Scarlett’s POV

​Ma’am Olivia stepped fully into the guest room, shutting the door behind her. The click of the lock felt loud, cutting off the rest of the mansion and trapping the two of us inside. I didn’t move from the edge of the bed. I kept my posture rigid, my arms crossed over my chest as I watched her every move. The last time I had seen this woman, she had looked at me with cold, calculated determination—the look of a mother willing to sacrifice anything, or anyone, to alter the threads of fate. Today, she looked older. The sharp elegance she usually carried around like armor seemed slightly frayed at the edges.

​She stood near the door for a long, heavy moment, her eyes sweeping over my face, scanning the changes five years of independence had written on features she used to know. There was a strange flicker of emotion in her eyes, a mixture of disbelief and something that looked like guilt, before she finally cleared her throat.

​"Scarlett... can I talk to you?" she asked, her voice surprisingly soft. It lacked the sharp, authoritative edge of a former Luna, sounding hollow instead.

​I stared back at her, my expression completely unreadable. The Scarlett from five years ago would have trembled under her gaze, desperate to please the mother of the pack. But I had built a life with my own two hands in the human world. I had faced down assassins without blinking. I was no longer a pawn to be moved around on their chessboard.

​"What is it you have to say?" I replied. My voice was a flat, even line that echoed coldly against the plain walls of the guest room.

​She winced slightly at my tone, her fingers tightening around the fabric of her expensive wool coat. She took a small, hesitant step forward, though she carefully kept a respectful distance between us, sensing the invisible wall I had put up.

​"I wanted to ask... how your life has been," she began, her eyes searching mine for any sign of vulnerability. "Where you have been for the past five years... how you survived out there in the world alone."

​"I have been fine," I said shortly, cutting through any attempt at small talk. I had no intention of sharing the details of my art studio, my quiet apartment, or the peace I had fought so hard to maintain in Shanghai. None of that belonged to her. It didn’t belong to this pack.

​Olivia let out a quiet, shaky breath and nodded slowly. "I know. I tried... I talked to Ethan so he could arrange for me to see you. I wanted to check on you, Scarlett. I asked him many times over the years to bring me to you, but he always told me the same thing. He said you never wanted to see me."

​"Yes," I said, looking her dead in the eye without a single shred of hesitation. "He was right. I never wanted to see you. There is nothing for us to talk about, Ma’am Olivia."

​A heavy silence descended upon the room again. The truth of my words seemed to hit her like a physical blow, stripping away the last remnants of her composed Luna facade. She looked down at the floorboards, her shoulders slumping into a posture that looked entirely defeated.

​"I believe you hate me," she whispered, her voice cracking slightly as she looked back up at me, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

​"I don’t," I answered honestly, my voice remaining calm and detached. "I don’t hate you, Olivia. I have nothing against you. You are a mother. You did what you thought was right at the time to protect your family."

​A sudden flash of hope ignited in her eyes, a desperate relief washing over her pale face. She took another step toward the bed, her hands reaching out slightly as if she wanted to grasp mine. "Scarlett... can you ever forgive me for what I did? For forcing you away? For making you feel like you had to disappear?"

​"No," I said instantly, the word dropping between us like a heavy stone. "I can’t."

​The fragile hope in her expression shattered instantly. She froze, her hands dropping back to her sides as she digested the absolute finality in my voice. She nodded slowly, swallowing hard as she forced herself to accept the boundaries I was drawing. I could acknowledge her reasons without ever pardoning the cruelty of her actions. My lack of hatred didn’t mean she was granted absolution.

​She shifted uncomfortably, her gaze drifting toward the window where the gray mountain clouds were rolling in over the pack lands. "I got another vision last night, Scarlett," she murmured, her voice dropping into a haunted, frightened whisper.

​The word vision sent a cold spike of adrenaline straight through my veins, but I forced my expression to remain a mask of pure indifference. The last time this woman had a vision, it had completely ruined my life and torn me away from my fated mates. I was done letting her prophecies dictate my existence.

​"I don’t want to hear it," I said sharply, rising from the bed to stand tall in front of her. "Keep your visions to yourself. I am done playing a part in your predictions."

