Chapter 4

JAYCEE POV:

In the days that followed, I began to erase myself. I quietly left every social media group connected to the Blackwood Pack. I blocked numbers I knew belonged to pack members. I was becoming a ghost.

A few days later, a message request popped up from an account I didn't recognize. My stomach tightened. It was from one of Hillary's sycophants, I was sure of it.

I opened it. It was a single photo.

Hillary, wearing the Bolton family ring, stood beside Cohen on the balcony of the Alpha's official residence. The entire Blackwood territory spread out behind them like a conquered kingdom.

The message below read: "I hope you can understand, Jaycee. This is for the future of both our packs."

I looked at the picture, at her triumphant smile and his stoic profile, and I felt... nothing. Not pain. Not jealousy. Just a distant, clinical pity. I took a screenshot, saved it to a hidden folder, and then blocked the account.

That afternoon, Mrs. Gable from next door came over with a casserole. She was a retired elder from a neighboring pack, sharp-eyed and even sharper-tongued.

"Saw Cohen's Beta parked across the street yesterday," she said, setting the dish on the counter. "Watching the house. Sent him packing with a few choice words."

She looked at me, her gaze softening. "Hillary Peterson is poison dressed in silk. Your mother knew it. She always said you had a sleeping lion inside you, child. Said you just needed a reason to wake it up."

That night, I dreamt of a time before everything soured. I was a teenager again, and so was Cohen. We were sitting by the river, and he had just caught my scent for the first time. In the dream, his eyes went wide with wonder, and his inner wolf whispered, a sound that echoed in my soul: *Mine!*

The dream didn't make me sad. It made me angry. It reminded me of the pure, sacred thing he had taken and broken for profit.

I woke up with a new resolve. I went to the old wooden box, the one marked 'Miller,' and opened it again. Tucked beneath a bundle of my mother's old letters, I found what I was looking for. I remembered my mom complaining about it months ago, a close call at a pack gathering.

It was a bill from a veterinary specialist.

Dated six months ago. The patient's name was 'Ares,' owner Hillary Peterson. The reason for the visit was listed as 'unprovoked aggression and biting.' The vet's recommendation was stark: 'Immediate behavioral reconditioning advised.'

At the bottom, a handwritten note: 'Owner declined treatment.'

Hillary hadn't just been negligent. She had known her wolf was a loaded gun, and she had refused to put the safety on. She had lied. And Cohen had helped her.