Carolynn POV: "Let go of my arm, Harper. Stop talking." I whispered, pulling back against my only friend in the compound. Her fingers only clamped down harder. Harper Sullivan, the club's fiery bartender, she leaned into my ear and hissed, "I'm telling you this because I feel sorry for you. Have you any idea what your husband of two years is doing? He's been unfaithful!" Then she hauled me out of the noisy biker bar and straight into the dimly lit upper corridor of the Iron Fangs MC Clubhouse. The air in this hallway smelled thick with worn leather, motor oil, and the heavy cedar scent of an Alpha. That scent belonged to the strongest wolf in California, the man who ran our garage businesses and ruled the highway corridor. By club law, a wolfless mechanic like me was not even allowed on this carpet. Only the half-stitched leather Property Patch over my heart—a secret badge marking me as the President's claimed woman—kept the armed Enforcers at the stairs from throwing me out into the dirt yard. We stopped in front of a heavy mahogany door that stood cracked open an inch. A soft, breathy laugh drifted through the gap, hitting my eardrums like a splash of freezing grease. "Goddammit, don't stand out here like a kicked dog." Her voice came out low and scraped raw. "Get in there and see it with your own eyes. Your husband has another woman in his lap right now—in his office, in this clubhouse, on club time. And you're out here knocking." She stepped aside to give me the door. My grease-stained, calloused hand shook as I raised it. I pressed my palm against the rough wood, my knuckles turning ash-gray from the pressure, and shoved the door wide open. The heavy hinges groaned loudly, shattering the quiet warmth inside the office. In the dim light, my eyes locked onto the wide black leather couch. A massive, broad-shouldered man in a black shirt sat there, his muscular arm wrapped protectively around a petite woman in a pristine white dress. An invisible fist closed around my heart, squeezing until my ribs ached. That man was my husband, the President of the Iron Fangs MC, Colt Mcclain. Cradled against his chest was Jetta Pratt, our spoiled Club Princess whose late father had died fighting for this pack. Her arms were looped around Colt's neck, and her cheek rested right against his leather vest-his Cut-pressing over the stitched wolf-head patch that proved he owned every rider and dollar in this territory. At the sound of the door, Jetta flinched like a startled rabbit. Then she lifted her head, her light brown eyes looking past Colt's shoulder to shoot me a cold, smug gleam. She deliberately rubbed her wavy chestnut hair against Colt's stubbled jaw, her voice trembling as if she might break in half. "Colt... did we disturb someone?" My throat felt packed with dry gravel. I balled my hands into tight fists at my sides, my skin turning ice-cold. Harper shook with rage beside me. She lunged a step forward, pointing a trembling finger at the couch. "Colt! Is this how you stay loyal to your fated Mate—the woman the Moon Goddess tied to your soul?" Colt finally turned his head. When his icy blue eyes met mine, a flicker of panic crossed his face before hardening into dark, brutal hostility. He did not push Jetta away. Instead, he leaned back against the cushions and draped his thick forearm over the armrest, looking down at me like a king inspecting trash on his boots. "Who gave you permission to walk down this hall?" Colt's voice dropped into a low, rumbling Alpha growl that vibrated in my chest bones and made my ears ache. Those seven words hit me like a bucket of ice water poured from head to toe, washing away two years of silent obedience in the garage pit. Jetta pressed a hand over the faded pink scar below her left collarbone and coughed weakly, leaning heavier against his chest. "Don't be mad at Carolynn, Colt. She just feels insecure without a wolf of her own..." Wolfless. That was the word on my pack registry, and the reason Jetta could bare her teeth at me and call it pity. Only it was a lie. I had been drinking herb tea thick enough to drown a scent since I was a kid—because the white wolf in my blood would have gotten me killed. So I kept her pressed down under engine grease, and let all of California believe the President of the Iron Fangs married a null. Colt's dark brows pulled together. His gaze dropped to my oil-stained work pants, and his lip curled in cruel disgust. "Take your friend and get out. Stop embarrassing yourself in my office." I stared straight into his cold face. A low-ranking wolf is supposed to drop their eyes and bare their neck when an Alpha barks, and I had spent two years looking at the floor. Not tonight. I held his gaze as the last warmth in my chest burned into dead ash. I raised my right hand and gripped the half-sewn Property Patch over my heart, the thick leather straining under my fingers. "Embarrassing myself?" My voice came out flat and steady, sounding like a stranger's. Colt's gaze froze on my fingers. The muscles in his forearm locked up like iron cables. "Then let's strip this fake skin right off," I said, speaking clearly into the dead silence of the room. "I want this patch off my vest, and I want our marriage contract torn up. Starting tonight, the woman who saved your life can have this seat in the open." The air in the office seemed to vanish. Colt's breath stopped short, a sudden, raw panic cracking through the fury in his blue eyes. Jetta's smug smile stiffened. She clearly never expected a lowly wolfless helper to give up the President's protection, and her fingers dug into Colt's shirt. Colt shot to his feet, his six-foot-four frame blocking the overhead light as a wave of suffocating Alpha pheromones flooded the room. In two long strides, he reached me, grabbed the collar of my leather vest, and yanked me up until my boots barely brushed the floor. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to?" he snarled against my face. "Take that crazy talk back right now!"

