Natalie’s POV The air in the pack house has always smelled like pine and burning sage, but tonight it was different. It smelled like sweat and desire. Jensen had me pinned against the door, his hand around my throat. Not hurting, but claiming. “Natalie,” he growled, voice like thunder under my skin. “You’re mine tonight.” I didn’t get a word out before his mouth crashed into mine, stealing every thought I had left. It was our anniversary. The night he’d found me, a frozen, broken thing in the snow. The night the Alpha of the Nightfang Pack brought the defective stray into his den. His mouth came down on mine, hard and insistent. I kissed him back because it was the only language we had left that didn’t require a wolf to speak. Then his phone rang. He snarled, but he answered. I saw the name: Felix. His Beta and best friend. “Jensen, have you lost your damn mind? You—” “Old Tongue. Now.” I was not supposed to understand it by ear. But I… I heard it. Always had. It was why they called me “Crazy.” Why they looked at me with fear, then fury, when they found out I wasn’t theirs on my eighteenth birthday. Just a crazy wolfless freak. My mind, trained and tortured by a lifetime of listening, translated Felix’s words instantly. “You took Sharon as your true mate? After everything? After she left you for that rogue? After she spat on your mark? Tell me you’re joking.” Jensen’s reply was calm. Horribly, terribly calm. “She’s sick, Felix. The Moon Sickness is in her blood. The healers give her weeks, maybe less. Her last wish was to make the bond official. To give our story a proper end.” “An end?” Felix sounded like he was choking. “And Natalie? What is she? The warm body in your bed until your true mate passes? She has nothing, Jensen. No wolf, no family. She gave you everything; she pulled you back from the silver sickness when our own healers gave up! What does she get?” “She won’t know,” Jensen said, and the ice in his voice finally reached my heart, freezing it solid. “She can’t understand the Old Tongue. As long as the pack stays silent, she’ll never know. Once Sharon is at peace, I’ll make things right with Natalie. Everything will be fine.” A hollow, bitter laugh from Felix. “You really believe she’s sick? Sharon is a lot of things, but dying isn’t one of them. She’s as healthy as a winter wolf.” “Enough.” Jensen’s tone held the finality of a slamming cell door. He ended the call. The silence that followed was louder than any howl. He turned back to me, his gaze softening, the beautiful gold in his eyes warming to something like affection. He saw my pale face, my wide, unblinking eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his thumb stroking my cheek. The concern was genuine. That was the worst part that hurt more than any lie. He could lie to Felix, lie to the pack, but in this moment, he wasn’t lying to me. He was worried… worried about the wrong thing. About my health but not my bleeding heart. I wanted to shake him and tell him I knew what he just said, but I just shook my head. “I… don’t feel well,” I whispered, the truth tasting like the bitter herbs I used for fever. He frowned, his forehead pressing against mine. “A headache? Do you need anything for that?” I shook my head, my throat sealed shut. His phone buzzed again on the table—a text this time. He glanced down, and his whole body stiffened. The shift was instantaneous. The lover was gone, replaced by the Alpha, his senses snapping to a threat I couldn’t perceive. “Rogues. On the southern border,” he said, already pulling his shirt on, the fabric snagging on the rough scars my salves had faded but never erased. “I have to go. Rest. I’ll send Mara to sit with you.” He was out the door in an instant, leaving me alone in the room that suddenly felt as hollow as my chest. I waited until his footsteps faded. Then I let the tears fall. I’d seen the message. It wasn’t pack business. It was from Sharon. “Jensen, the pain is back. Please come.” My nails dug into my palms. The sharp sting was the only thing that felt real. She won’t know. She can’t understand. He had married her. Bonded with her, Sharon Summers. The real daughter of the Summers Pack. The she-wolf with a spirit as sharp as her claws. I was left to bleed out on the mountain five years ago because they discovered the truth at my Moon Ceremony. On my eighteenth birthday, under the full moon, they found out I had no wolf, and I was called, “Wolfless. A defect.” My parents conducted a secret blood test, and it revealed that I was a switch, not their true daughter. Their real heir, Sharon, was brought home—a fierce wolf-born, her hatred for me was instant. My life was erased. My room, my place, all given to her. Then the punishments began: the airless root cellar that became my new room and the silver-tipped whip that burned my skin enough to tear but not kill me, while my adoptive parents simply closed the door and turned up the music. After a year, I ran. Filled with scars of silver that weakened me, I fled into the winter forest and collapsed in the snow near the Nightfang border, my blood staining it pink. That’s when he found me. Jason Nightfang, the alpha of the Nightfang pack. He didn’t see a monster. He saw a scarred woman who needed help, and it was only later we found out who I was. The Last True Transcriber. While other packs had scholars who studied the Old Script, guessing at meanings, I… I heard its true voice. My transcriptions were flawlessly, terrifyingly accurate. For five years, I loved him with every silent, human beat of my heart. I nursed him through a silver poisoning so severe the healers said he’d never walk again. I used the only currency I had—my knowledge of medicine, my stubbornness—to find a cure, bargaining with a rogue healer they called the Witch Doctor. The price was high. A piece of me I could never get back. But I paid it anyways without feeling any regrets until now. He lived. He thrived. And he promised me, on this night, we would finally be official. Instead, he bonded with the woman who tried to erase me from existence. My hand was steady as I picked up my phone. I navigated to the encrypted number I’d been given three moons ago after transcribing a trade agreement with the Greycrest Pack. Their head archivist had watched me work, her eyes wide. She’d seen me flinch at a whisper no one else could hear, and my pen had corrected a glyph everyone else had misread for generations. “Greycrest Archives,” a calm voice answered. “This is Natalie Summers,” I said, my voice clear, devoid of the usual tremor. “I accept the position of Lead Transcriber and Archival Healer. I require immediate sanctuary and a contract of sole discretion.” A sharp intake of breath. “The Last Transcriber… We have heard about you. Your terms are accepted; we will send an escort.”