After My Mate Let Our Daughter Die, I Left Him

They came for me three days after Lilliana's ashes went into the ditch.

I was sitting on the floor of the Omega quarters, needle in hand, the hem of my dress still holding that one lock of her hair. The door slammed open and Aubree stood there with her mother's hand on her shoulder, eyes red and swollen in a way that looked practiced.

"She said it to me," Aubree whispered, voice shaking just right. "She said she'd do to me what was done to Lilliana."

I looked up. I hadn't spoken to Aubree. I hadn't been within ten feet of her since the banquet. But Kendra's hand tightened on her daughter's shoulder, and Aubree's chin lifted, and I understood.

This was the next move.

"I didn't—" I started.

Tristan was already in the doorway. He filled it, aura pressing down like a hand on the back of my neck. I went to my knees without meaning to.

"You threatened a child," he said. Flat. No question in it.

"I didn't. I haven't spoken to her. Ask anyone who—"

"I don't ask Omegas for testimony." He pulled something from his coat pocket. A vial, dark liquid, the kind the healers kept locked up. Wolfsbane concentrate. Enough to knock a full-grown wolf unconscious for days.

Two enforcers stepped in behind him. I knew them both. Had served them meals. Had cleaned their quarters.

They grabbed my arms.

"Tristan, please—" I tried to pull back, but they were Deltas and I was nothing, and my body folded under their grip like wet paper. One of them forced my jaw open. The other held my head.

Tristan poured it himself.

It went down like swallowing coals. My throat locked. My stomach tried to reject it and couldn't. The heat behind my ribs—the thing that had been pushing since the banquet—went silent all at once, like someone had thrown a wet blanket over a fire.

I hit the floor gagging.

"Strip her duties," Tristan said to someone behind him. "She doesn't touch pack resources. She doesn't eat at the hall. If she's still here tomorrow, it's because we allow it."

Kendra's voice, soft and wounded: "Thank you, Alpha. I know this is hard for you."

His boots turned and left. The enforcers hauled me up by the arms, and I couldn't feel my legs, couldn't feel anything below my ribs except a sick, cold weight spreading through my blood.

They dragged me through the pack house, past wolves who turned their faces away, past the kitchen where I used to sneak Lilliana extra bread, out the back door and into the night.

The junkyard sat at the northern edge of Shadowmere territory, where the forest went thin and the ground turned to gravel and rusted metal. Old cars, broken furniture, things the pack didn't want to look at anymore.

And cages.

Three of them, welded from rebar and chain-link, big enough to hold a wolf mid-shift. Two were empty. The third had occupants.

Rogues. Three of them, captured during territorial sweeps. Feral, half-starved, eyes gone yellow and flat. The kind of wolves who'd forgotten how to be human.

The enforcers unlocked the door of the empty cage beside them. Threw me in. The lock clicked.

"Alpha's orders," one of them said. Didn't look at me. "You stay until he decides otherwise."

They left.

I pulled myself into the corner, back against the cold metal, and tried to breathe through the wolfsbane. My wolf was gone. Not sleeping. Gone. Like she'd never been there at all.

The rogues in the next cage went still. Watching.

Then the largest one started pacing.

It was maybe an hour before the first one got through.

The chain-link between our cages had a gap near the bottom, rusted wide enough for claws. I heard the scraping first, metal on metal, then a low wet growl.

I pressed myself tighter into the corner.

The rogue's paw came through. Then its muzzle, teeth bared, foam at the corners of its mouth. It twisted, shoulder forcing the gap wider, and then it was inside with me.

Mid-shift. Stuck between forms, spine bent wrong, claws too long for its paws. It circled once, sniffing, and I could smell the madness on it—old blood, infection, something rotting.

I tried to shift. Tried to call my wolf.

Nothing answered.

The rogue lunged.

I threw my arm up and its teeth sank in just below the shoulder, tearing through muscle, scraping bone. The pain was white and total. I screamed and kicked and it shook me like prey, claws raking my side, my ribs.

Then it let go and circled again, slower, and I knew it was deciding where to bite next.

The heat behind my ribs flared.

Not my wolf. Something else. Something deeper, hotter, furious. It pushed against the wolfsbane like a fist against a locked door, and the door started to crack.

The rogue's ears flattened. It growled, low and uncertain.

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. Blood running down my arm, dripping onto the cage floor.

And under the blood, something silver.

Not fur. Light.

The rogue backed up a step. Then another. Its tail tucked.

I didn't understand. I couldn't shift. My wolf was gone.

But the thing inside me wasn't my wolf.

It was older than that.