She entered Roman's chambers with a silver blade and found him waiting beside her missing brother's photograph.
Celeste Arden had no time to absorb the betrayal. At the enemy pack's rain-soaked victory feast, 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 Roman Thorne blocked it.
Power rolled from him hard enough to wake the instinct Celeste Arden 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 Roman Thorne 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 she entered Roman's chambers with a silver blade and found him waiting beside her missing brother's photograph. Celeste Arden 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: The massacre blamed on Roman was ordered by Celeste's own uncle to seize her inheritance.
Before Celeste Arden 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 Celeste Arden, or Alpha Roman Thorne dies before she learns the rest.”