Carolynn POV: The twisted leather collar choked off my windpipe, forcing my chin up as Colt's furious face hovered inches from mine, his hot breath slamming against my skin. I did not kick or grab at his wrists. I let my weight hang from his fist, locking my clear amber eyes onto his icy blue ones, my voice colder than winter asphalt. "Take your hands off me." Colt's pupils shrank. The dead stillness in my eyes seemed to burn his skin, and his grip loosened by a fraction of an inch. I shoved both palms hard against his solid chest, breaking his hold, and stumbled back two steps. Standing straight, I brushed my hands down my wrinkled vest as if wiping off dirty motor oil. "You heard every word, Havoc," I said, using his road name—the blood-soaked title stitched on his shoulder that every outlaw on the interstate feared—instead of his given name. "Draw up the separation papers. I'll sign them." Colt's chest heaved. He swung his heavy biker boot and kicked the mahogany coffee table completely over. Glass and ashtrays shattered across the floorboards as he roared like a cornered beast. "In your dreams! Until I say you're done, you belong in this compound for the rest of your life!" A dry laugh escaped my throat. I turned and grabbed Harper's elbow. "We're leaving." I walked straight out the doorway without looking back. Cool night air blew in from the stairwell, clearing the heavy cedar scent that was suffocating my lungs. Heavy boots pounded the wood right behind me. Colt lunged into the corridor, his shadow swallowing mine as a low, feral growl rumbled in his throat, rattling the framed club photos on the wall. "Carolynn! Stop right there!" he barked, the Alpha command in his voice trying to force my knees to lock. His massive hand reached out, his fingers less than an inch from my shoulder, when a shrill, ragged scream tore out of the office behind him. "Ah—Colt! My heart... it's burning!" Jetta's voice cracked, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the floor. Colt froze in mid-stride. His outstretched hand hung in the air behind my back. I stopped walking and turned my head, watching the panic and hesitation war across his tight jaw. He only hesitated for half a second. He shot me one brief, conflicted look, then spun on his heel and bolted back into the office like a black hurricane. I stood in the hallway and watched him drop to his knees beside Jetta, scooping her frail body into his arms. "Jetta! Hang on! Breathe for me!" Colt's voice shook with a raw, naked terror he had never once wasted on me in two years. Jetta slumped against his leather vest, her face powdered pale, both hands clutching the dress over her chest. Everyone in the Iron Fangs knew that routine. Two years ago, during a highway ambush, she had taken a silver bullet meant for Colt—the only metal on earth that poisons a werewolf's blood and stops their body from healing. Because of that scar, the whole pack treated her like fragile glass. As Colt bent his head to check her pulse, Jetta opened her eyes halfway. Looking right over his broad shoulder, she curved her lips into a vicious, triumphant smile meant only for me. She dug her pale fingernails into the sleeve of Colt's jacket, clinging to him like a lifeline. "Colt... don't leave me alone... I can't breathe..." she whimpered softly, her eyes still glued to my face. Beside me, Harper sucked in a sharp breath and took a step forward to call out the fake act, but I caught her arm. "Let her put on her show," I said flatly, my stomach turning sour at the sight. "Faking a dying heart is the only way she knows how to keep him in the room." Colt did not notice Jetta's eyes at all. He lifted her effortlessly into his arms and bellowed toward the stairs, "Clear the damn hall! Get Doc to open the underground clinic right now!" Outlaw wolves cannot go to human hospitals where nurses draw blood and ask questions about silver burns, so the pack kept its own trauma room beneath the clubhouse. Colt charged out of the office carrying Jetta, brushing past me so fast the wind from his jacket stung my cheek. He did not spare me a single glance. The mix of his cedar scent and her cheap floral perfume faded down the stairs. Standing in the empty hallway, I felt a cold, hollow laugh bubble up in my chest. I had wasted two years of my life losing to a fraud who swallowed black-market stimulants every morning just to make her pulse race for the club doctor. I let go of Harper's arm and squared my shoulders, turning toward the back stairs that led out to the cramped garage bay where I slept. If Havoc refused to hand me my freedom, I would write the separation contract myself and slap it on his desk.

