Chapter 3

Aden POV

I dragged my battered body up from the damp tiles of the Warriors' Changing Room. Every step back to my cramped dorm room felt like walking on shattered glass. The black ink on my chest-*WOLFLESS LOSER*-burned like a physical brand against my skin.

I locked the flimsy wooden door behind me and collapsed onto the thin mattress. The room was suffocatingly silent, smelling only of stale air and the bags of recyclable cans I hoarded in the corner.

Sylvia's cruel laughter echoed endlessly in my skull. *Scentless, wolfless puppy... just a stupid bet.*

I wasn't crying over a lost love. I was suffocating under the crushing weight of my own pathetic existence. Two years of scrubbing floors, starving myself to buy her gifts, and swallowing my pride, only to prove I was exactly what they said I was: a bottom-feeder unworthy of a Mate. A strange, dark power churned deep within my veins, a violent heat that threatened to consume me, but I dismissed it as nothing more than the impotent rage of a broken Omega.

My phone buzzed against the cheap linoleum floor, jarring me from my misery. An unknown number flashed on the cracked screen.

With trembling, bloodied fingers, I swiped to answer.

"Aden," a woman's voice spoke. It was calm, elegant, and laced with an unquestionable, terrifying authority. "I am Evangeline. Your trial is over."

I froze, my breath catching in my bruised throat.

"You are a Sharpe," she continued, her tone smooth as silk. "A royal bloodline that bows to no Alpha. Everything you have endured was to awaken the Lycan dormant within you. You are coming home."

A bitter, hysterical laugh tore from my chest. A Lycan? A royal? It was the most absurd, sadistic script Dixon could have possibly written. They weren't done breaking me. They wanted to build me up with a fairy tale just to watch me crash back down into the dirt.

"Tell Dixon his joke isn't funny!" I roared, my voice cracking with raw agony. "Tell him he won!"

I didn't wait for her response. I hurled the phone across the room. It slammed into the wall and dropped to the floor. I curled into a tight ball, letting the darkness and physical exhaustion finally drag me under.

Morning light stabbed through the grimy window, waking me with a pounding headache. My jaw throbbed violently where Dixon's boot had pinned me. I groaned, rolling over to retrieve my battered phone from the corner. The screen was spider-webbed with new cracks, but it still worked.

There was a notification. Not a mocking text from Dixon or Brennon. A banking alert.

I blinked, my blurry eyes struggling to focus on the screen. I rubbed them, my heart suddenly stopping in my chest.

*Available Balance: $100,000,000.00.*

I stopped breathing. One hundred million dollars.

This couldn't be a prank. Dixon was rich, but the Black Moon Pack didn't have this kind of liquid cash to throw into a fake app interface. This was real. The cold, hard numbers stared back at me, violently clashing with the pathetic reality of my dorm room.

My hands shook violently as I dialed the unknown number from last night. It rang only once.

"I see the trust fund has been activated," Evangeline's voice answered, completely unbothered by my outburst the night before.

"Who... who are you?" I choked out, staring at the impossible string of zeros on my screen.

"I told you. I am your sister, Evangeline," she said, her tone as casual as if we were discussing the weather. "I will be returning to Jork tonight to see you. I just have to finish dealing with the North American Alpha King. He's been a bit... disobedient lately."

The casual mention of disciplining an Alpha King-a being whose mere command could force an entire Pack to their knees-shattered the last remnants of my reality.

The phone slipped slightly in my sweaty grip. I looked down at my chest. The black marker was still there, but the despair that had chained me to the floor was evaporating. In its place, that ancient, dormant heat flared into a raging inferno, whispering promises of absolute power.