Aria's POV

The venom would reach my mother's heart in four hours.

Dr. Mercer gave me the estimate in a low voice, as if speaking softly could make it less final. Behind the glass partition, two nurses cut through Mom's jeans and secured her leg beneath the bright surgical lights. The skin above her ankle was swollen around two neat punctures, and dark veins had already begun creeping toward her knee.

A monitor gave a sharp warning beep before settling into an uneven rhythm.

I kept my eyes on her face. She looked too still.

The jeans were her favorite pair, the ones she had worn to my house that morning while carrying a pot of chicken soup. She had left it on my porch because I had missed her message about dinner. Her last text was still waiting at the top of my phone.

Mom: Soup's on your porch. Don't work too late again.

I locked the screen and turned to Dr. Mercer.

"What do you need?"

"The general antivenom is slowing the spread, but it won't neutralize the venom."

"Then give her more."

He glanced toward the treatment room. "This isn't ordinary venom. Moonsnake venom binds to the lunar signature of the familiar that produced it. We need the matched antidote."

"The snake was Nyx."

His expression tightened. "Sera Lennox's familiar?"

I nodded.

"Then Sera has to authorize the release."

She could.

My husband was with her.

Cole answered on the fourth ring. Music played in the background, followed by laughter and the unmistakable pop of a champagne cork.

"Aria, this isn't a good time."

"My mother was bitten by Nyx."

The music faded. A door closed, and his voice became clearer.

"What?"

"She's at Northern General. The doctors need Sera to authorize the matched antidote."

"Is Mara conscious?"

"No. They've given her four hours."

He went quiet.

I knew that silence. Cole used it whenever he wanted to sound thoughtful before making a decision as Alpha of Ashford Pack. It was the same pause he used during pack disputes, when everyone waited for him to decide whose side mattered more.

Water ran somewhere behind him.

"Cole?"

A woman's voice called from the other side of the door.

"Cole, did you take my shirt?"

My grip tightened around the phone.

He had left the day before for a territorial development retreat, claiming Ashford needed new investors and infrastructure contracts. He had warned me that his schedule would be too full for regular calls.

Apparently, he had found time to take off Sera Lennox's shirt.

"Put her on," I said.

"Aria..."

"Give Sera the phone."

"She's shaken. Nyx came back covered in blood, and Sera is still trying to understand what happened."

"My mother is dying while you comfort the familiar's owner."

His tone hardened. "Watch your tone."

Behind the glass, a nurse lifted Mom's arm to adjust the IV. Her hand slipped from the nurse's grasp and fell against the mattress.

"Sera only needs to authorize the release," I said. "It takes one button."

"I know how the registry works."

"Then help her press it."

There was a muffled exchange. Cole said something I couldn't make out, then his voice changed when he spoke to Sera. It was patient and warm, the way it had once been with me.

A moment later, Sera came closer to the phone.

"Is Mara all right?"

"No."

"Oh, Goddess." Her breath caught delicately. "Nyx has never hurt anyone before."

"We can discuss that later. Release the antidote now."

"I'm not refusing." Her voice trembled. "I just need a minute to calm down."

"She may not have a minute."

"Don't speak to her like that," Cole said.

I stared at Mom through the glass. Her face had turned gray beneath the harsh hospital lights, and the dark veins had reached past her knee.

"Sera's family is about to fund Ashford's eastern development," Cole continued. "If you file an official familiar-attack report before we know what happened, you could destroy months of negotiations."

"My mother is dying, and you're worried about an investment?"

"I'm asking my Luna to think beyond her own panic."

"I asked for medicine."

"You accused Sera before she had the chance to explain. Promise me you won't involve the Sovereignty or file a complaint, and she will be in a better position to cooperate."

"You want me to bargain for my mother's life."

"I want you to stop escalating this."

Sera's voice came softly from the background. "Cole, don't let her threaten me."

"She won't," he said at once.

That was the moment something in me went cold.

Not because he had chosen Sera. I had spent six years watching him do that in smaller ways: at dinners, during pack meetings, whenever his mother needed someone to blame. I had learned to excuse every choice as duty and every disappointment as the price of being an Alpha's wife.

But my mother was behind a glass wall, her heart failing by the minute, and Cole was asking me to protect the woman whose familiar had poisoned her.

"You've already chosen," I said.

"Aria, don't be dramatic."

I ended the call.

Dr. Mercer was waiting beside the emergency terminal. "Use your Luna credentials."

I pressed my thumb against the reader. The Ashford crest appeared, then flashed red.

AUTHORITY NOT RECOGNIZED.

I tried again.

The same message returned.

"That can't be right."

Dr. Mercer glanced at the treatment room. "Your Alpha may have changed your permissions."

