The wolves in the treeline didn't growl.
They didn't snarl, bare their teeth, or issue any commands.
They simply stood—silent, still, obedient.
Waiting.
The man at their center moved with surgical precision. Every step was measured, deliberate. He wore black from neck to ankle, save for the white gloves that covered his long fingers. His skin was pale. His mouth thin and unsmiling.
But it was his eyes that chilled me to the bone.
Not silver. Not gold.
Glass.
Reflective. Empty.
Unnatural.
He stopped just outside the circle of firelight.
"Quinn Vale," he said smoothly. "And Alpha Jace Thorn. What a reunion."
I stepped in front of Rowan instinctively, growling low in my throat. "Don't come any closer."
Jace shifted behind me, just enough to widen our defensive stance.
Voss smiled faintly. "No need for dramatics. If I wanted to harm the child, I would have done it long before now."
"You already did," Jace said. "You put something in him. Something that's trying to take over."
"I didn't put anything into him," Voss replied calmly. "I simply unlocked what was already there."
My pulse spiked. "What do you mean?"
He tilted his head. "Do you truly believe this happened by chance? That an exiled Omega and a mind-wiped Alpha just happened to produce the strongest bloodline seen in a century?"
My heart pounded. "We're fated."
"Fated," Voss echoed, almost amused. "A poetic word. Comforting, even. But tell me—what is fate, if not a sequence of carefully placed choices?"
Jace took a step forward, his scent spiking with threat. "Say what you came to say, or I'll tear your throat out."
Voss met his gaze without flinching.
"Very well."
He raised a small black device from his pocket and tapped it once.
A holographic screen blinked to life between us, displaying a file labeled:
"Subject Genesis: Controlled Bond Trial - Pair A12"
Quinn Vale + Jace Thorn
"What is this?" I asked, throat dry.
Voss's voice remained calm. "It's the record of your match. Or rather, the match we orchestrated."
Silence.
My blood ran cold.
"You're lying," I whispered.
"Am I?" Voss asked. "Do you recall the day you first felt the bond forming? The pain in your chest, the sudden draw toward Jace? Did you think it was natural?"
"It was natural," I growled. "We grew up together—"
"And what better cover than childhood proximity?" he replied. "Your DNA was compatible. The traits we needed were already present. All we had to do was arrange the right circumstances—one heat, one moon, one moment."
Jace stood frozen.
I looked back at him.
His face had gone blank.
As if something inside him had shattered quietly.
"No," I breathed. "That night… that bond… it was real. You can't manufacture a mate bond."
"You can't," Voss agreed. "But we can stimulate the conditions in which one forms. And with the right chemical triggers, even an unwilling Alpha will respond to an Omega in heat."
I felt the world tilt beneath me.
"You drugged us."
"You call it violation. We call it evolution."
I lunged.
Jace caught me mid-strike, arms around my waist.
"Not now," he growled. "He wants you to react."
Voss merely stepped back, unfazed.
"Why tell us this?" Jace demanded. "Why not just take Rowan and disappear like you planned?"
"Because I need you to understand what he is," Voss said. "Your son is not just the product of fated love. He is the first successful outcome of a controlled Alpha-Omega pairing. And he is waking up."
Rowan whimpered behind me.
I turned just as his body tensed.
His eyes flickered gold-black.
Voss smiled.
"You can't stop the activation. It's already begun. But I will offer you a choice."
He raised the device again.
A timer appeared on the hologram:
60:00:00 — Time until Full Shift Completion
"I'll be at the Hollow Spire when the countdown ends," he said. "Bring the boy to me, and I will stabilize him. Fight me… and you may lose him forever."
The screen vanished.
The wolves around him turned as one and disappeared into the woods.
Voss bowed slightly.
And then he was gone.
Jace and I stood in stunned silence, Rowan clinging to my leg like a ghost.
His skin was clammy. His pupils dilated. His instincts flickering like a dying candle.
I dropped to my knees.
"Rowan, baby, can you hear me?"
He nodded faintly.
I pressed my forehead to his.
"We're going to fix this. I swear it."
We didn't speak as we broke camp and moved deeper into the rogue lands.
Neither of us had the strength.
The revelation clung to me like ice on my spine.
Not fated.
Not natural.
Engineered.
Had everything I felt been a lie?
Was my love just a reaction to a serum?
Or worse—was his?
I glanced at Jace as we walked.
He didn't look back.
But I could feel his pain.
And his guilt.
We reached an old safehouse by nightfall.
One of Milo's rogue contacts had stashed it in the cliffs of the western ridge—hidden from both pack scouts and rogue patrols.
Inside, it was dusty but solid.
We built a fire.
Laid Rowan down with the healer's last vial beside him.
He looked smaller than ever.
Too small to carry the weight of generations.
Too small to be caught in a war of blood and memory.
"I don't care what he said," Jace muttered, finally breaking the silence. "You're still my mate."
I didn't respond.
"Even if they pushed us together. Even if they arranged it. That doesn't change what I feel."
"Doesn't it?" I whispered.
He turned to me.
Eyes fierce. Voice raw.
"I chose you, Quinn. Even if they manipulated the moment, even if they built the storm, I walked into it."
"You don't remember walking into it," I snapped. "That's the problem."
"I'm here now."
"And what if they programmed that too?"
He flinched.
And I hated myself for saying it.
But the doubt was poison in my gut, and I didn't know how to purge it.
Rowan moaned in his sleep.
We rushed to his side.
His skin shimmered again—light crawling beneath his veins, his scent warping with every breath.
"He's close," Jace said. "The shift is coming."
"We can't take him to Voss."
"No."
"But if we don't…"
Jace looked at me.
"Then we find another way."
I swallowed hard.
"There's one person," I said slowly. "Someone older than the council. Someone who trained with the blood monks before the packs rose."
"Who?"
I met his eyes.
"My father."