Freya’s POV


    Ss’s hand was an executioner’s vice.


    Finished


    I could see Jocelyn’s body buck beneath his grip, her throat locked inside his pale, merciless fingers. His eyes–those storm- forged, dead–quiet eyes–did not flinch. The strength of an Alpha whomanded the Irond Coalition wasn’t in his voice or posture, but in that unshakable certainty: if he chose, he could end her here.


    Her face had already shifted from flushed red to ashen white. I watched, horror wing up my chest, as her tongue lolled from her mouth, desperate for air. Her nails raked across his wrist, leaving thin red welts that healed as quickly as they came. He didn’t even blink.


    “Does it matter if you meant it or not?” His voice was low, steady, colder than the northern winds thatshed the cliffs of Stormveil. His grip tightened. “I should’ve taken your tongue years ago, before you grew bold enough to poison the air with


    it.”


    The wolf in me red, heart hammering, instincts surging between fight and submission. His dominance pressed like an Javnche, but my blood screamed I could not stand aside.


    If I let him follow through–Jocelyn would die.


    And Ss would damn himself.


    I moved before my mind caught up with my body, a single lunging step, my hand mping over his, fingers curling against the icy ridges of his knuckles. “Ss, stop! Let her go–if you keep going, she won’t survive this!”


    “I don’t care.” The words dropped like stones into the silence.


    And gods help me, I believed him. Ss was not a wolf who clung to life, nor one who weighed the morality of killing. He’d grown up brutalized, abandoned, forced to bare his fangs to survive. Why would a man who didn’t even value his own breath care for hers?


    But I cared. For him. For what this would do to him.


    “Then care about this,” I snapped, digging my nails into his skin, willing him to feel me. “If you kill her, it won’t just be her blood on your hands–it’ll be shackles around your throat. Do you want to rot in a human cell while your enemies rip the Coalition apart? Is that how you’ll destroy yourself? There are other ways to fight her, legal ways, cleaner ways. This path only ruins you.”


    For the first time, his eyes flickered. A tremor of life behind the void.


    “You don’t want me ruined?” His voice was quieter now, but dangerous still–like a de sheathed, sharp edge hidden but not dulled.


    “No,” I answered without hesitation. My grip tightened over his. “I don’t want to see you destroy yourself, Ss. So let go.


    Now.”


    Something in my tone, in the steel of it, must have reached him. Wolves responded tomand, not pleading–and I gave himmand.


    Slowly, impossibly slowly, his fingers loosened.


    Jocelyn copsed to the floor in a heap, hacking, retching, clutching her throat like a fragile thing. Her once–proud stance had


    shattered; she was a pile of limbs andbored breaths.


    “Get out” Ss’s voice was venom, his gaze a de.


    She staggered, barely able to stand, yet even broken, she found venom for me. “Don’t think I’ll thank you, Freya. If not for you, he would never—”


    I didn’t let her finish. My wolf surged hot and fast. I grabbed her by the shoulder and dragged her down the hall, her feet stumbling across the polished floor.


    “What–what are you doing? Let me go!” she shrieked, trying to wrench free.


    608 AM P. P.


    The front door loomed. I yanked it open, shoving her into the cold night air. With one clean motion, I hurled her threshold


    She hit the ground with a heavy thud.


    From the doorway, I stared down at her, the night wind whipping


    Finished


    past


    the


    saved Ss. He’s worth more than throwing his life away on you.” “my hair. “Make no mistake, Jocelyn. I didn’t save you. I


    Her face zed red with fury and humiliation. “You-”


    I cut her off again, voice a growl in my throat. “And another thing. You have no right to spit his past like it’s gossip. His scars aren’t trophies for you to unt. They are his. Not yours.”


    Her lips parted, ready to fire back, but then her gaze slid past me.


    To him.


    Ss stood behind me, shadows clinging to his frame, his stare colder than steel fresh from the forge. One nce from him silenced her tongue. The wolf in her cowered, though she fought to hide it. She didn’t dare speak another word.


    The iron gate creaked closed between us, sealing her out.


    I turned. He was still there, his eyes fixed on me, unreadable.


    “You’re not going to ask?” His voice was low, sharp with some strange mixture of challenge and weariness.


    “Ask what?” I met his gaze head–on.


    “About what she said. About my past.”


    My pulse thudded in my ears, but I held steady. “I’ll treat everything Jocelyn said as if I never heard it.”


    His eyes flickered again, down to his hand–the same hand that had nearly taken a life tonight. I could feel the battle inside him. For all his power, for all the dread he inspired, he still doubted his own control.


    And gods forgive me, I realized something as my chest tightened: my voice had been enough to bring him back. My words, my presence, had reached him when nothing else could. That truth unsettled me more than his violence ever had.


    Night fell heavy on the Whitmor estate.


    Ss kept his silence after Jocelyn’s departure. Brooding, still as carved stone, lost to storms I couldn’t see. The weight of it gnawed at me until I could no longer sit idle. I crossed the hall and knocked on the door to his chamber.


    No answer.


    “Ss?” I tried again. Nothing.


    A knot of unease twisted deep in my gut. My wolf bristled. Something was wrong.


    I pushed open the door. The bed was empty, untouched. His WolfCommy abandoned on the nightstand. Ss never left himself unarmed–not his de, not hism, not his guard.


    That left only one conclusion. He was still here. Somewhere inside these walls.


    I rushed to the security console, pulled up the feeds. No breaches, no exits. He hadn’t left the estate.


    My throat went dry. That meant…


    “Ss!” I called, racing through the halls. The house swallowed my voice, long corridors echoing back faint fragments.


    Then I froze.


    From the far end of the third floor–the ce he’d forbidden me from stepping near–I heard it.


    A sound like pain, muffled but raw. A broken, shuddering groan.


    608 AM


    The forbidden room.


    Finished


    I stood before its door, heart pounding, my hand hovering above the wood. The wolf in me screamed to protect, to break through. But I remembered hismand, his warning: Never enter this room.


    And yet-


    I pressed my palm to the door, knuckles knocking lightly. “Ss? Are you in there? What’s happening?”


    Another sound answered, jagged and inhuman. My chest clenched.


    He was in there. And he was hurting.


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