Third Person's POV Anna's claws tapped idly against the crystal vase as she adjusted the moon-white blossoms, refusing to look up. The dim lanternfire of the Moonvale ancestral hall flickered across her face, throwing long shadows like fangs across the table. "Relax," she murmured finally, voice thin and sharp as a thorn. "He isn't dead. Killing a wolf outright is nothing. Leaving him half-alive, half-broken... that is the true art of torment." Everyone in the Sanchez bloodline understood that truth. No pack on the continent knew better than they did. Once, they tortured Raya that way. Magnus had repaid them in the exact same currency. And now Anna simply returned the cycle. Aysel hissed, "What do you want, Anna?" Anna plucked a single petal from the flower, rolling it between her fingers as if she were grinding bone. "What do I want? I want someone else to hurt as I do." Ever since Conor Sanchez-her mate-became a vegetative shell, and her son Caleb's manhood had been shattered beyond healing, her life had plunged straight into the abyss. Her authority had been stripped, her access to the Sanchez resources restricted to the bare minimum needed to keep her mate and son's bodies breathing. The wolves who once groveled before her now recoiled like she carried rot. Inside the Sanchez estate, every smirk was a blade, every order a humiliation. She existed like a ghost in the ancestral den and the sterile, disinfectant-soaked hospital corridors. Even her body felt as though it were wilting from the inside out. But the deepest wound? Her own blood family had cast her out. She had once lifted them into prosperity by marrying into the dominant Sanchez line of Shadowbane. They had forced her to break up with the male she once loved, had leeched off her for years like starved vampires. And now-because Magnus had unleashed vengeance upon them-they blamed her. Her parents gazed at her with disappointment; her siblings with hate so sharp they cut ties entirely.They hated her. How laughable. On the worst nights, Anna even thought it might be better if her mate and son died. At least that misery would end. But Magnus... Magnus was too calculated. Too merciless. He kept them breathing intentionally. Anchors of flesh and pain. A punishment designed for her-body and spirit. She should have seen it coming. Shadowbane's Alpha, born of a cursed bloodline, a wolf who had once torn through his own father's influence... of course he would never spare those who had touched Raya or hurt the pup she raised. Anna had long since reached her breaking point. Other branches of the Sanchez pack-Kurt's line, Lyall's, Rollo's, even Accalia's-didn't dare strike. They wanted to live. They needed absolute certainty to challenge Magnus Sanchez. Without it, even an attempt meant death. But she dared. Better to die swiftly than keep existing like this. Magnus was cautious, always. The ancestral estate was her only chance. No one would suspect that the invisible, meek, chastened Anna could bite. Her son Caleb was already smuggled abroad. Before acting, she had even considered killing Conor-her comatose mate. But when she lifted the oxygen mask, her hands trembled. She put it back. Death was too merciful. Let him suffocate on life instead. Her vendetta with Raya and her young son had been sparked by Conor anyway.When Anna first entered the Sanchez family, she had tried-truly-to accept her fate and live with Conor Sanchez. He had Shadowbane looks, soft manners, a polished gentleness that deceived even her for a time. But soon his true nature bled through-his wandering heat, his lust, the rot beneath the silk. Worst of all? He preyed on pack sisters. First Johanna. Then Raya. Johanna had Lyall Sanchez protecting her and escaped unscathed. Raya had no one-her parents gone, her mate Ulric Sanchez chasing Ivy abroad and avoiding the divorce Raya begged for. Conor's interest in Raya grew, twisted, consumed him. He whispered her name even in his sleep, a wolf stuck on a forbidden scent. But Raya-cold, proud, cracked in spirit-still rejected him. Anna watched him get humiliated again and again. She enjoyed it. Until the night he chased Raya down the staircase, and she fell-blood, bone, and broken howl echoing through the hall. That was when Anna's stomach turned. She struck out-not at Conor, the true source of her disgust- but at Raya. She needed a target. A weaker wolf. Someone she could tear without consequence. She led others to beat Raya in front of the entire Sanchez pack, the she-wolf still fresh out of healing. Raya was alone, already a favorite prey in the household. What harm was there in Anna joining the circle? Everybody else did.Her sympathy rotted. Her cruelty flourished. Raya's pup-Magnus-had been a small wolf then, a furious little Rafe cub. It took several full-grown wolves to pin him down. His eyes-wild, feral-burned with a hellfire that promised blood. That gaze should have frightened Anna. Instead, it thrilled her. She tasted power in the cruelty, control in the violence, pleasure in determining another wolf's suffering. The shift inside her was irreversible. Even when she did not raise a claw, the cold-shoulder tactics, the pack's deliberate invisibility toward Raya and her son, were enough to scar them. Anna poured all her rage, bitterness, and resentment into tormenting those weaker than her. Ironically, after she became truly trapped in the Sanchez household, she grew calmer. Abuse dulled her restlessness. It was the law of the pack, she told herself. The strong feast. The weak bleed. "Enough!"