Ivy Gray refused to trade herself for another hostage. She and Commander Lucan Frost returned to the royal arena beneath a thousand watching wolves 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 Ivy Gray's life from childhood to the previous night. Someone had planned every loss with patient precision. At the center, a line connected her to Commander Lucan Frost, then continued toward a sealed record neither of them had seen.
Commander Lucan Frost reached it first. The evidence proved the truth neither of them was ready to trust: Ivy's Omega scent is a spell hiding the strongest royal bloodline in a century. It also showed why he had been tied to the conspiracy long before he met Ivy Gray.
Footsteps filled the corridor. Commander Lucan Frost reached for the wolf fighting beneath his skin, but Ivy Gray 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 Ivy Gray'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 Commander Lucan Frost, or bury it and become the woman who betrays him.”
Ivy Gray took Commander Lucan Frost's hand instead.
The stranger smiled and pressed a remote. Behind them, the archive began counting down from ten.