Freya's POV Vaughn's question hit the air like a thrown blade. Before I could speak, Silas's voice cut across the room-cold, sharp, and final. "Enough, Vaughn. She has nothing to do with me anymore. Don't drag her into this. The medicine you gave me wasn't effective. Change it." His tone carried that Ironclad Alpha edge-quiet but absolute, the kind that made lesser wolves lower their gaze without command. Vaughn stared at him in disbelief. "Silas, you've already switched through half the damn pharmacy." And he wasn't wrong. I'd seen the pill bottles-too many, stacked like fallen stones in a ruined shrine. I remembered the way Silas's hands shook when he thought I wasn't looking, the tremor of a wolf pushed past his limits. His insomnia wasn't just sleeplessness. It was the weight of a bloodline curse. The kind that devours Alphas from the inside out. "Change it," Silas repeated. Just one clipped word, but the wolf beneath it snarled. Vaughn sighed, defeated. "Fine. I'll change it." I couldn't stay silent anymore. "That's it? You're not going to re-examine him? He's been on these medications for a while." Vaughn gave me a look-a knowing, almost pitying one. "All scans and evaluations were done. Silas has natural resistance to sedatives. Medication works differently on him." I remembered D-Territory. The dim lamplight. Silas sitting at the edge of the bed, back tense, swallowing pills one after another like he didn't believe any of them would work-and maybe he didn't. "Then is there anything besides medication?" I asked. Vaughn's gaze flicked to Silas. Then to me. And I understood that look far too well. I was the "treatment" he didn't dare say aloud.Silas grabbed my wrist-not roughly, but with a controlled desperation that sent a jolt through my wolf. "Don't," he said. "Don't pity me. Don't care about me. You've seen I'm under treatment. So now you can leave." His aura shifted-cool, distant, drawing a line I could feel in my bones. An Alpha withdrawing his territory from someone he once allowed too close. "I just-" I began. But he cut me off, voice low and taunting, the kind of taunt that hides a wound. "Just what? Are you about to say you still love me? That you regret ending things? That you want to come back?" My breath caught. I hated how easily he could still do that-press straight into the deepest, most vulnerable part of me. My silence was its own answer. His laugh was soft, humorless. "Then listen carefully, Freya. If you don't want me clinging to you again-stop caring. Stop looking at me like I matter." Each word landed heavily, as if he was trying to build a wall brick by brick between us, even as his eyes betrayed the chaos behind it. When I returned to the SkyVex apartment that night, Lana found me on the balcony, curled up on the lounge chair, staring at nothing. She sat beside me. "Rough day with Silas? Did he threaten you? Force anything?" "No," I murmured. "He just… said some things." "Let me guess." She crossed her arms. "You still can't let him go." I pressed my lips together. Could I call this feeling not being able to let go? Because the truth was cruelly simple: Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Silas in that cold, wind-bitten graveyard. His voice, low and fraying at the edges, telling me-If I lose control… if I become like him… then hit me. Break me. Kill me if you have to. A plea from a wolf terrified of becoming his father. I knew what the elder Whitmor Alpha had done. What madness and grief had turned him into. What scars he had carved into his own blood. And now Silas feared he would become that monster. Because of me. "Yes," I whispered. "I think I really can't let go of him. I let go of Caelum. That was easy. But Silas…" My voice tightened. "I can't seem to let go of him." Lana snorted. "Caelum was a bastard. Silas isn't. He's powerful, obsessive, and arrogant-sure. But apart from dragging you to that island, he's never hurt you." "Dragging me to the island was wrong," I said quietly. "Yeah, but he did it so you wouldn't run off to C-Territory half-healed. And he brought the entire Williams Family into the Capital just to help you. Freya, a man like Silas doesn't do that for anyone." I swallowed. Lana leaned back. "If Silas wanted to force you to stay with him, he has a hundred ways. None of them gentle. But he never used even one." "I know," I whispered. "He never did." "So," Lana said, her tone softening, "are things between you two really that broken? Are you truly unable to trust him again?" "I-" The word caught in my throat. If I truly couldn't trust him… then why had I gone to the Hall of Martyrs with him without hesitation? Why had I known without question that Silas would never harm me, even when his aura frayed and shadows circled his eyes? Lana sighed. "Trust is fragile. Once broken, it's hard to rebuild. But hard doesn't mean impossible. The real question is-what do you feel for him? And… is he worth giving your heart to again?"I stared out at the night sky over the Capital, the moonlight rippling across the rooftops like silver breath. My wolf stirred, quiet but restless. What do I feel?