Wren Hale refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and Alpha Silas Night returned to an abandoned observatory above the midnight forest before midnight, using the key from the ambush to enter the archive their enemy had tried to keep buried.
Inside were recordings, legal files, and a wall tracking Wren Hale's life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every loss with patient precision. At the center, a line connected her to Alpha Silas Night, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
Alpha Silas Night reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: Every photograph Wren takes predicts the next death in Silas's pack. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Wren Hale.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Alpha Silas Night reached for the wolf fighting beneath his skin, but Wren Hale stopped him. Running had brought her here. This time she would make the person hunting them speak.
The archive door opened. The intruder removed a hood, and Wren Hale's breath caught. The face belonged to someone whose funeral she had attended—and the hostage video had been playing from an empty room.
“You finally found the truth,” the stranger said. “Now choose: expose it and destroy Alpha Silas Night, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Wren Hale took Alpha Silas Night's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.