Betrayal Under The Blood Moon

Chapter Six

DANTE

The convoy arrives at dawn, black SUVs cutting through morning mist like blades through silk. I smell them before the border guards radio in—gun oil and federal authority, expensive cologne failing to mask the acid tang of fear. Senator James Westbrook has come for his daughter.

"Twelve vehicles." Eric materializes at my shoulder, tablet streaming security feeds. "Mixed federal and private security. They're citing the Emergency Rescue Provision."

"For a woman I saved from bleeding out?"

"For a victim of assault who's being held against medical advice." He scrolls through legal documents. "Filed an hour ago. They're claiming she needs immediate hospitalization."

Through the reinforced glass, I track movement in the safe house. Sadie paces like something caged, three days into her first heat. The worst has passed but she still burns, omega pheromones so thick they've driven every unmated male to the far borders. Even mated wolves feel the pull—white wolf in heat calls to instincts older than civilization.

She stops at the window, pressing her palm to glass. The curtains are drawn but she knows I'm watching. Always knows where I am now, the blood bond between us singing with awareness. Her body trembles with need I won't satisfy. Not yet. Not until her mind clears enough for true consent.

"Where's Julie?"

"Conference room. She's been building our defense since midnight."

The main gate holds, our guards professional despite federal badges flashing like threats. Westbrook emerges from the lead vehicle—silver-haired authority wrapped in a senator's gravitas. His wife follows, and the discrepancy hits immediately. Where he radiates righteous fury, Jane Westbrook carries the scent of guilt and grief, a woman drowning in consequences.

Behind them, a man in Armani who can only be the fiancé. Senator Randall Lee moves with calculated precision, political ambition made flesh. His jaw works like he's tasting something unpleasant.

"Alpha Byrne." Pete intercepts them at the checkpoint, professional despite the way his whiskers twitch with anxiety. "The Senator demands immediate audience."

"The Senator can demand whatever he likes." I'm already moving, because delaying serves no purpose. "Doesn't mean he gets it."

The challenge is keeping Sadie contained. Her heat makes her unpredictable, and stress spikes the symptoms. I signal Mike to increase the guard on the safe house—all female wolves, the only ones who can resist her pheromone storm.

Julie meets me at the entrance, sharp as a blade in her courtroom armor. Three days of sleeping in shifts hasn't dulled her edge. If anything, she looks more dangerous—a woman who's found her war.

"Preliminary injunction filed." She matches my stride. "Medical power of attorney challenged based on fraudulent diagnoses. Plus criminal charges for poisoning, conspiracy, and violation of the Otherkind Protection Act."

"Evidence?"

"Twenty-six years of medical records. Every injection, every pill, every emergency room visit when her body rejected the suppressants." Her smile could cut glass. "I've had three days to dig. What I've found would make your wolf proud."

The meeting room carries neutral scents—no pack markers, no territorial claims. Just polished wood and filtered sunlight, civilization's veneer over older laws. I choose to stand, denying them the courtesy of formal welcome. Julie flanks me, tablet armed with ammunition.

Westbrook enters like he owns the air itself. "Where is my daughter?"

"Recovering." I let him hear the edge beneath courtesy. "From twenty-six years of systematic poisoning."

"Medical treatment." His correction comes smooth, practiced. "For a rare autoimmune condition that nearly killed her as an infant."

"Suppressants." Julie slides a folder across the table. "Would you like me to read the active ingredients? Wolfsbane derivative, silver nitrate compounds, synthetic hormones designed to prevent shifting. Pharmaceutical torture, Senator."

Jane Westbrook's facade cracks. "We followed doctor's orders. The specialists said—"

"The specialists you paid." Julie pulls report after report. "Dr. Morrison, who lost his license in DC before you relocated him. Dr. Chen, who runs a private clinic funded entirely by your shell companies. Should I continue?"

"You're twisting facts to suit—"

Movement outside cuts him off. The safe house door opens and Sadie emerges, my enforcers flanking her at careful distance. Even from here, I see the effort each step costs. Three days of sensory overload—every sound a scream, every scent an assault, sunlight like needles in her retinas. She shouldn't be walking, but white wolf strength carries her forward.

