I could feel it the moment I stepped into Hayley's den—the air was wrong, layered with a forced sweetness that made my instincts bristle beneath my skin. In our world, every scent carried meaning, every heartbeat a signal through the pack bond, and hers screamed desperation dressed up as devotion.
Plastic alteration rituals were dangerous in wolf society; the body remembered what the soul tried to rewrite. Yet Hayley sat there like she had remade herself for a mating ceremony, her face eerily echoing Anastasia's features in a way that unsettled even my Alpha instincts. I took a slow breath, grounding myself, forcing the dominance in my blood to stay calm as I studied her across the room.
