Chapter 6: Touched by Cold

Upstairs, heavy floorboards creaked under Gideon’s weight as he paced toward the nightstand in the master bedroom. I listened from the bottom of the staircase, my head tilted, counting his steady, rhythmic steps. One, two, three. A pause.

The sharp slide of a wooden drawer opening echoed down the hall.

In my mind’s eye, I saw him reaching into the mahogany box for his silver Alpha chronometer. My frayed, black-leather notebook—seventy-two carefully cataloged entries detailing twelve years of systemic physical collapse, mapped precisely alongside Cassie’s political victories—sat directly beneath that velvet-lined box.

Touch it, I thought, staring up into the shadows of the landing. Look down.

A brief silence hung in the air. Then came the quick, metallic click of his watch clasp closing around his wrist. The drawer slammed shut with an impatient thud.

He had missed it. In his rushed arrogance to ready himself for his morning briefing, he hadn't even lifted the velvet tray.

I didn't sigh. I didn't feel a sting of disappointment. The lack of discovery was simply another data point. Gideon Sterling was a man so accustomed to ignoring my existence that he could look directly at the evidence of my destruction and see only his own reflection in a polished clock face.

He descended the stairs moments later, dressed in his dark green commander’s tunic. As he passed the kitchen island, his hand instinctively reached out and grabbed the handle of his dark grey ceramic mug.

The second his fingers wrapped around the handle, Gideon halted mid-stride.

An unexplainable tremor ran through his shoulders. He stared down at the mug, his brow furrowing as a sudden, sharp chill radiated from the glazed clay into his palm. His breathing hitched slightly—a visceral, subconscious reaction to the translucent essence of my Alpha soul force embedded beneath the ceramic glaze. For a fleeting second, his true mate bond sparked beneath the dark runes suppressing it, fighting to recognize my fading vitality.

He pulled his hand back as if the clay had burned him, staring at his palm in utter bewilderment.

"Is something wrong with the coffee maker?" he muttered, his voice unnaturally tight.

"Nothing is wrong," I said from the shadows of the hallway, my voice smooth and devoid of inflection. "It's just cold."

Gideon swallowed hard, shaking his head as if clearing a fog. The forged bond reasserted its artificial grip, washing away the instinctual warning with a wave of conditioned irritation. He scoffed, grabbing the mug firmly, refusing to let his unexplainable discomfort show.

"Don't forget your promise about the banquet," he growled, turning toward the front door. "I've posted two extra sentries at the gates. Stay inside."

The heavy oak door slammed behind him, locking automatically.

I didn't waste a second. As soon as his engine roared to life and faded down the gravel driveway, I walked back into the kitchen, pulled a dark cloak around my silk robe, and slipped out through the cellar access door that led past the main security perimeter. A house arrest order meant nothing to someone who had memorized every subterranean drainage route of Luna House as a child.

My physical core burned with every step. My lungs felt coated in ash, and my wolf spirit hummed at a precarious seven percent. But I had six more soul fragments to plant before my body gave out entirely.

Twenty minutes later, using the dense treeline bordering the main training grounds, I reached the rear entrance of the Sterling Pack Command Pavilion. The early morning mist hung thick over the obstacle courses, obscuring the sentries posted along the northern fence.

I slipped into the high commander's office—a room that used to be mine during my early years as Luna Administrator. On the stone mantle above the hearth sat Gideon's ceremonial Alpha command blade, forged from ironwood and silver.

I pressed my right palm against the silver pommel, resting my wrist pulse point directly over the metal.

"Second fragment," I whispered into the quiet room.

I pulled on my ancestral core again. The pain was immediate and excruciating—a sharp, tearing sensation in my chest that forced a muted gasp from my throat. A thin string of dark blood dripped from my lip onto the hearth stone. Beneath my skin, the Silver Crescent birthmark flared white-hot, bleeding a faint trail of silver light directly into the silver filigree of the hilt.

The blade hummed softly, anchoring a piece of my dying life force into the very symbol of his authority over the territory. Every time Gideon drew that sword, every time he rested his hand on its hilt during council meetings, he would be holding the weight of my fading breath.

I pulled my hand back, wiping my chin with the hem of my cloak. Two down. Five to go.

My phone buzzed in my pocket—a sharp, encrypted pulse. I pulled it out to read a message from Dr. Adrian Vale:

URGENT: Siphon signatures spiking at the central apothecary vault. Cassie has authorized an accelerated spirit enhancement ritual for 14:00 today. She's trying to absorb the remaining core balance before the banquet.

I stared at the screen, my eyes narrowing in the dim light of the office. Cassie wasn't waiting for nature to take its course. She was greedily reaching for the remaining seven percent of my wolf spirit to ensure her absolute dominance before taking the stage tomorrow night.

Chapter 7: The Siphon Acceleration

I met Dr. Mara Delgado in the abandoned storage bunker three miles south of the main compound. The air inside the concrete bunker was cold and smelled of ozone, chemical preservatives, and damp earth.

Mara had her heavy forensic equipment spread across two foldin

Chapter 8: Paper Traps

The copper taste in my mouth was heavier now, a dark metallic stain that no amount of cold water could wash clean.

Mara leaned over the stainless-steel table in the Luna House basement, her heavy brass field microscope adjusted to its highest magnification. A small glass sli