REJECTED BY ONE ALPHA, CLAIMED BY HIS DEADLIEST RIVAL

SMOKE AND SILENCE

Smoke poured from beneath the healer's door before they even reached it.

Lucien hit the door with his shoulder, splintering the frame on impact. Ariana followed him inside, coughing against the haze, eyes stinging as she scanned the room through the gray fog.

"Where is he," Lucien barked.

The healer, an older woman with singed sleeves and wide, panicked eyes, pointed toward an overturned cot. "Gone, Alpha. Someone came in through the window while I was mixing a poultice. I never even heard them."

"The prisoner. Is he alive?"

"I don't know." Her voice cracked. "One second he was breathing, the next there was smoke everywhere and he was simply gone."

Ariana's stomach twisted as she pushed further into the room, waving smoke away from her face. A window at the back stood shattered, glass scattered across the floor, curtains still smoldering at the edges.

"They took him," she said. "Or killed him and took the body."

"Either way," Lucien said grimly, "someone didn't want him talking."

Grier burst through the doorway seconds later, sword already drawn, eyes sweeping the wreckage.

"Alpha. What happened."

"The prisoner's gone. Someone breached the window while the healer was working." Lucien's jaw was tight, fury barely leashed beneath the surface. "Get warriors on every exit. Now."

"On it."

Ariana knelt beside the shattered window, studying the frame. "This wasn't forced from outside."

Lucien crouched beside her. "What makes you say that."

"Look." She pointed at the glass, scattered mostly inward, but a few shards catching torchlight near the outer sill, angled wrong. "If someone broke in from outside, most of this would be inside the room. Some of it's outside too."

"Meaning."

"Meaning maybe they broke it from inside first, to make it look like an outside attack."

Lucien's expression darkened further. "Someone in this room helped them."

"Or the healer herself."

"No." Lucien's voice was firm, immediate. "Not her. She's served this pack for twenty years."

"Then who else had access to this room tonight."

Grier reappeared in the doorway, breathless. "Alpha, we searched the immediate area. No sign of the prisoner, dead or alive. Whoever took him moved fast."

"Fast enough to slip past warriors stationed less than fifty feet away," Lucien said. "Which means they knew exactly when the watch would be thinnest."

Ariana's chest tightened. "The same person who tipped off the assassins about the wards."

"Has to be."

Mira arrived moments later, taking in the scene with a sharp, assessing glance. "This is getting worse by the hour."

"We need a list," Lucien said. "Every single person who knew the prisoner was being held here. Names, times, everything."

"That's the council, most of the senior warriors, myself, Grier—"

"I know." His voice was tight. "I need it anyway."

Ariana stood slowly, smoke still stinging her eyes, watching Lucien's controlled fury simmer just beneath the surface. This wasn't the calm, measured Alpha she'd met in the woods hours earlier. This was something rawer, more desperate.

"You're scared," she said quietly, once Mira and Grier had moved off to organize the search.

"I'm not scared."

"You are. Not of the traitor. Of what happens if you can't find them before they find me."

Lucien didn't deny it this time.

"I promised you'd be safe here," he said, voice low. "And within one night, someone's already breached my walls twice. That's not a promise I'm keeping very well."

"You saved my life last night. Twice, if you count tonight." She stepped closer, close enough to see the exhaustion carved into his features. "I don't blame you for what's happening. But I need you to trust me enough to actually let me help find whoever's doing this, instead of locking me away every time danger gets close."

"Locking you away keeps you alive."

"Locking me away also means I never learn to protect myself. And if this Moonblood bloodline is even half as significant as everyone seems to think, I'm going to need to."

Lucien studied her for a long moment, something conflicted moving behind his eyes.

"After tonight," he finally said, "I'll start training you properly. Not just sparring drills. Everything."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. It'll be miserable."

A faint, exhausted smile crossed her face despite everything. "I've survived worse in the last twenty four hours."

Before he could respond, one of the warriors from the search party came sprinting back into the room, face pale, breathless.

"Alpha. We found something near the eastern wall. You need to come see it yourself."

"What is it."

The warrior hesitated, glancing at Ariana before answering.

"The prisoner, Alpha. We found him."

"Alive?"

"No." The warrior's voice dropped. "And there's a message carved into the wall beside the body. It's addressed to her."