Chapter 3

Stella POV

The television mounted on the wall was playing the morning news. "Breaking News," the human reporter announced. "A massive ten-car pile-up has occurred on the interstate. The accident has been traced to a critical failure in the auto-driving system developed by the Blood Moon Corporation." My vision was beginning to swim. The Lycan blood was now invading my liver and kidneys. Were it not for the System's intervention, I would be screaming. The door opened. Kaelen stormed in, rubbing his temples, the lines of exhaustion carved deep around his eyes. "The human press is a pack of jackals," he complained, pacing the length of the room. "I have to spend millions to bury this story. I need to find human contractors to absorb the blame." Selene followed him in, biting into an apple with a crisp snap. "Do not vex yourself, Kaelen," she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I only tweaked the base code last week for a bit of sport. I put in a backdoor to make the vehicles accelerate on a yellow light. It is not my fault their reflexes are so sluggish." I slowly turned my head on the pillow to look at her. She had just confessed to orchestrating a fatal incident for her own amusement. Kaelen stopped pacing. He looked at Selene. He did not shout. He did not use his Alpha's Command. He walked over and stroked her hair. "You must be more discreet, Selene. The human authorities can be tiresome. But do not concern yourself. We will simply offer the victims' families a larger sum. Humans are easily placated with money." A wave of nausea churned in my stomach. This was the Alpha of the Blood Moon Pack, a man who regarded human lives as little more than an inconvenience to be swept aside. I reached into the bedside drawer and pulled out my silver laptop. My fingers felt heavy, numb, but a deep-seated memory of motion took over. I opened a secure terminal. "System," I commanded silently. "Override local network security. Apply high-dimensional data extraction." "Initiating quantum decryption," the System replied, its tone unchanging. "Target's local firewalls have been rendered inert." Her digital footprints were laid bare. The logs of her tampering with my vehicle. The backdoor code for the public auto-driving system. Seven years of encrypted banking records, detailing how she had been laundering Pack funds for the Rogues. Kaelen noticed the screen's glow. He strode over and slammed the laptop shut, the lid narrowly missing my fingers. "What do you think you are doing?" he demanded. "We are contending with a public relations catastrophe, and you are indulging in idle distractions? You are utterly useless." Selene watched from behind him, a faint, knowing smile on her lips. "Let her have her games, Alpha. My personal servers are fortified. A million years would not be enough time for her to breach them." She was taunting me with my own powerlessness. I looked Kaelen straight in the eye. His scent of storm and pine, once a comfort, now felt like a suffocating shroud. I opened the laptop again. I dragged the collected files into a single, heavily encrypted folder. I attached it to an email. I set the recipients: The National Human Police Directorate, and the High Council of Werewolf Elders. I set a dead-man's switch, a simple timer that would broadcast the files in precisely three days, at nine in the morning, to coincide with the opening of the stock market. I pressed the enter key. "What are you writing?" Kaelen asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. "Nothing," I said, my voice devoid of warmth. "I am composing my will." Kaelen rolled his eyes and let out a harsh, barking laugh. "Still playing the martyr," he said, shaking his head. "You are impossible. Inform me when you decide to behave like a rational adult." He grabbed his coat and walked out. Selene followed, blowing me a theatrical kiss before shutting the door. I leaned back against the pillows, each breath now a conscious effort. "Timer set," the System confirmed. Three days after my heart stopped, every dirty secret they had buried would detonate right in their faces. They had no idea their countdown had already begun. I closed my eyes and began to wait.