed gold.
"She's already inside."