The frozen river water, reeking of the city's sewage, stabbed through Elara's pores as she dragged herself onto the moss-covered concrete bank. She coughed violently, vomiting up the river water she'd accidentally swallowed while clutching her right arm, which continued to drip blackish blood.
Behind her, Blackwood Forest appeared only as a terrifying giant shadow beneath the full moon. Before her, the human metropolis sprawled arrogantly, glowing with neon lights, the roar of engines, and plumes of factory smoke.
To any other wolf, this city would be a noisy hell. But to Elara, this concrete jungle was the perfect hideout. Humans were too preoccupied with their own affairs to notice the monsters moving among them.
Staggering forward, Elara made her way through dark alleys reeking of urine, avoiding surveillance cameras and streetlights. She had to reach her safehouse before the silver-dagger poison spread to her heart.
### Wounds and the Curse of the Past
The small fourth-floor apartment was stuffy and dim, but it was equipped with standard military tactical medical supplies. Elara locked the steel door with three layers of security, then sank to the bathroom floor.
She tore open the sleeve of her tactical shirt. The slash looked horrifying—the flesh around its edges was burned and refused to knit together. That was the effect of pure silver on a werewolf. She couldn't rely on her natural regeneration tonight.
With trembling hands, Elara opened the iron first-aid kit. She bit down hard on a roll of gauze to hold back her scream, then poured high-proof alcohol directly over the wound, followed by laboratory-made silver-poison antidote powder.
Her body convulsed. Cold sweat as large as corn kernels dripped from her temples as she began stitching her own flesh together with a surgical needle and thread.
As physical pain ravaged her, another torment rose from inside her head.
> "Alpha... our Mate... Why did you run? Go back to him!" >
The wolf within her howled sadly, clawing at the walls of her mind. The voice was so pitiful, filled with a longing utterly foreign to Elara.
"Shut up!" Elara hissed at her own reflection in the cracked mirror. Her breathing quickened. "He's not our fate. He's death."
Elara hated her wolf form. She hated fate, and she hated the concept of a Mate most of all. Ten years ago, she had seen with her own eyes how her mother—a Luna from a small pack—was tortured and killed simply because her mate bond was deemed wrong by another powerful faction. That bond made wolves weak, blind, and willing to die for a foolish love.
Elara had sworn she would never bow to fate, least of all to some arrogant Alpha from Blackwood Forest.
### The Alpha's Gaze
Yet as Elara leaned against the cold tiled wall, memories of the man on the cliff came back to haunt her.
Glowing golden-red eyes in the heart of the darkness. A strong jaw, broad shoulders, and an aura of dominance so thick it made the air around him feel heavy. When their gazes met, something shattered Elara's mental defenses. Not fear, but a maddening urge to kneel and offer her neck to that man.
The sensation made Elara sick with disgust at herself.
Brrrrt... Brrrrt...
The vibration of the encrypted black phone on the sink shattered her reverie. There was only one person in the world who had that number.
The screen blinked, displaying a single initial: B.
Elara drew a deep breath, forced her wolf instincts down deep, and put her cold, emotionless human mask back on. She swiped the green button and pressed the phone to her ear.
"Mission failed. There was a complication with the border guards," Elara reported, her voice hoarse but steady.
Silence lingered on the other end. The only sound was the soft clinking of ice cubes in a glass.
"I don't pay a fortune to hear the word 'failed,' Elara," a man's baritone voice flowed softly yet dangerously from the speaker. "Come to my penthouse now. Let my doctor handle your wound, and you can tell me yourself... which dog dared bite my property."
Click. The line went dead.
Elara stared at the dark phone screen. She had just escaped the Alpha's grasp in the forest, but now she had to return to another monster's lair in this city. The Mafia Boss who fed her, paid her, and protected her, yet also locked her inside a golden cage no less deadly.