The heavy iron boots of the guards stopped at the top of the stone stairs. The heavy oak door didn't close immediately; instead, the bright torchlight from the Grand Hall flooded back down the stairwell, casting a long, sharp shadow that stretched all the way to Eva's cells.

Killian Vance walked down the steps, his leather trench coat brushing against the damp granite walls. He stopped right in front of the rusted bars, his dark gold eyes tracking the way Eva sat in the wet straw.

The two Enforcers remained on the bottom step, their hands resting flat against the leather grips of their batons. Behind them, Tanya Bennett leaned against the iron handrail, her silk skirts gathered up in one hand to avoid the mud on the stone floor.

"Get up, traitor," Tanya said, tapping her fingers against the cold metal railing.

Eva didn't move, her back remaining flat against the solid stone foundation of the pack house. She kept her right hand deep inside her apron pocket, her fingers pressed hard against the unyielding silver disc of her token.

Killian reached into his tactical vest, pulling out a heavy, silver-plated dagger engraved with the Vance family line runes. He held it by the blade, the hilt pointed toward the iron lock of the cell gate.

"The council demands a formal dissolution before the vanguard leaves for the southern border," Killian said, his voice flat, completely stripped of any rhythm.

Eva raised her chin, her frost-covered lashes separating with a faint, dry click under the dim light of the tallow candle. "You're doing this here? In the dirt?"

"You don't deserve the altar, Omega," Tanya spat from the stairs, her jaw tight. "The blood of thirty dead warriors says you don't get a public ceremony."

Killian raised his left hand, silencing Tanya without looking back at her. He took a deep breath, his massive chest rising and falling in sharp, heavy movements under his black combat tunic.

A thick, suffocating pressure instantly filled the narrow cell corridor, the sheer weight of his dominant Alpha aura causing the rogue prisoners in the neighboring cages to drop to their knees.

Killian locked his gold eyes onto Eva’s face, his lips thinning into a hard, straight line.

"I, Alpha Killian Vance, reject you, Evangeline Frost, as my mate," Killian spoke the fatal words, his voice vibrating through the stone floorboards.

The air inside the cell fractured with a loud, metallic pop that sounded like a thick iron cable snapping under thousands of pounds of tension.

A sudden, invisible force struck Eva directly in the center of her ribcage, a spiritual rupture so violent that it threw her entire upper body forward into the dirt. The golden threads of light still lingering around her wrists turned into liquid black fire, sinking deep into her skin and tearing through her internal pathways.

Killian’s left hand instantly flew to his own chest, his fingers bunching the heavy black fabric over his heart as he took a sharp, ragged gasp of air. He suppressed the phantom chest stab, his face turning a pale gray under the torchlight, but his jaw remained locked in stone.

Eva collapsed instantly onto her side, her fingers clawing at the loose straw as her lungs refused to take in air.

A hot, metallic taste flooded her throat before she could even draw a breath. She coughed violently, a thick splatter of dark crimson blood erupting from her lips and soaking into the frozen mud between her hands.

Tanya smiled with sheer triumph from the stage stairs, her fingers releasing her silk dress to clap softly against her palm. "It's done. The lineage is clean."

The agonizing pain in Eva’s chest began to shift, the crushing heat of the broken bond slowly turning into something cold, dense, and unyielding. The desperate heartbreak in her gaze died out, replaced by a still, freezing Scorpio ice that settled deep within her pupils.

A dark crimson shadow flashed inside Eva’s black pupils, a faint, predatory tint that didn't belong to any wolf bloodline in the northern territories.

The thick splatter of blood on the dirt floor began to hiss, the dark liquid thinning and dissolving into the cold earth before the guards could step closer to examine it.

Eva wiped her mouth with the back of her left sleeve, leaving a long, red streak across the frayed gray fabric of her tunic.

She pushed herself up off the floor, her movements slow, deliberate, and entirely devoid of the trembling weakness that had held her an hour ago. She stood up straight in the center of the dark cell, her cold-eyed gaze locking directly onto Killian’s face through the iron bars.

"You should have verified the watermarks, Alpha," Eva said, her voice dropping into a flat, steady whisper that made the larger Enforcer step back toward the stairs.