Chapter 177

ALPHA DORIAN’S POV I had faced death before. I had watched warriors fall beside me, heard the snapping of bones and smelled the blood-soaked dirt of war. But nothing—nothing—prepared me for this. The creature before me was not Olivia. She looked like Olivia. Same face. Same body. But she wasn’t in there anymore. That girl—the one I once saw as a threat to be controlled, contained, studied—was gone. What stood before me now was something else entirely. Something ancient. Something terrifying. Her skin pulsed with light beneath the surface, like fire trapped in flesh. Her eyes—gods, those eyes—were no longer warm or confused or defiant. They were burning. Literal molten gold with veins of red, swirling like living lava. She didn’t blink. She didn’t waver. She wasn’t afraid. But I was. For the first time in my life—Alpha Dorian of the Nightfang Pack—I was truly afraid. Because I realized that the very thing I thought I could keep in chains had become something far beyond me. And the truth