"My mother is dying."

"I know."

"Then find another reserve."

He hesitated.

"Where?"

"There is one place that stores restricted lunar medicines outside ordinary pack control."

"Who has it?"

"The Moonless Court."

I had heard the name in warnings whispered after midnight. The Court belonged to the buried district beneath the northern city, where old territorial chambers had survived beneath layers of steel and concrete. Officially, it no longer existed. Unofficially, it held the kind of power that made official institutions look away.

"How do I get there?"

"You don't."

"Dr. Mercer."

"They won't let you walk out just because you're desperate."

"Then I'll give them another reason to let me leave."

Twenty-seven minutes later, I descended beneath the Old Quarter.

The driver refused to take the car past a sealed stone archway. Beyond it, blue lunar lamps burned along walls carved before the Sovereignty had a name. My phone lost its signal halfway down the first stairwell, and the deeper I went, the heavier the air became.

Two guards stood before the final door.

"My mother was bitten by a Moonsnake," I said. "I need the matched antidote."

One guard looked at the hospital band around my wrist. "No one enters during containment."

"I don't need to stay. I need the medicine."

"Then you need to leave."

A roar shook dust from the stone ceiling.

Both guards turned toward the door.

I moved before they could block me again, slipping between them and pushing into the chamber.

The room beyond was vast and dim. Three wolves stood against the walls, keeping as far away as possible from the man at the center without abandoning him completely.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a black shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. A broken silver restraint hung from one wrist, and the remaining chain dragged over the stone as he turned.

No one tried to stop him.

That frightened me more than the broken metal.

His head lifted.

Gold filled his eyes.

He crossed the room before I could retreat. One hand closed around my wrist while the other braced beside my head, trapping me against the door. His body stopped just short of mine, but the heat coming off him pressed against my skin as if he had already touched me everywhere that mattered.

"Who let you in?"

His voice was rough enough to scrape along my throat.

I caught the scent of cedar, metal, and something darker beneath it - blood, moonlight, and grief. His grip was firm, not painful, but the strength in his fingers made it clear that if he wanted to hold me there, I would not be going anywhere.

My gift stirred before I could stop it.

I had spent years reading fractures in bone and drawing pain from injured wolves. The damage inside this man was nothing like a simple break. It was buried deep behind his ribs, splintered and old, as though grief had fused itself to the bone.

I should have been trying to escape.

Instead, I lifted my free hand and pressed it to his chest.

The chamber disappeared.

Moonlight flashed over blood. A woman's hand slipped from his grasp, and grief tore through me with such force that I forgot how to breathe. Beneath my palm, his heart stumbled once, then slowed.

The pressure in the room collapsed.

His body stopped an inch from mine. His eyes dropped to our joined hands before returning to my face. The madness in them had faded, but what replaced it was no safer.

Interest.

"What did you do to me?" he asked.

"My mother was bitten by a Moonsnake. I need the matched antidote."

His thumb shifted against the inside of my wrist.

"Which familiar?"

"Nyx. Sera Lennox's."

Something cold passed through his eyes.

"Sera refused to release it?"

"If she were willing to help, I wouldn't be here." I tried to pull free, but his hand remained around my wrist. "Can the Court help me or not?"

He released me.

"The Moonless Court does not grant favors freely."

"Name your price."

"What are you prepared to offer?"

"Anything."

His mouth curved slowly. "Fearless and naive. A dangerous combination."

"I said anything."

"You did."

He turned his head slightly. I could not hear anyone answer him, but a command passed through the room. One of the wolves straightened and hurried toward a side passage.

The stranger looked back at me.

"Breathe, little bone-reader. The antidote is already on its way."

I stared at him. "How did you know what I am?"

Before he could answer, my phone rang.

Dr. Mercer's name lit the screen.

"Aria, you did it!" Relief sharpened his voice. "The authorization came through. We'll administer the antidote as soon as it arrives. Ten minutes at most. Your mother is going to wake up."

My knees gave way.

The stranger caught me before I hit the floor, one arm locking around my waist. I grabbed the front of his shirt, my cheek nearly brushing his jaw as all the terror I had been holding back finally broke through.

"She'll live?" I whispered.

"Yes."

The certainty in his voice made me believe him.

When I tried to straighten, his arm stayed around me. His fingers rested against my racing pulse, while my palm remained over the hard, steady beat beneath his shirt.

Neither of us moved.

"What do I owe you?"

"You promised the Court anything."

"People say desperate things when their mothers are dying."

"Then you should be more careful about who hears them."

His thumb pressed lightly against my pulse.

A shiver moved through me, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold.

"When do you intend to collect?"

His gaze lowered briefly to my mouth.

"Saturday."