Chapter 4

ELARA POV:

My body jerked, ready to obey the Alpha's Command against my will. My hand started to lift towards my mask. It was over. I was caught.

"Is there a problem, Alpha Blackwood?"

A smooth, human voice cut through the tension. The gallery manager, a man I had bribed earlier that morning, stepped between us. He gave Kaelen a placating smile.

"My apologies," the manager said quickly. "This is Hope, a temp. She has a terrible flu but insisted on working. We're having her wear the mask to avoid spreading germs."

Kaelen's eyes narrowed, his gaze sweeping over me with suspicion. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought he would press the issue. His focus was a physical weight, and the Command began to take hold again. But then Leo tugged on his hand, whining about being hungry. The distraction shattered his concentration.

He gave a curt nod. "See that it doesn't happen again."

He turned and led his family away. I didn't wait for a second invitation. I fled the gallery, my lungs burning as I ran, not stopping until I was safely locked in my car.

As soon as my hands stopped shaking, I contacted Brenna through a secure, encrypted messaging app. I sent her everything on the flash drive. The photos, the financial records, the whole disgusting truth.

Her response came minutes later. It wasn't a text. It was a call.

"I'm going to kill him," she snarled, her voice a low growl of pure fury. "I'm going to rip his throat out, Elara."

"No," I said, my voice surprisingly calm. The initial shock had worn off, leaving behind a cold, clear purpose. "I don't want revenge, Brenna. I don't want a fight. I just want to be gone. I want to disappear so completely that it's like I never existed."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then, "Are you sure?"

"I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

"Alright," she said, her voice shifting into the decisive tone of a Gamma, a military commander. "Then we do this my way. Clean. Legal. Unbreakable."

An hour later, she called back. Her voice was grim. "It's worse than we thought. I did some digging into the pack apothecary records. Kaelen has been making large, regular withdrawals of a potent wolfsbane mixture."

Wolfsbane. A poison to our kind. In small doses, it could soothe a wolf during a rough change. In large doses, it suppressed our inner wolf, made us weak, lethargic. It was a tool of control.

"What for?" I whispered, though I already knew the answer.

"For you," Brenna said, her voice filled with rage. "Think about it, Elara. All those times you felt too tired to go to a pack dinner? The headaches that made you sleep through the day? They've been drugging you. Keeping you weak and docile so he could go play house with his other family."

The pieces clicked into place. The 'herbal teas' my mother always insisted I drink for my 'anxiety.' The fog that so often clouded my mind.

"My birthday," I breathed, the horror of it dawning on me. "My first Shift. It's supposed to be painful. They're going to drug me. They're going to make me sleep through it so they can take Leo to the amusement park."

It was the final, most monstrous betrayal. They weren't just going to neglect me on my most important day. They were going to actively poison me to facilitate their celebration.

"We'll use it against them," I said, the coldness in my heart solidifying into a diamond-hard plan. "We'll use their own scheme to set me free."

With Brenna's help over the next few days, we prepared my escape. She consulted with the Stone River Pack's elders and drafted a declaration based on ancient pack law. It was an official, legally binding document stating my voluntary renunciation of my name, my bloodline, my pack membership, and all inheritance rights tied to the Silver Moon Pack. I signed it, my hand steady.

I booked a one-way plane ticket under a new name: Hope. My destination was a remote, coastal town on another continent, a place with no known werewolf packs. A place where no one would ever think to look for the lost White Wolf.

The night before my birthday, I returned to the Alpha Estate. I walked into the living room and saw Kaelen on the phone, discussing security details for the amusement park. As he spoke, a wave of giddy excitement washed over the frayed edges of my mate bond-my mother's pure, unadulterated joy for Leo's party, a feeling she was projecting to Kaelen. It was a careless, intimate communication I was never meant to feel.

I felt nothing. No pain. No anger. Just the quiet, steady ticking of a clock, counting down the final seconds of my old life.