Seraphina’s POV

I flipped my phone to airplane mode. The moment the screen went black, it felt like I’d finally severed a dead nerve. I closed my eyes, trying to find some peace in the hum of the jet engines.

But the second I drifted off, the nightmare found me.

It was pitch black. Freezing. Fear swallowed me whole, like a demon dragging me into a bottomless pit.

“Mortimer… help me…”

I screamed in my sleep, but there was no answer. Lily, my wolf, was curled up in the darkest corner of my mind, letting out one broken whimper after another. My fingers dug into the armrests, nails sinking into the leather. “Please… save me…”

Through the haze, I felt someone grabbing my hand, trying to pull me out of the abyss.

“Are you okay? Ma’am? Hey, wake up.”

The voice was soft but urgent. I snapped my eyes open, gasping for air. My chest ached from hyperventilating. I turned to my side. A girl with round glasses—probably a college student—was staring at me, her face pale and trembling.

I realized then that my aura had spiraled out of control, leaking into the cabin. For a human, the raw grief of a high-blooded werewolf felt like a psychic tidal wave.

I took a shaky breath, forcing Lily to settle down and pulling my jagged scent back inside. The heavy pressure in the air finally lifted.

“Sorry,” I said, taking the tissue she offered. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “I… I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The girl wiped sweat from her forehead, still looking shaken. “You were having a massive panic attack. It felt like… like a storm was coming. You kept whispering for help. You sounded heartbroken.”

Heartbroken? My heart had frozen solid in that snowbank, right along with the video calls he’d cut off.

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Surviving an avalanche like that is the kind of life experience you only need once.”

The girl’s mouth dropped open. “Oh my god… You mean that Alaska avalanche? The one that’s been all over the news?”

I closed my eyes. The news talked about the snow, but they didn’t mention how an Alpha had left his mate to die.

When the oxygen had run out, the thing that kept me conscious wasn’t the fear of death. It was the memory of Mortimer’s last message—the one dripping with disgust. For three years, I’d been naive enough to think that if I just did my duty as a Luna, the mating bond would eventually make him care.

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