Her three-year-old shifted under a full moon and released an Alpha call heard across three territories.
Naomi Reed had no time to absorb the betrayal. At a mountain clinic hidden from every registered pack, every witness turned toward her, waiting for tears, surrender, or an apology. She gave them none. Whoever had arranged this expected her to freeze long enough for the trap to close. Instead, she seized the first piece of evidence and headed for the only exit still open.
Alpha Dax Mercer blocked it.
Power rolled from him hard enough to wake the instinct Naomi Reed had spent years suppressing. When he caught her wrist, heat struck between their palms and an unwanted bond pulled her one step closer. His grip was careful. His warning was not.
“Let me go,” she said.
“The moment I do, the person who staged this takes you,” Alpha Dax Mercer replied. “You can hate me after we survive the next five minutes.”
He knew her name, the route she had taken, and the one detail no stranger should have known about her three-year-old shifted under a full moon and released an Alpha call heard across three territories. Naomi Reed demanded the truth. He answered by showing her a sealed record created before they had ever met. It carried her signature, his family mark, and a payment authorized by someone she still trusted.
They opened the first page together. It contained the sentence everyone around them had been willing to kill to hide: Naomi's son carries the extinct silver-wolf gene that can unite or destroy the packs.
Before Naomi Reed could read the proof, the exit slammed shut. A familiar scent slipped beneath the door, followed by the scrape of claws large enough to cut stone.
“You found the wrong secret,” the voice said. “Open the door and give me Naomi Reed, or Alpha Dax Mercer dies before she learns the rest.”