The transition was not a tunnel of light or a heavenly chorus. It was a violent, flickering system reboot. One moment, the icy weight of the Black-Basin River was crushing the life out of Elara's lungs, and the next, she was gasping for air against a pillow that smelled of lavender and stale coffee. The silence of the room was so absolute that it felt loud. There was no sound of rushing water, no grinding of metal, and no scent of Julian's cold, expensive cologne.
Elara sat up abruptly, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She expected to feel the agonizing ache of the snapped mate bond, that hollow void in her soul where her connection to Julian had been ripped away. Instead, she felt a dull, dormant thrum. It was there. The bond was intact. It was a faint, golden tether that hummed with a deceptive sense of safety.
Her hands shook as she reached for the phone on her nightstand. The device felt heavy, its sleek surface cool against her skin. She tapped the screen, and the light blinded her for a second. When her vision cleared, the numbers burned into her retinas.
February 20, 2024.
She stared at the date until her eyes blurred. This was the morning of the Silver Crescent pack audit, two years before the trial, two years before her social death. She was back in her apartment in the Basalt Quarter of the Silver-Glass Province. The air was warm, filtered through the high-end ventilation system of a city that never stopped breathing.
Suddenly, her vision spasmed. A sharp, violet light flared in her pupils, and the world shifted. It was as if a veil had been torn away, revealing the raw architecture beneath reality. When she looked at the phone again, she didn't just see the time. Small, translucent boxes of text floated around the device.
Device: Obsidian-7. Integrity: 100 percent. Last Sync: 4:00 AM. Encryption: Standard Vane Global Protocol.
Elara blinked, but the boxes remained. She looked around her bedroom, and the metadata of her life flooded her mind. The wooden desk in the corner was tagged as Solid Oak, Age: 4 years, Structural Integrity: 98 percent. The window showed the weather overlay: External Temp: 22 degrees Celsius, Wind Speed: 5 km/h, Truth Score: Verified.
It was her Neural Forensic Overlay. It wasn't just a hallucination. Her "Null" brain, the part of her that everyone said was broken because it couldn't shift into a wolf, had evolved into a biological supercomputer. She could see the hidden layers of the province. She could see the code that Julian used to govern their lives.
She stood up, her legs feeling like water. She walked to the full length mirror in the corner. The woman staring back at her was twenty-three, her skin glowing with a health that would be stripped away by months of prison rations. Her dark hair was messy, and her eyes were a deep, startling violet that shimmered with data streams before settling back into a deceptive brown.
Subject: Elara Vance. Species: Werewolf (Null). Status: Vital Signs Stable. Heart Rate: 110 BPM. Stress Level: Critical.
A chime echoed through the room, a sound that in her previous life had brought her joy. Now, it made her blood run cold. She looked at the phone. A message from Julian.
Good morning, my Luna. Don't forget the audit report for the Council today. I need the Crescent accounts to be perfect before the merger. I love you.
Elara felt a wave of nausea so strong she had to lean against the wall. She looked at the text, and the Overlay flickered.
Message Source: Julian Vane. Scent-Signature: Alpine Wood and Power. Truth Score: 12 percent. Analysis: Deceptive. Intent: Manipulation.
The "Truth Score" sat there in a bright, warning red. Twelve percent. In her first life, she would have ignored the red flags. she would have believed his words of love and spent twelve hours a day making sure his ledgers were spotless, never realizing she was polishing her own cage.
I am not your Luna, she whispered to the empty room, her voice raspy from a scream she hadn't yet uttered in this timeline.
She realized she had exactly six hours before she had to be at the Vane Global Spire. In her first life, those six hours had been spent on a final check of the audit. In this life, they would be spent on her first act of war.
She sat down at her computer, her fingers flying across the holographic keyboard. She didn't open the Silver Crescent ledgers. Instead, she accessed a hidden partition in her own cloud storage, one she had created as a backup for her personal research on forensic linguistics.
With her new sight, the encryption looked like child's play. She saw the weak points in the pack's firewall, the tiny gaps in the code where the ancient pack laws met the modern digital infrastructure. She began to move.
She initiated a "Ghost Trace" on Julian's private accounts. In the future, these accounts would be empty, scrubbed clean by his Truth Decay virus. But right now, in 2024, Julian was still arrogant. He didn't think anyone could track his bit-shifting maneuvers. He certainly didn't think a Null could do it.
As the data scrolled past her eyes, she saw the first thread of the "Truth Decay" conspiracy. It was a series of payments to a reclusive developer in the Shadow District. The payments were categorized as "Consulting Fees," but the metadata told a different story.
Destination: Black-Box Server 909. Purpose: Cognitive Override Algorithm. Status: Alpha Phase.
He had been planning it even then. He had been building the tool to rewrite her history while he was still sleeping in her bed.
Elara's eyes burned as she began to copy the files. She didn't send them to her pack email. She sent them to an encrypted hardware wallet she had purchased in secret months ago. This would be the start of her "Chain of Custody," the evidence that would eventually hang him in the High Court.
Suddenly, her door chime rang. Her heart skipped a beat. No one visited her this early.
She walked to the door, her Overlay activating automatically as she looked through the smart-glass. Standing in the hallway was a man she hadn't expected to see for another six months.
It was Silas, the Beta of the Shadow Pack. He was Xavier Thorne's right-hand man, a warrior with a face like scarred granite and eyes that missed nothing.
Subject: Silas. Species: Werewolf (Alpha-Beta). Affiliation: Thorne Intelligence. Scent-Signature: Cold Ash and Rain. Truth Score: 95 percent. Analysis: Vigilant.
Why was Xavier Thorne's man at her door two years early? In the original timeline, she hadn't met any of the Shadow Pack until she was already on trial.
Elara opened the door, her face a mask of professional neutrality. Silas looked at her, his nose wrinkling slightly as he caught her scent.
Ms. Vance, he said, his voice a low rumble. I have a message from my Alpha. He says the ledger you are currently auditing has a discrepancy that you might have missed.
Elara froze. How could Xavier Thorne know what she was auditing? She hadn't even opened the files yet in this timeline.
He also said, Silas continued, stepping closer so that only she could hear him, that if you want to see the real metadata of the Crescent merger, you should stop looking at the ledger and start looking at the man who gave it to you.
Silas handed her a small, black data-chip. Then, without another word, he turned and walked down the hallway, his steps silent despite his massive frame.
Elara closed the door and leaned against it, the data-chip cold in her hand. Her mind was racing. Xavier Thorne, the Kraken, the reclusive billionaire Alpha who supposedly stayed out of pack politics, was reaching out to her before she had even begun her revenge.
She walked back to her desk and slotted the chip into her drive. A single file appeared on her screen. It wasn't a spreadsheet or a document. It was a video file, dated from three years in the future.
Her breath hitched. It was a recording of her own trial. It was the moment Julian had rejected her.
But as she watched the video, her Overlay flared. The violet light in her eyes intensified until it was almost painful. The video was vibrating with a strange, gold frequency.
File Integrity: Corrupted. Source: Temporal Loopback. Warning: Truth Decay virus detected in file stream.
The video began to glitch. The image of Julian's face distorted, his golden eyes turning into voids of scrolling code. A voice, distorted and deep, echoed through her speakers.
You are not the only one who came back, Elara.
The screen went black, and the data-chip began to smoke, the hardware melting into a puddle of useless plastic. Elara sat in the silence of her apartment, the weight of the realization crashing down on her.
Julian wasn't her only enemy. And she might not be the only one with a plan to rewrite the future.
The cliffhanger hung in the air like a threat. She looked at her phone. Five hours until the audit. The game had changed before she had even finished her first move.