Freya’s POV


    I drove as fast as the tires could bite into the asphalt, my hands clenched white on the wheel. Ss’s body shook in the passenger seat, sweat slicking his temple, his breath ragged like a wolf cornered and ready to break. By the


    time I pulled us into the Irond Coalition’s private hospital wing, my heart was pounding so hard I thought it might tear through my ribs.


    Doctors swarmed him the moment I dragged him inside. They struggled against his thrashing until the sedative took hold. Only when the needle emptied into his vein did his body finally surrender, falling heavy and still against the white sheets.


    I didn’t even realize my hands were trembling until I saw them stained with the sheen of his


    sweat.


    The door burst open. Wren hurried inside, still pale from his own injuries. He had been caught in the crossfire weeks ago when assassins came for Ss. He should have been in bed, but here he was, half–healed and wild–eyed.


    “Wren, you shouldn’t be here,” I told him, rising from Ss’s bedside. “Your wounds-‘


    99


    “I’m fine,” he cut me off, though I could see the stiffness in his movements. His gaze darted immediately to the unconscious Alpha. “What happened? Why is Alpha Ss here?”


    “He… lost control,” I said, the words sticking in my throat. “Because of a scent. A perfume. The doctors say he’ll stabilize when the sedative wears off.”


    Wren’s eyes widened. His jaw tightened like a steel trap. “Perfume? Don’t tell me… it was that scent?<b>” </b>


    I stilled. “You mean the one tied to his mother’s death?”


    His stare snapped to me, sharp with disbelief. “You know about it?”


    “I forced it out of Jocelyn.” My voice dropped lower, almost a growl. The memory of pressing my boot into her back still lingered in my muscles. “She sprayed herself with it on purpose.”


    The color drained from Wren’s face. “That woman dared…” He shook his head, anger warring with dread. “Only a handful of people know how badly that scent affects him. Jocelyn must’ve stumbled on it by chance–because the form should have been destroyed when the Whitmores bought out thepany. Ss ordered it erased from existence.”


    “Destroyed or not, she had it.” My gaze flicked back to the bed, where Ssy trapped in the


    have to. I want to know who sold it to her.”


    Wren nodded grimly. “I’ll see to it.”


    Supply Chains <b>1 </b>


    But I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question wing at me. “Tell me the truth. Back then–when he was younger. What happened when he caught the scent?”


    Wren hesitated, his voice rough when he finally answered. “No. He wasn’t violent, not then. When the memories struck, he… copsed. Terrified. He’d cling to whoever was near, trembling like a child. Sometimes he’d even turn the fear inward, hurt himself. But it was never like this. Never murderous rage.”


    I frowned, unease gnawing at me. The Ss I faced tonight had been nothing like the boy Wren described. His wolf hadn’t soughtfort–it hadshed out, savage and brutal, fingers crushing Jocelyn’s throat.


    Why? Because he was older now? Because his wolf had grown stronger, more feral with the years? Or was there something else–something darker–feeding this new reaction?


    I pressed for details, and Wren told me the story I had only pieced together in fragments: Ss’s mother’s death, the broken ss vial of perfume, the way that scent embedded itself into his nightmares. How, three yearster, he’d copsed when he smelled it again. How it happened more than once until the Whitmores finally stamped out the form itself.


    And now Jocelyn had weaponized it.


    I clenched my fists. She thought she could trap him, trick him into clinging to her in desperation. She hadn’t expected his wolf to bare its fangs instead. If I had been a minuteter, I might have found her lifeless under his hands.


    Hours passed in sterile silence. The scent of antiseptic burned my nose, but beneath it I caught the faintest trace of his–iron and cedar, buried deep beneath the drugs. Ss hadn’t stirred in over six hours. The doctors said two more, maybe three, and he would wake.


    I meant to step out, to ssh water on my face, to wash away the tension wing at my skin. But then his voice broke the stillness.


    “No…” His lips moved, low and broken. “Don’t leave me… please… don’t abandon me.”


    I froze mid–step, every hair on my body prickling.


    I turned back. He was still asleep, eyes closed, but his brow was furrowed, his head twitching against the pillow. Sweat glistened fresh across his forehead.


    A nightmare.


    I moved to him, standing at the edge of the bed, my chest aching. For all his power, all hismand as Alpha of the Irond Coalition, right now he looked unbearably human- stripped raw by whatever darkness haunted him.


    I lifted my hand to wipe the sweat from his temple.


    But before I could touch him, his eyes snapped open.


    Golden fire zed in his gaze, but it was unfocused, wild. His hand shot out, seizing my wrist in a bruising grip.


    “Ss-”


    I didn’t finish. In a single surge of motion, he pulled me down, twisting me beneath him. The world tilted, and suddenly I was pinned against the mattress.


    His knees pressed into either side of my hips, caging me in. His hands shackled my wrists to the bed, his breath hot and uneven above me. His fingers trembled<i>, </i>yet his grip was unyielding.


    I stared up into his eyes. He was looking at me, but not truly seeing me. The focus wasn’t there -only the raw, animal edge of panic.


    His chest heaved. His aura crashed over me, thick and suffocating, but threaded with something I hadn’t expected. Not violence. Not lust.


    Fear.


    “Don’t… leave me…” His voice cracked, broken as a child’s. “It’s so dark. I’m… afraid. Blood. Too much blood…”


    My throat tightened, the sound cutting me like ws.


    The strongest Alpha I had ever known–terrifying, relentless Ss Whitmor–shaking above me like a boy lost in his own nightmare.