Carolynn POV: Colt's booming roar echoed down into the bar below, and within seconds, heavy biker boots thundered up the steps. Patched riders and prospects poured into the narrow corridor from the pool tables, choking the passage to the yard. Harper stepped in front of me to block the shoving crowd, her voice tight with worry as riders cursed and shouted around us. "What happened? Did Jetta's silver wound flare up again?" a burly rider wearing a Gamma patch—the pack's third-tier enforcers who handle highway brawls—barked as he shoved two younger prospects out of his way. The front rank hit the top of the stairs, found the office empty, and swung around to pile back down after their Alpha. Down at the foot of the stairwell the mob split down the middle, and every wolf in the hall dropped his chin, angling his throat away, yielding the path to their Alpha President out of pure genetic instinct. Colt had carried Jetta down before the rush and was still shouldering his way toward Doc's iron door through the jam of bodies. Half-carried down the last steps by the crush, I fetched up against the cold brick wall at the bottom landing and watched Colt's jaw clench as if he wished he could take her pain into his own body. Right as he reached the clinic door, a panicked rider shoved backward into my shoulder. My boot slipped off the bottom step, and I pitched sideways toward a pile of scrap transmission parts stacked by the back door. I threw my hands out to catch the wall, grabbing nothing, and my right knee slammed hard onto the jagged teeth of a rusted iron gear. The heavy metal tore straight through my canvas work pants, splitting the skin down my shin. Warm blood gushed out instantly, sending a wave of nausea up my throat as my leg throbbed like it had been hit with a sledgehammer. I gasped for air, gripping my torn knee on the concrete floor as the thick, metallic smell of fresh blood rose into the air. Werewolves live by their noses, and an Alpha's sense of smell is sharper than a hunting hound's. Fresh blood in a pack house is like a flare fired in the dark. I raised my head and looked at Colt, less than three paces away. His heavy boots faltered for a split second. His nostrils flared, and his icy blue eyes shifted half an inch toward my shadow against the wall. He smelled my blood. He knew I was down on the floor. Then Jetta let out a soft, pathetic moan against his collar. Colt snapped his gaze forward. He did not stop, he did not look down at his bleeding wife, and he did not slow his stride. He kicked open the heavy iron door to Doc's underground clinic and disappeared inside with the woman who had saved his life. The rest of the pack surged after him, crowding the clinic entrance. Nobody looked twice at a wolfless mechanic bleeding in the dirt. In a society ruled by bloodlines, I was just a spare wrench left on the floor. "God, Carolynn—you're bleeding everywhere!"Harper dropped to her knees beside me and dug a folded cotton handkerchief out of her jacket pocket, pressing it hard against my shin. Staring at the closed clinic door, I bit down hard on my lower lip, my mouth twisting into an ugly, bitter curve. "Leave it," I muttered, pushing Harper's hand away and using the brick wall to haul myself up onto one good leg. "It's just skin." Compared to the freezing hole in the center of my chest, a torn shin barely registered. I limped out into the moonlit courtyard alone. Twenty custom choppers sat parked in neat rows across the gravel, their chrome pipes gleaming coldly, with Colt's massive black bike holding the sheltered spot right by the main porch. Pushing open the corrugated iron door of the back garage, I limped past the grease pit where I rebuilt the pack's engines and went straight to the rusty metal cabinet in the corner. No pack Healer was coming to close my wound, and no Alpha was here to lick the cut clean. I uncorked a bottle of cheap antiseptic powder and dumped it straight onto the torn flesh. My whole body jerked at the searing heat. I bit my lower lip until I tasted copper on my tongue, refusing to make a sound in the empty shop. Grabbing a roll of gauze, I wrapped it tight around my calf, tied off the ends with shaking fingers, and leaned my damp forehead against the cold iron lift until my breathing slowed. The single yellow bulb hanging from the rafters buzzed overhead. I had lived in the grease and shadows of this garage long enough. Pushing off the lift, I limped over to my scarred wooden workbench and swept a pile of carburetor blueprints onto the concrete floor. From the bottom drawer, I pulled out a sheet of thick, yellowed parchment—the traditional contract paper outlaws used to seal pack oaths that carried the weight of blood. I uncapped a heavy black pen and pressed the nib to the top of the sheet, writing in steady block letters: CONTRACT OF SEPARATION AND TERRITORY RELEASE. Every stroke of the pen felt like a heavy weight dropping into my stomach, yet my hand did not shake once. If Colt would not let me walk out the front gate, I would carve my own exit.