Chapter 2

Eleanor POV

The next morning, I walked straight into the Alpha's office.

I didn't knock.

Marcus sat behind his mahogany desk, while Isabelle perched on the edge of it, swinging her legs like a schoolgirl. They stopped talking the moment I crossed the threshold.

"I am resigning as the lead architect for the Pack's public works," I stated. My voice was steady, a flat line that surprised even me.

Marcus scoffed, leaning back in his chair. "Don't be dramatic, Eleanor. Just because you had a bad night-"

"I will finish my current private projects," I interrupted, cutting through his condescension, "and then I am done. You can find someone else to design your 'diplomatic' expansions."

I turned to leave, my hand already on the brass knob, but not before I caught Isabelle's reflection in the glass cabinet. She leaned in, whispering something into his ear.

Marcus laughed.

The sound followed me out the door, a jagged edge against my spine.

The pack noticed the shift immediately. The Betas and Gammas, who knew the value of my blueprints and the hours I'd poured into their homes, gave me sympathetic glances in the mess hall. They whispered about how the Alpha was blinded by the "shiny new toy," ignoring the foundation that had held him up for years. But no one spoke up.

In the pack, the Alpha's word is law. To challenge him is treason.

A week later, the pack held a celebratory banquet for the alliance with Isabelle's father.

I tried to stay in the shadows, clinging to the periphery of the grand hall, but Isabelle found me. She always did. She was wearing a silver bracelet-a delicate, intricate design of interwoven vines that seemed to move with the light.

My breath hitched in my throat. I had designed that.

It was a prototype I had left on the drafting table in Marcus's office, a piece meant to be a ceremonial gift for the pack elders. I had spent weeks refining the curvature of those vines.

"Do you like it?" Isabelle asked, holding out her wrist and twisting it so the silver caught the chandelier's glow. Her voice was pitched loud enough to draw eyes. "Marcus gave it to me. He said it was just a trinket lying around, but I think it suits me, don't you? Though, it's a bit... quaint."

She was wearing my work. She was wearing my stolen soul.

"It's a prototype," I said, my jaw tight enough to ache. "It wasn't finished."

"Oh, well," she laughed, bringing her champagne flute to her lips. "It's better this way. Broken things have a certain charm, don't they? Like you."

Rage, hot and white, flared in my chest, burning away my restraint. "You are a thief, Isabelle. You take things that don't belong to you because you have no substance of your own."

The music stopped. The chatter died. The hall went silent.

Isabelle's eyes went wide. Then, with the calculated grace of a viper, she stumbled back. She let out a high-pitched scream and collapsed onto the floor, knocking over a table of drinks with a spectacular crash of glass.

"Ow! She pushed me! Marcus!" she wailed, clutching her ankle.

It was pathetic acting. The delay between my words and her fall was obvious; anyone with eyes could see I hadn't come within a foot of her.

But Marcus didn't care about the truth.

He blurred across the room, his Alpha speed creating a gust of wind that whipped my hair across my face. He was beside her in an instant, helping her up with a tenderness that made my stomach turn.

Then he turned to me.

His eyes were glowing a deep, furious red-his wolf was near the surface, clawing for control.

"You dare?" he growled, the sound vibrating in the floorboards.

"I didn't touch her," I said, standing my ground, though my instincts screamed at me to bare my throat.

"She is a guest! She is my future!" Marcus roared. The air in the room grew heavy, the barometric pressure dropping as he exerted his dominance. It was a physical weight, pressing down on every lung in the room.

Then, he used it. The Voice.

"Kneel!"

The command slammed into me like a wrecking ball. It wasn't a choice; it was a biological imperative.

My knees slammed against the hard stone floor with a sickening crack. The impact jarred my spine, pain shooting up my legs like lightning. I gasped, tears springing to my eyes-not from sorrow, but from the sheer, burning humiliation of my body betraying me.

I was forced into submission, head bowed, while the entire pack watched.

"Apologize," Marcus hissed, towering over me.

I bit my tongue until I tasted copper. My wolf was snarling, thrashing against the mental chains, but the Alpha Command was absolute for a pack member. It was a vise around my throat, squeezing until I complied.

"I..." I choked out, the words tasting like ash. "I apologize... for the confusion."

"Get out of my sight," Marcus spat. "You are stripped of your rank. You are no longer the Pack Architect. You are nothing but an Omega cleaner until I say otherwise."

He turned his back on me, cooing over Isabelle's perfectly uninjured ankle.

I scrambled up, my knees throbbing with bruises, and ran. I ran out of the hall, past the staring faces, and into the biting cold of the night air.

Back in my room-my prison-I started tearing things down.

The sketches on the walls, the balsa wood models of the bridges, the detailed plans for the new hospital-I ripped them to shreds. I smashed the clay models until my hands were coated in gray dust.

If I was nothing, then my work was nothing.

My phone buzzed on the desk. A Mind-Link message, but sent as a text-a final, digital insult meant to bypass any mental blocks.

It was from Isabelle.

*He's with me now. He says your skin is too rough, your scent too dull. He's finally happy. Do us both a favor and disappear.*

I stared at the screen, the blue light illuminating the destruction around me.

The tears stopped.

The anger stopped.

Everything just... stopped.

I felt a vast, empty void open up inside me. It wasn't peace. It was the absence of hope. It was the numbness of a limb that had been severed.

I reached into my mind, found the golden thread that connected me to the Pack Mind-Link, and I built a wall around it. Brick by mental brick, I sealed it off. I couldn't break the bond completely without becoming a Rogue, but I could mute it.

I shut them out.

I shut him out.