Chapter 3

Three weeks passed at Ironveil Fortress.

My body healed. My wolf did not.

The Lycan King kept his word. No pressure. No demands. He assigned me a private wing with everything I needed—formula, diapers, medicine, clothes that actually fit.

He never entered my room without knocking. Never touched me. Never brought up the mate bond.

But I could feel him. A low hum beneath my skin, steady as a heartbeat. My wolf gravitated toward it like warmth after frostbite.

I hated it.

I had trusted a mate bond once, and it had nearly killed me and my daughter.

I named her Nora. She had my grey eyes and Liam's dark hair, a cruel reminder I couldn't escape.

Every time she cried at night, I rocked her and whispered promises.

"No one will ever throw you away. I swear it."

Kael's beta, a sharp-eyed woman named Thea, visited me daily. She brought meals, checked my stitches, and filled the silence with conversation.

"The King hasn't slept in his chambers since you arrived," Thea mentioned casually one morning. "Moved himself to the east tower. Said he didn't want you to feel pressured by his scent."

I said nothing. But something inside me cracked a little.

"He's not what the stories say, you know," she continued. "The isolation, the secrecy—it wasn't cruelty. It was patience. He always said his mate would come to him broken, and he refused to be another thing that hurt her."

I changed the subject.

By the fourth week, I was strong enough to walk the fortress grounds. The place was enormous—stone walls older than any pack territory, gardens blooming despite the altitude, and a training yard where Lycan warriors moved like shadows.

I found Kael there, shirtless, sparring with three warriors at once.

Every movement was controlled, devastating. He didn't fight like an Alpha. Alphas fought with dominance. Kael fought with precision—each strike deliberate, no energy wasted.

He caught me watching. Our eyes locked.

I turned and walked away.

That evening, a letter arrived at Ironveil. Thea brought it to me, her face grim.

It bore the Silver Fang seal. Liam's seal.

My hands trembled as I opened it.

"Serena, I've been informed you survived. I don't know where you are, and I don't care. This letter serves as legal confirmation of your exile and termination of all rights to the Silver Fang Pack, including custody of any offspring bearing Ashford blood. If you have given birth, surrender the child to the nearest pack authority for transfer to Silver Fang. Failure to comply will be considered an act of war. — Alpha Liam Ashford"

He wanted my baby.

He threw us into a blizzard to die, and now he wanted to take my daughter.

The letter crumpled in my fist. My wolf, dormant for weeks, suddenly erupted inside me with a fury I'd never felt.

"He's not taking her," I whispered.

"No," said a voice behind me. "He's not."

Kael stood in the doorway, reading the letter's contents from the fragments in my hand. His golden eyes had turned dark—not with anger, but with something far more terrifying.

Cold, calculated certainty.

"Liam Ashford has no jurisdiction here. Ironveil answers to no pack. And any wolf who tries to take a child from my territory—"

His canines extended. Just slightly. Just enough.

"—will not leave it alive."

For the first time since my exile, I felt something I hadn't dared to feel.

Safe.

But the feeling shattered the very next morning when Thea rushed into my room before dawn.

"Serena, get up. Now. There's something you need to see."

She turned on the television. Every wolf news channel was running the same broadcast.

Vanessa stood at a podium, my parents flanking her, tears streaming down her face as she addressed the press.

"My sister was mentally unstable. She tried to murder me and fled with Liam's child. We beg anyone with information to help bring the baby home safely. As the new Luna, I will raise this child as my own—"

She was painting herself as the victim. Again.

And the entire wolf world was believing her.