Her pheromones hit the compound like a wave. Every male in a hundred yards turns, instinct overriding training. I bark orders that snap them back, but the damage is done. She knows her effect now, knows the power her body wields.

She's barefoot, wearing only one of my shirts that hits mid-thigh. Her hair hangs tangled, skin flushed with fever that paints her in shades of rose and gold. But her eyes—silver-bright with power that makes the windows hum—stay focused on the parents who stole her nature.

"Don't." I catch her at the doorway, blocking her path. "You're not stable enough for this."

"Move." Omega command that shouldn't work on an Alpha. But white wolves rewrite rules, and my wolf wants to obey. Wants to give her anything, everything. "They came to my territory. My home. They face me."

"The heat—"

"Makes me honest." She slides past me, skin brushing mine in a way that sends electricity down my spine. "Maybe that's what they need. Honesty without chemical restraints."

The moment she enters, everything shifts. The air itself grows heavy, charged with potential violence. Randall takes an involuntary step back, political mask cracking to show something raw underneath—not desire but revulsion. The uncanny valley response of a human sensing a predator wearing familiar skin.

Jane reaches out, maternal instinct warring with shock at what her daughter's become. But Westbrook...

He looks at her like evidence in a case he needs to win.

"Sadie." His senatorial voice, the one that commands committees. "You're ill. These people have taken advantage—"

"These people saved my life." She stops just inside the doorway, nostrils flaring. Processing scents, cataloguing threats. The predator mind overlaying human recognition. "After twenty-six years of you trying to kill what I am."

"We protected you." No denial, just justification. "Do you have any idea what happens to Otherkind? Caged behind walls, treated like animals, bred for entertainment—"

"So you caged me first?" The temperature drops ten degrees. Frost spiders across the windows despite summer heat. Her power responds to emotion, environment bending to her will. "Put the walls inside me instead of around?"

"You had a normal life. Education. Opportunities—"

"I had seizures." She steps closer, and everyone shifts uncomfortably. The heat makes her presence overwhelming, even to humans who can't consciously detect the pheromones. "Monthly emergency room visits when the suppressants built up toxic levels. Specialists who could never explain why my body fought the medicine meant to save me."

"The condition—"

"There was no condition." Her laugh carries wolf harmonics that raise primitive hackles. "Just a little girl who tried to shift during full moons. Who knew something was wrong but trusted the parents who said they loved her."

"We do love you." Jane breaks, tears streaming. "Whatever else, that was never a lie."

"No?" Sadie tilts her head, studying her mother with predator focus. "You held my hand through every injection. Stroked my hair through the seizures. Told me I was brave, special, worth the fight. All while pumping me full of poison designed to kill the most fundamental part of my identity."

"We didn't know—"

"Liar." The word cracks like a whip. "You knew exactly what you were doing. The doses, the timing, the specific compounds. Julie, tell them what my medical records show."

Julie doesn't need to check her notes. "Customized suppressant cocktails, reformulated every six months to match physical development. Hormone blockers timed to lunar cycles. Emergency protocols for 'acute episodes' that correspond exactly to full moons."

"Circumstantial—"

"Is it?" I move behind Sadie, not touching but close enough to feel her heat radiate against my chest. "Your daughter's been here three days. No medication. No seizures. Just a wolf learning what she should have known from birth."

"She's clearly altered." Randall finally speaks, voice tight with barely controlled emotion. "Look at her. This isn't the woman I proposed to. Something's wrong with her."

The growl that rips from Sadie's throat makes everyone step back. Pure omega rage, the kind that reshapes weather patterns. Thunder rolls outside despite clear skies.

"Wrong?" She turns that silver gaze on him. "You're right. Something is different. I'm not pretending anymore."

"Pretending?"

"That your touch didn't make me want to claw my skin off. That your politics didn't disgust me. That the future you planned—senator's wife, two point five kids, appropriate smile for appropriate events—didn't make me want to disappear."

"Because he's manipulating you." Westbrook gestures at me. "Using your vulnerable state—"

"There is no condition!" She screams it, and the windows crack. Hair-thin fractures spreading like spider webs. "There's just me. What I've always been under your chemicals and lies."

