Chapter 3

Three days had passed since the garden's destruction, and my body was failing me in ways I couldn't ignore anymore. The silver burns on my arms had deepened from angry red welts to something far more sinister—black veins spreading outward like poison through my system. Each breath felt labored, each step an effort that left me dizzy and weak.

I stared at my reflection in the cracked mirror of my small room, barely recognizing the hollow-eyed woman looking back. My skin had taken on a grayish pallor, and the tremor in my hands had worsened overnight. Without proper medical attention, without the healing herbs I'd once cultivated, I was slowly dying from silver poisoning.

The decision crystallized with painful clarity: I had to leave Silverpaw Pack.

Packing my belongings took less time than I'd expected. Eight years of my life fit into a single worn duffel bag—a few changes of clothes, my grandmother's journal filled with healing recipes, and the small pouch of emergency herbs I'd hidden away. Everything else I'd owned had been in that garden, now nothing but churned earth and broken dreams.

My hands shook as I zipped the bag closed. This was it. This was really happening.

Before I lost my nerve, I made my way to Darren's office in the pack house. Maybe—just maybe—there was still some fragment of the man I'd loved buried beneath the cold Alpha who'd dismissed me so cruelly. Maybe he'd realize what he was losing, what he'd already lost.

I knocked softly on his door, my heart hammering against my ribs.

"Come in."

Darren sat behind his massive oak desk, looking every inch the powerful Alpha in his crisp white shirt and dark suit jacket. He didn't look up from the papers he was reviewing, didn't acknowledge my presence beyond that initial permission to enter. The casual dismissal cut deeper than any harsh words could have.

"Darren," I began, my voice barely above a whisper. "I need to talk to you."

"If this is about your little garden tantrum, I don't want to hear it." His tone was bored, distracted, as if I were nothing more than a minor inconvenience interrupting his important work.

"I'm leaving," I said, the words falling into the space between us like stones into still water.

That got his attention. His head snapped up, dark eyes focusing on me with laser intensity. For a moment, I thought I saw something flicker there—surprise, maybe even concern. But it vanished so quickly I wondered if I'd imagined it.

"Leaving?" He leaned back in his chair, his expression shifting to something calculating and cold. "And where exactly do you think you're going, Jovie?"

The way he said my name—like it tasted bitter on his tongue—made me flinch. "I... I don't know yet. But I can't stay here. Not after everything that's happened."

Darren stood slowly, his Alpha presence filling the room like a physical force. "I see." He moved to the window, hands clasped behind his back as he gazed out at the territory he ruled. "You know, that presents a problem."

Hope flickered in my chest. Maybe he was going to ask me to stay, to reconsider. Maybe—

"You know too many pack secrets to be trusted elsewhere," he said, his voice matter-of-fact, as if he were discussing the weather. "Our patrol routes, our defensive strategies, our alliance agreements. Eight years of pillow talk, after all."

The casual cruelty of it—reducing our entire relationship to 'pillow talk'—stole the breath from my lungs. "Darren, I would never—"

"Wouldn't you?" He turned back to face me, and the stranger wearing Darren's face smiled coldly. "A scorned woman, cast out and bitter? Who knows what you might do for revenge."

"I'm not—" I started, but he held up a hand, silencing me with Alpha authority.

"I'll be contacting our allied packs today," he continued conversationally. "The Northern Ridge Pack, the Crescent Moon Pack, the Iron Valley Pack. I'll be letting them know that Jovie Palmer is not to be trusted, not to be given sanctuary. That she poses a security risk to any pack foolish enough to take her in."

The room spun around me. He was blacklisting me. Ensuring that nowhere within hundreds of miles would offer me safety or shelter. It was a death sentence, and we both knew it.

"You can't," I whispered, my legs threatening to give out beneath me. "Darren, please. I have nowhere else to go."

"You should have thought of that before you decided to leave." He returned to his desk, already reaching for his phone. "I suggest you reconsider your decision, Jovie. The world outside pack protection is dangerous for a lone wolf. Especially one as... fragile... as you."

I stumbled from his office, his words echoing in my ears like a death knell. In the hallway, I pressed my back against the wall, struggling to breathe, to think, to figure out what to do next.

That's when desperation drove me to the one option I'd never considered before—the one Alpha powerful enough to exist outside Darren's sphere of influence.

The Rogue King.

Back in my room, I pulled out my laptop with trembling fingers and began researching everything I could find about Kaleb Andrews and his Shadowmoon Pack. The stories were terrifying—a ruthless Alpha who'd carved out territory through violence and cunning, who commanded rogues and outcasts with an iron fist. But he was also the only werewolf leader within a thousand miles who didn't owe allegiance to any of Darren's allies.

It took me three hours to craft the message, deleting and rewriting it dozens of times:

*Alpha Andrews,

I am Jovie Palmer, formerly of Silverpaw Pack. I am writing to request sanctuary within your territory. I am a trained healer with extensive knowledge of medicinal herbs and pack medicine. I am willing to work for my place and prove my worth to your pack. I understand this is an unusual request, but I find myself in desperate circumstances.

Respectfully,

Jovie Palmer*

I stared at the screen for another ten minutes before finally hitting send, my heart pounding so hard I thought it might burst from my chest. I was reaching out to the most feared Alpha in the region, a man whose reputation was built on violence and ruthlessness.

But what choice did I have?

To my shock, the response came within two hours:

*Miss Palmer,

Meet me at Miller's Creek on the neutral territory border tomorrow at sunset. Come alone.

-K*

I read the message three times, hardly believing it was real. The Rogue King wanted to meet with me. Tomorrow. At the neutral territory that lay between pack boundaries, where no Alpha held sway.

As I closed the laptop, my hands were steadier than they'd been in days. For the first time since that horrible ceremony, I felt something that wasn't despair.

I felt the faintest glimmer of hope.