The first thing I felt wasn't the heat of the fire, but a refined, biting chill. It smelled of ancient stone, sea salt, and a power so heavy it felt like it was pressing the air out of my lungs.
My eyes snapped open. I wasn't on four paws anymore. I was curled on a plush, charcoal-grey rug in a room that felt like the inside of a mountain. My skin prickled as the reality hit me: I was human. And I was completely, utterly naked.
Panic surged through me—the frantic, desperate reflex of a girl who had been a pack's punching bag for eighteen years. I scrambled backward, my spine hitting the cold mahogany legs of a heavy desk. My memories were a jagged blur: the blinding white fur, a rejection that still felt like a physical amputation, and the piercing, lethal silver eyes of the Shadow Alpha.
"You're awake."
The voice was like velvet dragged over gravel. I looked up, clutching my knees to my chest, trying to hide the parts of me that felt too exposed.
Silas was sitting in a high-backed leather chair by the window, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. He wasn't looking at me; his gaze was fixed on the snow swirling outside. He had traded his overcoat for a black silk shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms covered in intricate, swirling black tattoos that seemed to pulse under his skin like living shadows.
"Where am I?" My voice was a raspy, pathetic thing, unused to human speech after the primal roar of the night before.
"The Nightshade Citadel," Silas replied, finally turning his head. His eyes lacked the warmth of a typical wolf's, yet they didn't hold the mindless cruelty I had grown accustomed to in Killian's gaze. "My private study. You collapsed the moment we crossed the threshold. A first shift is always messy, but a White Wolf's shift... it takes a pound of flesh."
He stood up, and instinctively, I flinched. I saw his jaw tighten—a micro-expression of irritation or perhaps something darker—at the reflex of a girl who expected a blow. He walked to a nearby sofa, picked up a thick, oversized cashmere robe, and tossed it toward me.
"Cover yourself. I have no interest in a shivering stray."
I scrambled to pull the robe on. It was heavy, smelling intensely of him—ozone, sandalwood, and a hint of old parchment. It swallowed me whole, the sleeves falling past my fingertips.
"How do you know my name?" I demanded, my courage returning as the warmth hit my skin. "I'm an Omega from a border pack. A nobody. Why am I in your study instead of a cage?"
Silas walked toward me, his footsteps making no sound on the stone floor. He stopped just inches away, far too close for a stranger, but I refused to back down this time. He was a mountain of dark energy, and standing near him made the air in the room feel thin, like we were standing on the peak of the world.
"You think you're a nobody because Killian Blackwood told you so," Silas said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous frequency. "Killian is a boy who measures power by the volume of a bark. But the Nightshade Pack deals in the things that go bump in the night, Seraphina. We hear the secrets the South tries to bury."
He reached out. I didn't pull away, even as his hand hovered near my face. His thumb brushed the underside of my jaw, and that same jolt of electricity—the Lunar Spark—snapped between us. It wasn't the fated mate bond; that had been ripped out of me, leaving a hollow, aching hole. This was something older. Something that felt like a match being struck in a room full of gasoline.
"I know your name because the legend of the White Wolf didn't start with you," he continued, his silver eyes boring into mine. "It started with a bloodline that the Silver Moon Pack tried to exterminate twenty years ago. They didn't 'adopt' your family after that rogue attack, Sera. They imprisoned you. They were waiting for you to shift so they could collar you like a weapon."
My heart skipped a beat. Every memory of my father's "accident" and the elders' narrowed eyes suddenly clicked into a sickening, logical pattern.
"Why tell me this now?" I whispered.
"Because Killian is already at my borders," Silas stated, his expression going cold. "He realized his mistake the moment he felt your power flare. He's claiming you stole from the pack treasury to justify a hunt. He's demanding your return for trial—which is just a polite word for an execution."
A bitter, jagged laugh escaped my throat. "Of course. He can't let me go. Even when he hates me, he has to own me."
"He can't touch you here," Silas said, his eyes flashing with a sudden, predatory hunger. "But the Nightshade Pack doesn't give out charity. I told you in the woods—I want a queen. I need someone whose light can balance my shadow, someone who can walk through the fire without turning to ash."
He stepped back, finally giving me room to breathe. "I will give you sanctuary. I will give you the trainers to turn that wolf into a god. And in return, when the time comes, you will stand at my side as we tear down the Council that allowed your family to be hunted like vermin."
I looked down at the robe I was wearing—his robe. I thought of Killian's sneer and the way the bond had snapped like a cheap toy.
"What if I just want to run?" I asked quietly.
Silas walked back to the window, his silhouette framed by the rising, blood-red sun. "You can run, Seraphina. But a White Wolf can never hide. You can either be a ghost in the woods or the storm that breaks the world. Choose."
I looked at my hands. They were trembling, but not from the cold. The heat was rising in my blood again—the Lunar Spark reaching out for the man standing by the window.
"When do we start?" I asked.
Silas didn't smile, but the shadows in the room seemed to pulse with a dark, satisfied approval. "Now. Dress. You'll start in the kitchens as a common servant—to keep the spies off your scent. But at night... at night, we see what a goddess can really do."