"Sadie." Randall tries for reasonable. "Come with us. We'll get you back on your medication, stabilize—"

"My body rejects suppressants now." She holds up her arm, showing the injection site that's turned into a festering wound, edges black with chemical burn. "Tried to dose myself that first night. The wolf won't be caged again. Rather die than go back to that half-life."

"Don't be dramatic—"

She moves faster than human reflexes can track. One second she's by the door, the next she has Randall's throat in her hand. Not choking, just holding. Letting him feel how easily she could crush his windpipe.

"Dramatic?" Her voice drops to whisper that carries more threat than shouting. "You want dramatic? Should I tell them how many times you touched me when I said no? How you'd hold me down, call it playing? Say I was being sensitive when I fought back?"

"That's not—I never—"

"Every. Single. Time." She squeezes slightly, watching him pale. "My body knew what my mind couldn't understand. You weren't touching a woman. You were trying to dominate a wolf."

"Sadie." I use her name like a leash, pulling her back from the edge. "Let him go."

She obeys, but only after leaving crescent marks where her nails broke skin. Randall stumbles back, hand to his throat, senatorial dignity shattered.

"Get out." She addresses all of them, power making the air thick enough to choke on. "Leave my territory. Don't come back."

"You're making a mistake." Westbrook gathers his composure like armor. "This isn't over. You're still legally—"

"What? Your daughter?" Julie interrupts. "She's twenty-six. An adult who can choose her own medical care, her own residence. Her own mate."

"We'll see what the courts say about capacity when she's clearly—"

"When she's clearly what?" Julie's laugh cuts deep. "In heat? Following biological imperatives? Good luck arguing that natural hormones negate consent. Especially when I present evidence of two decades of medical abuse."

They're losing and know it. But Westbrook plays his last card. "Your birth certificate lists us as parents. Legal adoption, properly filed—"

"Based on lies." Sadie's control frays, heat and emotion making her reckless. "Everything about me is a lie you wrote."

"We gave you everything—"

"You gave me a cage!" The windows finally shatter, glass exploding outward in perfect synchronization. Wind howls through the room, carrying the scent of ozone and impending storm. "You stole my nature and called it love. Poisoned me and called it protection."

Jane sobs openly now, shoulders shaking with the weight of twenty-six years of choices. But she doesn't deny it. Can't deny what medical records prove in black and white and blood.

"Leave." I make it an Alpha command, putting power behind the words that makes even the humans feel its weight. "Now. Before I let my mate do what her wolf wants."

They retreat, but Westbrook pauses at the door. "This isn't over."

"No." Sadie's smile shows too many teeth. "It's just beginning."

The convoy retreats under escort, federal authority meaningless on sovereign land. The moment they're gone, Sadie collapses. I catch her before she hits the floor, heat fever spiking beyond what she can control.

"Did I do okay?" Whispered against my throat, vulnerable in a way she couldn't be while facing them.

"You did perfect." I carry her back to the safe house, her body burning against mine. "But you shouldn't have come. The stress—"

"Needed to see them. Needed them to see me." She burrows closer, seeking skin contact that soothes the worst symptoms. "Did you see his face when I grabbed Randy?"

"Everyone saw." Julie follows us, already typing. "That'll complicate his spin. Hard to claim she needs rescue when she's physically overpowering him."

"I wanted to do worse." Confession in the dark. "Wanted to tear out his throat for every time he made me feel like nothing. Is that wrong?"

"It's wolf." I settle her on the bed, already pulling curtains against the sensory assault of daylight. "We're possessive creatures."

"Good." She pulls me down, not for s*x but contact. The heat makes her desperate for touch, for pack, for anchors in the storm of sensation. "Because I'm never letting go."

The words settle between us like vows. Outside, thunder promises rain that smells like change. Like truth. Like the end of one life and the beginning of another.

Her parents will be back. With lawyers, media, whatever weapons they can wield. But she faced them today—burning with heat, overwhelmed by new senses, fighting every instinct to attack—and won.