(Olivia’s POV)

    I turned around slowly, my heart hammering against my ribs. The cold metal of a gun barrel pressed against my temple.

    My breath caught in my throat. The person holding the weapon was almost unrecognizable, but I knew those eyes. Cynthia Mooncrest.

    She was supposed to be in exile at a brutal rogue training camp. What stood before me was a shadow of the elegant she–wolf I once knew. Her skin was darkened and weathered, her face a map of fresh scars. Her once–beautiful long hair had been shorn into a harsh buzzcut.

    The contrast with her elegant silk dress was jarring. She looked like a broken doll someone had tried to repair with the wrong pieces.

    “This is all your fault!” she snarled, her voice cracking with rage. “You made me into this monster!”

    I had anticipated trouble. My hand found the electric baton I’d grabbed from the security room earlier. In one swift motion, I struck her wrist.

    The gun ttered to the floor. Without hesitation, I struck again at her knees.

    Cynthia crumpled to the ground with a cry of pain.

    “You should have been sent to the pack dungeonsst time you tried to kill me,” I said coldly, standing over her. “This state you’re in isn’t my fault. It’s because you’re a criminal.”

    But Cynthia seemed impervious to the electric current. She snatched the baton from my grip and threw me down hard.

    I hit the floor with a grunt, my shoulder screaming in protest. She towered over me, her scarred face twisted with years of umted hatred.

    “Matthew Kane broke our betrothal for you!” she shrieked, her voice echoing through the empty exhibition hall. “My brother, Can Mooncrest, sent me to that hellhole for you!”

    Her words came out in a torrent, years of grievances spilling forth like poison.

    “You’re a Mooncrest bloodline too, yet he wants to wee you back while he sells me off like cargo to Den Shaw! Why do you get to steal my destined mate and my brother?”

    “Olivia ckwood! Your very existence is a sin!” Cynthia’s voice crackedpletely now.

    “Why didn’t you die in exile like my aunt?”

    The words hit me like a physical blow. Was my mother Lyra actually a runaway from the pack back then?

    I tackled her, desperation giving me strength. We rolled across the floor, fighting for control.

    “Why won’t you leave that monster Can?” I demanded, remembering how he had once tried to force–mark me. “He’s the one who destroyed you!”

    Cynthia’sugh was bitter and broken. “Leave? And end up dead in rogue territory like her?”

    The moment of shock at her words was all she needed. The baton came down hard across my temple.

    Stars exploded across my vision. Painnced through my skull.

    “That’s enough.”

    The voice was disguised, electronically altered. A tall figure in a mask descended the stairs with predatory grace.

    Zero.

    He pulled me to my feet with surprising gentleness. Cynthia scrambled for her gun, aiming it directly at my chest.

    “Cipher,” Zero said, his masked face turning toward me. “Let’s see what Lyra ckwood really taught you.”

    My phone rang. The sound cut through the tension like a de.

    Matthew’s name shed on the screen. My mate. My King.

    I answered, feeling the weight of his entire kingdom, his territory, pressing down on me through our bond.

    “My King,” I said, my voice steady despite everything. “I wille back safely.”

    I hung up before he could respond. With quick movements, I blocked all signals and connected my phone to a nearbyptop.

    The duel was about to begin.

    Zero moved to his own setup, fingers flying across multiple keyboards. “You know the rules, Cipher. Winner takes all.”

    I cracked my knuckles, settling into the familiar rhythm of code andbat. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

    The power outage timer hit zero. Thework came alive around us like a digital battlefield.

    Zero’s attack was immediate and devastating. He invaded the Sovereign’s Citadel’swork, intending to paralyze Matthew’s entire kingdom.

    But he met something unexpected. Something massive.

    My “minesweeper” rose from the depths of the dark web itself, a system I’d been building and hiding for years. It blocked every iing attack with ruthless efficiency.

    Zero’s fingers paused for just a moment. “Impossible.”

    He pivoted, trying to destroy the Al resurrection data in the Mooncrest Global system. But again, he found powerful firewalls already in ce.

    “My most important person is there,” I said quietly, thinking of my mother’s digital ghost. “I was never going to leave her unprotected.”

    Understanding dawned in Zero’s posture. “You tricked me.”

    I smiled, though he couldn’t see it. “I couldn’t break into your wless system. But I could lure you into mine and trap you forever.”

    As his code invaded mywork, my trap sprang shut. His virus was absorbed, replicated, and turned back against him like a reflection in a mirror.

    While our systems battled in cyberspace, I hacked into the mall’swork. A chain reaction began among theptops surrounding us.

    The first explosion threw sparks across the room. Then another. And another.

    Cynthia screamed as the fiery sts threw her backward. Her gun discharged wildly, the bullet ricocheting off the ceiling.

    In that instant, a dark shadow moved to shield me.

    Theodore copsed at my feet, blood spreading across his shoulder where the bullet had found its mark.

    I didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. My attack spread to the building’s centralputer core.

    The entire structure woulde down. Zero would burn with it.

    Theodore tried to pull me away from the inferno. “Olivia, we have to go!”

    “Done!” I dered, watching Zero’sptop explode in a shower of sparks and me. “I win!”

    The hacker was engulfed in fire, his screams lost in the roar of the ze.

    Theodore held me tight against him, his blood warm on my skin. For a moment, my mind shed back to our mating ceremony.

    A handsome, shy Alpha asking me to ept his mark. Young and hopeful and so very different from the man he’d be.

    But then my gaze drifted to the chapel door in my memory. A tall, slender figure in a white shirt had appeared there for just a fleeting moment.

    The memory faded as sirens wailed in the distance. I looked toward the mall’s entrance, just as I had looked at that chapel door all those years ago.

    Back then, the figure had vanished, leaving only a bouquet of red and purple tulips.

    But this time, he walked out of the fire and strode toward me.