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“Gina,” he called, voice a low rumble that echoed off damp concrete. “Come out. You know the rules.”

A lilting laugh drifted from the darkness ahead. “For you, brother. I broke them out of love. The Sun’s Call quickens because of him—emotional isolation will only accelerate it further for you both. Let me end it cleanly.”

Mathias moved forwards, but she slipped away again, her trail leading deeper into the edges of rival territory where ferals howled in the distance. The hunt would be long. And every moment away from Carson fed the jealous bitch rustling at the edges of his mind.

***

He found her on the third night.

Not in the tunnels. In the lowest chamber of the warehouse itself, standing among the youngest whelps as if the hunt had never happened. Gina looked up when he entered, dark hair falling across her pale olive shoulders, and did not run. That, more than anything, told him she had decided to face the law rather than the sun.

“You tried to kill him,” Mathias said. The words came out flat. Final.

“I tried to save you.” Her voice was velvet, but the steel underneath had gone brittle. “The bond is harvesting you faster than age ever did. I offered a clean cut. You chose the wound.”

The whelps shifted behind her, uncertain. Mathias let them feel the weight of his presence until they dropped their eyes. He would not bleed the camp in front of them. He also would not pretend this was finished.

“I should exile you.”

“Then do it.” Gina’s chin lifted. “Leave them without a dam and see how long the structure holds once you disappear into that human’s bed.”

The truth of it landed. The camp was strained. Rival pressure. Unstable fledglings. Rolf still walking the edges of his thirty nights. If Mathias cast her out now, he would be choosing Carson over every life he had sworn to hold together—and the sun would only laugh louder.

He stepped close enough that only she could hear him.

“You remain dam. You feed them. You steady them. You do not touch what is mine again. If you come for Carson a second time, I will not hunt you through tunnels for a conversation allowing you to convince me of your value. I will end it.”

Gina held his gaze for a long moment. Something old and tired moved behind her eyes—grief, calculation, and the first cold shape of a decision she wouldn’t speak tonight.

“As you will, Sire,” she said.

Mathias turned away before the bond with Carson could drag him out of the chamber. He had enforced the law. He had also left a fracture in place, because the camp still needed her.

He told himself that was mercy.

He already suspected it was only delay.

***

Carson

Carson found himself in the sterile conference room at work, the world tilting sideways. He didn’t remember going back to the office, because he was still on leave. He suspected it was his subconscious looking for some desperate thread of normalcy, but if his intent was to impress on Drew that things were better, it was an absolute failure, as within minutes, focus had abandoned him completely. Rattling teeth vibrations hummed through his jaw as another hallucination washed over him—Mathias’ cool hands sliding down his spine, fingers digging in, pinning him in place. His skin crawled across his arms and thighs with phantom touches, his cock twitching traitorously beneath the table.

Drew’s voice cut through the fog. “Carson? Are you even listening? This is your last chance—”

Blackout.

When awareness returned, Carson was on the floor, papers scattered around him, Drew and Ruthie kneeling beside him with wide, horrified eyes. His shirt was damp with sweat, and a metallic tang lingered on his tongue like a mocking echo.

“That’s it,” Drew said quietly, voice strained with finality. “You’re fired, Carson. I’m sorry. Get help. Real help.”

He cleared out his desk, which meant he had a small box of personal items to keep his hands busy as security escorted him out. The walk to his car felt like wading through molasses, the bond twisting deeper with every step away from anything resembling his old life. Alone in the apartment, the silence pressed in like a physical weight. Emotional isolation accelerated everything—the Sun’s Call on Mathias throbbed distantly through their fractured link, and Carson’s own cravings roared louder in response.

He couldn’t stay there. The walls closed in, hallucinations blooming vivid and cruel. There was Mathias’ voice saying “Exquisite,” the stretch and burn of that perfect cock buried deep, the shattering orgasms that left him convulsing and empty. Carson dressed in the first clothes he found and stumbled out into the night, seeking oblivion in the one place that still felt alive—the warehouse district, near the ghost of that first illusory club.

The bar he found was loud and crowded, bass thumping through his bones in a poor substitute for the high he truly needed. He drank too fast, chasing numbness, but the alcohol only amplified the tremors. Rattling teeth vibrations returned stronger, skin set crawling over his body as strangers brushed past him. None of them carried that spice-musk scent. None ignited the bond.

In the pulsing lights, he hallucinated Mathias again—standing across the room, dark eyes locked on him with that snare of possession. Carson pushed through the crowd towards the vision, heart racing, only to find empty space. A bitter laugh escaped him. Self-destructive didn’t begin to cover it.