​Olivia nodded quickly, backing up half a step as if my sudden movement had startled her. "I understand. I’m sorry," she whispered. She turned toward the door, her hand reaching out for the brass handle as if she were preparing to leave me to my rest.

​But as her fingers touched the metal, a sudden, burning curiosity flared deep within me. My inner wolf stirred, her ears pinning back in suspense. If Olivia had seen something last night, it meant whatever was coming was already in motion. It meant the danger that followed me to Shanghai was tied directly to whatever rewrite of fate she thought she had accomplished.

​"What is it?" I asked, my voice cutting through the quiet room before she could turn the handle. "What did you see?"

​Olivia stopped. She kept her back to me for a long moment before slowly turning around. The expression on her face wasn’t the calculating look of a prophet—it was the expression of a woman completely consumed by a living nightmare. Her skin looked translucent, and her lips were trembling violently.

​"The prophecy is still there," she choked out, a single tear finally spilling over her lashes and tracking down her wrinkled cheek. "It never changed, Scarlett. Everything we did... every sacrifice you made, every arrangement I put into place... it was all for nothing. The threads are exactly where they were five years ago. I don’t understand how. I don’t understand what went wrong."

​I swallowed hard, a heavy, suffocating lump forming in my throat. My heart began to hammer a frantic rhythm against my ribs as I forced my breathing to remain steady.

​I know exactly what went wrong, I thought bitterly, the realization twisting like a knife in my gut.

​The entire foundation of Olivia’s plan to break the prophecy relied on the triplets moving on. It relied on them accepting the traditional path, marrying the women chosen for them, and sealing those unions with the sacred alpha marks. A fated bond could only be buried if a replacement bond was fully established in its place.

​But the triplets hadn’t done it. Leo’s words from the living room downstairs echoed through my mind with terrifying clarity: We didn’t mark anyone, Scar! We never touched them. That was fake!

​They had lied to their pack. They had lied to the elders, and most importantly, they had lied to their mother. They had worn the titles of married men like shields to keep the pack satisfied, but their inner wolves had rejected the choice, remaining completely dark, completely unmated, and entirely waiting for me. And the moment the danger in Shanghai forced their protective instincts to explode, the fragile block spell I had placed on our bond had shattered into a million useless pieces. The bond was fully alive, fully active, and bleeding out into the atmosphere for the entire territory to feel.

​I stared at Olivia’s weeping form, a cold sweat breaking out across my neck. I couldn’t tell her the truth. If I told this desperate, terrified mother that her sons had faked their matings, that they had never touched those women, she would instantly realize that I was still the ultimate threat to their lives. If she discovered that the fated bond was completely intact, her desperation would double. Right now, I couldn’t trust her. For all I knew, she was the one who had sent those masked men to Shanghai to ensure the prophecy could never claim her sons. If she felt she was running out of time, she might try to kill me herself right here in this guest room.

​Olivia collapsed slightly against the frame of the door, her hands covering her face as she began to sob openly. The sight was jarring. This was the legendary Luna of the Full Moon Pack, reduced to a trembling, broken mess on the floor of a guest quarters.

​"I am so scared, Scarlett," she wept, her voice muffled behind her hands, raw with an agony that only a mother could feel. "I am so terrified. My sons are going to die... the prophecy says they will destroy each other, that the pack will burn, and I can’t do anything to stop it. I’ve tried everything. I’ve broken laws, I’ve broken hearts, and fate is still coming for them." 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺

​For a fleeting, bittersweet moment, a sharp pang of pity pierced through my anger. I felt the weight of her grief. She wasn’t a monster driven by malice; she was a mother driven by a terrifying gift she couldn’t control, trying desperately to save her boys from a gruesome destiny. But she had done it the wrong way. She had used deceit, manipulation, and force, completely ignoring the autonomy of the people she claimed to love. And in doing so, she had only cleared a direct path for the very destruction she was trying to avoid.

​Olivia suddenly dropped her hands from her face, her tear-stained eyes locking onto mine with a fierce, terrifying intensity.

She rushed forward, closing the distance between us before I could step back, and grabbed my forearms with a grip that was completely frantic.

​"Scarlett, you have to help me," she begged, her fingers digging into my skin as she stared up at me with absolute desperation. "You are the only one who can fix this. You have to help me save my sons."