Evelyn POV
The scream came from the hallway outside my office.
My heart was beating fast as I dropped my pen and ran toward the sound. I saw her through the dark hallway. She was a young omega girl who was lying on the wall with blood coming out of her nose. "She was so scared that her eyes were wide."" Please," she said in a low voice when she saw me. "Please don't tell him I came here."
I led her into my office and shut the door behind us. My hands shook as I grabbed a clean cloth to stop her bleeding. It was the fourth one this month. Fourth girl. Fourth unexplained injury. For the fourth time, someone asked me to stay silent. "What happened?" I asked gently, pressing the cloth to her nose. "I… I fell," she said. The oldest lies in the book. "Maya." I looked her straight in the eyes. "I'm a crisis psychologist. I know what falling looks like. This isn't it."
Her face crumbled. Fresh tears mixed with the blood. "They took my sister three days ago. Said she was being moved to another pack. But I heard the guards talking. They mentioned Alpha Draven's name and… and numbers. Like they were selling her."
My blood turned to ice. Alpha Draven. My fiancé. The wolf I was forced to marry in six months. "Where is your sister now?" I kept my voice steady even though rage burned in my chest. "I don't know!" Maya cried. "No one will tell me. And when I asked too many questions, the head guard did this." She pointed to her bleeding nose. "He said next time, it'll be worse. He said I should leave before I end up like the others."
The others. Like Tessa, who vanished two weeks ago. Like Cara, who disappeared last month. Like Joel, the teenage boy who asked too many questions about lost omegas and was never seen again.
All of them came to me first. All of them trusted me with their fears. And all of them were gone. "Maya, listen to me." I gripped her shoulders. "Go home. Pack a small bag. Hide it. If anything else happens, run to the border and don't look back." "But my sister, "I'll find out what happened to her. I promise." The words came out before I could stop them. Dangerous words. Stupid words. But I meant them.
Maya hugged me tight, then slipped out of my office like a ghost.
I stood alone in the silence, my mind running. Outside my window, the entire Shadowfen Kingdom sparkled with Wintermoon decorations. Lights hung from every building. Wolves laughed and danced in the streets. The smell of holiday feasts drifted through the air.
Everyone was enjoying the most sacred holiday of the year. Everyone except me.
I hated Wintermoon.
I hated how alphas claimed to be generous and kind for one day, while they spent the other three hundred sixty-four days making our lives miserable. I hated how everyone acted like we were one big happy family when wolves like Maya were getting beaten for asking about their missing sisters.
Most of all, I hated that I had to smile and play along because Alpha Draven, the wolf behind all this suffering, owned me now.
Six months ago, he announced our engagement in front of the entire country. I didn't get a choice. I didn't get asked. He simply stated that I, Evelyn Carter, would be his mate. Everyone cheered like it was romantic instead of a prison term.
My brother Marcus stood right next to Draven during that announcement, smiling like he'd won a gift. Marcus was Draven's second-in-command now. He'd worked his way up through the ranks by doing whatever Draven asked, no questions. When our parents died ten years ago, Marcus changed. He stopped caring about right and wrong. He only cared about power and survival. "This is good for us, Evie," he told me after the engagement news. "Draven is the most powerful alpha in five countries. You'll be safe. Protected."
But I didn't feel safe. I felt like a bird in a cage.
A knock on my door made me jump. "Miss Carter?" A guard's voice. "Alpha Draven requests your appearance at the Wintermoon feast. You have thirty minutes to prepare."
Of course. The perfect fiancée had to show up at the perfect holiday celebration and act as if everything was perfect.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I took a deep breath and called back, "I'll be there."
The guard's footsteps faded away. I sat at my desk and stared at the files in front of me. Twenty-three missing people in the last six months. Twenty-three wolves who simply disappeared. The official reports said they ran away or moved to other packs. But I knew better.
Something was very, very wrong in Shadowfen Kingdom. And whatever it was, it had Alpha Draven's marks all over it.
I'd been gathering knowledge quietly for months. Writing down names. Tracking patterns. Asking careful questions. But I needed proof. Real proof. The kind that couldn't be ignored or explained away.
And there was only one place where proof would be: Draven's private room.
My hands went cold at the thought. Breaking into an alpha's office was a death sentence if you got caught. Especially this leader. Draven didn't forgive. He didn't show kindness. He destroyed anyone who crossed him.
But Maya's bloody face flashed in my mind. Tessa's mother was crying at my door last week. Joel's little brother is asking when he'll come home.
They needed someone to fight for them. Someone to expose the truth.
I looked out the window again at all the fake smiles. At wolves enjoying a holiday that meant nothing, while others suffered in silence.
I made my choice.
Tonight. During the Wintermoon feast, when everyone was drinking and busy. When Draven would be busy playing the host. I would slip away from the party. I would break into his room. And I would find the proof I needed to expose him.
My heart hammered against my ribs. This was crazy. This was suicide.
But I couldn't live with myself if I did nothing.
I stood up and grabbed my bag. Time to get ready for the feast. Time to smile and act. Time to play the perfect, obedient fiancée one last time.
Because tonight, everything was about to change.
I reached for the door handle, then froze.
A folded piece of paper had been slipped under my door while I was lost in thought.
With shaking hands, I picked it up and opened it.
Five words were written in blood-red ink:
"STOP ASKING QUESTIONS OR DIE."