Silver in My Veins, Ashes in His Heart

Sarah POV:

Bullshit.

My heart hammered against my ribs. The sedative they had given me earlier was making my limbs heavy, but my mind was terrifyingly clear.

Before they dragged me in here, I had been in the recovery ward. The walls were thin. I had heard Marcus on the phone.

She needs to be neutralized, or the Council won't approve Rachel's son as the heir, he had said. Burn the house. If Sarah survives, I'll strip her wolf. A wolfless Luna is no Luna at all.

He didn't want to protect me. He wanted to make room for his mistress and his bastard child.

"Proceed," Marcus commanded. The air pressure in the room dropped, his aura sucking the oxygen out of the space.

The doctor sobbed, a choked sound, but her body moved against her will. The Alpha Command hijacked her muscles. She picked up the syringe. It was filled with a shimmering, metallic liquid.

Liquid silver.

In our world, silver is the ultimate poison. It burns through our accelerated healing, halts our shifting, and if injected directly into the bloodstream in high doses, it hunts down the wolf nature inside us and severs the link, effectively erasing it. It is a torture usually reserved for traitors and murderers.

"Marcus," I croaked. My throat was raw from the smoke. "Please."

He didn't look at me. He looked at the wall. "It will be over soon, Sarah. You won't feel the burden of your wolf nature anymore."

The needle pierced the vein in my arm.

I gasped.

It wasn't cold. It was fire. Molten lead surged up my arm, racing toward my heart.

I screamed.

The pain was not just physical. It was spiritual. I felt her-the essence of my wolf-panic. She clawed at the inside of my chest, howling in confusion and agony. She tried to heal the intrusion, but the silver was too potent. It was acid eating through silk.

Sarah! she cried out in my mind, her voice distorted by pain. Run!

I can't, I sobbed internally.

The fire spread to every nerve ending. My back arched off the table, straining against the leather straps. The sound of my own screaming filled the small room, bouncing off the concrete walls.

Marcus watched. He didn't flinch.

Then came the tear.

It felt like a rusty hook snagging the core of my soul and ripping it out through my throat.

A high-pitched whine echoed in my head, followed by a terrible, suffocating silence.

My wolf gave one last shudder, a phantom sensation of fur bristling, and then she was gone. The connection that had been a warm hum in the back of my mind since I was a child was severed.

I went limp. The world turned gray. My hearing, usually sharp enough to hear a heartbeat across the room, dulled instantly. The smell of rust faded into a generic metallic odor.

I was empty.

"It is done," the doctor whispered, collapsing to her knees.

Marcus walked over to the table. He looked down at me. I was sweating, trembling, tears streaming down my face into my ears.

He reached out and brushed a damp lock of hair from my forehead. His touch, which should have sent sparks of the Mate Bond through me-the electric thrill of a fated connection-felt like nothing. Just warm, dry skin.

The bond was broken physically, even if the moon still recognized it.

"Shh," he soothed, his voice dripping with fake tenderness. "You're safe now, Sarah. You can rest. No more burdens."

He leaned down and kissed my forehead. It was the kiss of a Judas.

I wanted to spit in his face. I wanted to tear his throat out. But I was just a powerless girl now, strapped to a table, surrounded by wolves.

If I fought, he would kill me. If I showed him that I knew the truth, I would never leave this room.

I forced my trembling hand to lift. I grabbed his lapel. I looked into his eyes with all the desperation of a dying animal.

"Thank you," I whispered, the lie tasting like bile in my mouth. "Thank you for saving me, Alpha."

Marcus smiled. It was a triumphant, arrogant smile. He thought he had won. He thought he had broken me.

He had no idea what he had just unleashed.