Chapter 3 3

Elara POV

The glaring red notification on my screen was a death sentence. Before I could even process the reality of the frozen account, the heavy landline on the desk rang. It was the only unmonitored connection I had to the outside world.

I snatched the receiver. "Hello?"

"Mrs. Blackwood," Ms. Peterson's voice was clipped and bureaucratic. She was the billing administrator at the Pinecrest facility. "The auto-pay for Hazle Mercer's ventilator care failed this morning. If the fifty thousand dollar balance isn't cleared by five o'clock today, protocol dictates she be transferred to the state ward within twenty-four hours."

The state ward. A crowded, underfunded nightmare where patients like my mother went to die.

"I'll fix it," I choked out, my hands trembling so violently the phone rattled against my ear. "Please, just give me a few hours."

Before I could formulate a plan, my burner phone buzzed. A text from Sylvia Vance: *Blackwood Tower. 2:00 PM. Mandatory review of Pack discipline.*

Declan's retaliation was swift and calculated. He had cut my mother's lifeline, and now he was reeling me in.

I arrived at the towering monolith of black glass and steel at 1:55 PM. The receptionist smirked, claiming she couldn't find my appointment in the system. For forty-five agonizing minutes, I was forced to sit on a cold, modernist bench in the lobby. I became an exhibit in a cruel zoo.

Warriors and suited executives walked past, their hushed whispers loud enough for my human ears to catch.

*"Look, it's the wolfless Omega."*

*"Can't believe the Alpha keeps that Rejected disgrace around."*

*"She looks like a starving Rogue."*

Every word stripped away another layer of my dignity, drowning me in the suffocating reality of my place in the Pack hierarchy.

When I was finally allowed up to the fortieth floor, Sylvia was waiting in her glass-walled office. The red handprint I'd left on her cheek yesterday had blossomed into a dark, satisfying bruise.

She slid a heavy piece of parchment across her mahogany desk. It reeked of dark magic. A Blood Pact.

"Sign it," Sylvia sneered, her eyes gleaming with vindictive pleasure. "Confess to your emotional instability due to your wolfless nature. Apologize for your unprovoked attack. In exchange, your account thaws."

It was a trap. A legally binding document Declan could use to lock me in a psych ward whenever he deemed me inconvenient. But the clock was ticking toward five. I pricked my finger and pressed my blood to the parchment. The magic flared, binding my soul to the lie.

Sylvia tapped her keyboard. "Account unfrozen." She leaned over the desk, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. "Listen to me, *Omega*. If you ever touch me again, I will walk into that human clinic and pull your mother's plug myself. I'll enjoy it."

Hollowed out and humiliated, I stumbled out of the office. Passing the employee breakroom on my way to the elevators, a bright TV screen caught my eye.

It was an entertainment news channel. There was Declan, dressed in casual denim, carrying pink shopping bags on a sunlit street in SoHo. Karly Rowe clung to his arm, and little Ava skipped happily beside them. The banner beneath them read: *Billionaire Alpha Declan Blackwood: The Family Man Behind the Power.*

"That's the Alpha's Omega pet," a female Pack member muttered to her friend as they walked past me, her tone dripping with disgust.

The two blades-the public lie of his perfect family and my private, agonizing hell-pierced my chest simultaneously. I couldn't breathe. The weight of the world crushed my lungs.

I bolted from the tower, practically collapsing into my beat-up sedan in the parking garage. I had no Inner Wolf to howl my agony. I could only scream silently, slamming my fists against the steering wheel until my knuckles split and bled.

Then, it hit me. A freezing, emotionless presence violently invading my mind.

Declan's *Alpha's Command*.

Even with our bond rejected, his authority could still crush my skull. His voice echoed in my head like metal scraping glass: *Go home. Dinner is at seven. Dress appropriately.*

The sheer, arrogant cruelty of the command-demanding my obedience while he played the perfect father on TV-was the ultimate insult. But instead of breaking me further, the command acted like a bucket of ice water.

The tears stopped. I looked at my shattered reflection in the rearview mirror. The despair evaporated, leaving behind a cold, hardened fury that settled deep in my bones.

"It's not over," I whispered to the empty car, wiping the blood from my knuckles. "Not until I win."

I started the engine and drove back to the lion's den.