After My Mate Poisoned My Wolf for Three Years

I woke at three in the morning to a voice that wasn't mine.

Not an instinct. Not the pressure I'd been feeling since the wolfsbane burned. This was language. Clear and fierce and entirely its own.

*His scent means safety. I know you are afraid of that.*

I sat up so fast the blankets tangled around my legs. My heart slammed against my ribs. The room was dark except for the moonlight coming through the window. Buster lifted his head from the foot of the bed, ears forward.

I pressed two fingers to the mark on my neck. Still cold. Still hollow.

But the voice was there. Inside my mind. Separate from my thoughts but somehow part of them.

"Who are you?" I said aloud.

The silence stretched. Then:

*You already know. I've been here the whole time. My name is Selene.*

My breath caught.

I'd read about this. Every wolf had an inner wolf with its own name, its own voice. But I'd spent three years believing I would never have one. That I was broken. Incomplete.

Derek had made sure I believed that.

"You've been here," I repeated slowly. "The whole time."

*Yes.*

"Even when—"

*Even when he poisoned us. Even when he marked us and the bond went cold. Even when you thought you were alone.* Her voice wasn't gentle. It was sharp and certain. *I was compressed. Buried. But I was here.*

I pulled my knees to my chest. Buster moved closer and pressed against my side. His warmth was solid. Real.

"Why now?" I asked. "Why can I hear you now?"

*Because you burned the poison. Because you chose to fight instead of break. Because I'm strong enough now to reach you.*

I closed my eyes. The pressure in my chest—the thing I'd been feeling for days—suddenly made sense. It wasn't just my own anger. It wasn't just grief or rage or the hollow ache of the severed bond.

It was her.

"What are you?" I whispered.

Selene's presence shifted. I felt it like a physical thing. Enormous. Feral. Waiting.

*You'll see soon enough. When I surface, everyone will see.*

I didn't sleep after that.

I stayed awake with my back against the headboard and Buster's weight pressed against my ribs. I asked Selene questions. She answered some. Others, she ignored.

I learned she'd been aware the entire time Derek poisoned me. She'd felt every dose, every suppression, every deliberate weakening. She'd raged against it silently while I went through my days thinking I was defective.

I learned she'd known about Kade before I did. That his scent—dark amber and rain—had registered to her as something essential the first time he walked into the council room. That she'd been pulling at me every time he was near, trying to make me notice.

I learned she was furious. Not just at Derek. At the years we'd lost. At the wolf I should have been and wasn't allowed to become.

By the time dawn broke, I understood something I hadn't before.

I wasn't reclaiming my wolf.

She'd been fighting for me the entire time.

---

I found Kade in the council room at seven.

He looked up when I came in. His eyes went to my face. Something in his expression shifted.

"You didn't sleep," he said.

I closed the door behind me. "My wolf spoke to me last night."

Kade went very still.

I crossed the room and sat down across from him. "Her name is Selene. She's been there the whole time. Suppressed. But there."

He set down the document he'd been holding. "What did she say?"

I watched his face carefully. "That you've known. That your scent means something to her."

Kade didn't look away. He didn't deflect.

"How long have you known?" I asked.

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Since the summit four years ago."

The air between us changed.

"You knew I had a wolf," I said slowly. "Before I did."

"I knew you carried something suppressed," he said. "I didn't know how deeply it was buried. Or how long it had been that way."

"But you knew."

"Yes."

I pressed two fingers to the mark on my neck. The question I'd been avoiding for days finally surfaced. "What else did you know?"

Kade's jaw tightened. He didn't answer immediately.

I waited.

Finally, he said, "I knew your scent was wrong. Not bad. Wrong. Like something was masking it. I didn't know it was wolfsbane until you burned it and the scent changed."

"And now?"

"Now your scent is what it should have been from the beginning."

I wanted to ask what that meant. I didn't.

I just nodded and stood. "The tribunal is in two days. I need to prepare my testimony."

Kade watched me walk to the door. I felt his eyes on my back the entire way.

I didn't turn around.

---

Elara came to me that afternoon.

She knocked on the council room door and stepped inside without waiting for an answer. Her face was tight.

"Luna," she said. "I found something."

She handed me a folder. Inside was a photocopy of Derek's medical records. Dated the week before our marking ceremony.

I read the notation in his handwriting.

*Old Blackmoor records confirm Phillips bloodline. Wolf must not surface. Wolfsbane protocol begins night of marking.*

I read it again.

Then a third time.

He knew.

Before he marked me. Before the ceremony. Before any of it.

He knew I had a wolf. He knew what bloodline I carried. And he poisoned me from the very first night to make sure I would never find out.

I set the folder down carefully on the table.

My hands were steady.

"Add it to the tribunal packet," I said.

Elara hesitated. "Luna—"

"Add it," I said again.

She took the folder and left.

I sat alone in the council room and stared at the empty space where the notation had been.

Inside my mind, Selene's voice was quiet. Waiting.

I pressed two fingers to the cold mark on my neck.

Two days until the Rite.

Two days until Derek would have to answer for every single thing he'd done.

I could wait two more days.