Chapter 46: ’Corpse’

Chapter 46: Chapter 46: ’Corpse’

Back to Azura. Ten minutes earlier. Before her delivery scooter decided to commit vehicular manslaughter against Kyler’s bumper.

---

"AAAAAAHHHH!!!! WE’RE GOING TO CRASH INTO THE BANK!!"

The wind whipped Azura’s hair into a chaotic frenzy as the scooter hurtled forward like it had personally been offended by the concept of stopping.

"WAIT—WHY ARE YOU SPEEDING UP?? WE’RE GOING 120 KILOMETERS PER HOUR—YOU PSYCHO BEAUTIFUL STRANGER I JUST MET 25 MINUTES AGO!!"

Karina, who had been screaming nonstop for the past quarter of an hour, was now curled into a trembling ball between Azura’s legs. Her tiny body was frozen, her eyes wide and wet, like a kitten that had just witnessed the apocalypse and wasn’t a fan.

"I DON’T KNOW!!" Azura shrieked back, her knuckles white as she death-gripped the handlebars. "WHY DOES THE SPEED KEEP INCREASING NO MATTER WHAT I DO?? THIS CRAZY SCOOTER OF YOURS HAS BEEN HAVING A TANTRUM SINCE IT FOUND OUT I CAN’T RIDE IT!"

She yanked the handlebars left. The scooter swerved right.

"OH, NOW YOU LISTEN TO THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT I SAY?!"

The bank entrance loomed ahead like the gaping maw of a financial beast. Through the glass doors, Azura could see a security guard—a large man with a mustache that looked like it could file taxes independently—pointing at them with the fury of a thousand wronged accountants.

"Wait," Azura gasped, "that bank security looks like he wants to catch us. He doesn’t think we’re trying to rob them, right? RIGHT?!"

Miraculously—and against all laws of physics and common sense—the beat-up scooter swerved at the very last moment, grazing the edge of the bank entrance like a drunk needle missing a vein.

They did not crash into the building.

They did not hit the staff member who was carrying a stack of cash that would have glued to their bumper and turned them into accidental bank robbers.

They did not become criminals.

Yet.

But they did nearly crash into a fire hydrant.

The scooter—having swerved onto the sidewalk to avoid becoming a hood ornament for a parked bus—veered wildly back onto the road.

Azura’s brain, at this point, had given up on rational thought and was now running on pure survival instinct and the desperate hope that being near the Blackwood family’s cars would somehow protect her from her own incompetence.

And that’s when she realized: she was too close.

The delivery scooter—now moving at the speed of a possessed demon—slammed directly into the rear bumper of a sleek, expensive, and very stationary SUV.

CRASH.

Metal groaned. Plastic cracked. The world tilted.

Azura felt her body lift off the seat, float through the air with the grace of a startled penguin, and then collide with the asphalt in a heap of limbs and regret.

The scooter, which had looked like it was one pothole away from retirement, now looked like it had been put through a woodchipper and spat back out as abstract art.

Karina lay sprawled a few feet away, blinking up at the sky like she was questioning every life choice that had led her to this moment.

Azura groaned, her face pressed against the warm, gritty road.

"...I think I felt my soul leave my body," she mumbled. "It waved goodbye. It looked happy."

Azura peeled her face off the asphalt with a wet, sticky sound. She turned toward Karina, who was now sitting on the ground, staring at the delivery scooter like it was a fallen comrade on a battlefield.

The scooter looked beyond repair. Its front wheel was bent at an angle that would make a geometry teacher weep. Smoke—or possibly the scooter’s dying spirit—curled up from the twisted frame.

Karina’s eyes were glassy. Her lips trembled.

Azura crawled over to her, feeling every bruise blooming across her body like a sad flower garden of regret. She let out a heavy sigh.

"I’ll cover all the damages," she said, wincing as she sat up. "And if you want... I’ll replace this scooter too. I’ll buy you a new one. A better one. One that doesn’t have a personal vendetta against me."

Karina just sat there in silence. Her gaze didn’t move from the scooter’s "corpse."

Then, in a voice so small it could have been carried away by a gentle breeze, she whispered:

"Maybe... it’s time for me to let it go."

A single tear traced a path down her cheek.

Then another.

And another.

Azura’s mouth opened, then closed. She watched as Karina’s face crumpled, tears streaming freely now, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

If Azura didn’t know better, she’d think Karina’s parent had just died from a long, tragic illness. Not her SCOOTER. Her scooter, which had the personality of a rusty lawnmower and the structural integrity of wet cardboard.

But she kept her mouth shut. Now was not the time for Scooter Funeral Humor.

Then Azura became acutely aware of her surroundings.

Several pedestrians had their phones out. Recording. Of course.

She could hear their whispers, floating through the air like mocking little butterflies:

"—that’s the girl from the canned food avalanche—"

"—and the poodle incident!"

"—she’s gone viral like four times today alone—"

Azura wanted to curl into a ball and let the asphalt swallow her whole. She wanted to become one with the road. She wanted to reincarnate as a rock. A quiet, unnoticed rock.

Just as she was contemplating how deep she could dig with her bare hands, several kind-hearted people rushed over. Hands reached out to her—some offering to lift her, others extended in help.

"Are you okay?"

Azura looked up at the outstretched hand. She hesitated, then decided to accept it.

But as she raised her arm—

Sharp. Hot. Pain.

Azura hissed through her teeth, instinctively pulling her hand back and cradling her wrist against her chest. The pain radiated up her forearm like tiny electrical shocks, and she could already feel the beginnings of swelling beneath her skin.

"Ow. Ow. Owie."

She rubbed her wrist gently, trying to soothe the ache, her fingers moving in small circles over the tender spot. The bracelet Selena had given her—shifted against her skin as she massaged the joint.

One rub.

Two rubs.

Three rubs.

She didn’t notice. Why would she? She was too busy being in pain, too busy wishing the ground would open up and swallow her, too busy mentally calculating how much a new scooter cost and whether she could sell a kidney to afford it.

What she didn’t notice was the subtle shift in the air around her.

A scent—sweet, floral, distinctly Selena—began to bloom from her skin like an invisible flower unfurling its petals. It spread outward in gentle waves, carried by the breeze, wrapping around her like a second layer of perfume.

Karina, who had been mid-sob over her deceased scooter, suddenly went rigid.

Her nostrils flared.

Her tear-streaked face snapped toward Azura, eyes wide and pupils dilated. Her body began to tremble—not from sadness anymore, but from something primal. Something instinctive.

That was beta blood’s scent. Strong. Unmistakable.

Karina’s wolf cowered inside her, recognizing the rank difference even if her human brain couldn’t fully process it. She had assumed Azura was wolfless—no scent—but now...

She’s not wolfless. She was hiding it. She was hiding it this whole time.

Azura blinked at Karina’s sudden change in demeanor.

"Uh... you okay there? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Or a really expensive scooter repair bill. Both are terrifying, I get it."

She had no idea.

No idea that the bracelet on her wrist was currently broadcasting Selena’s scent like a lighthouse in a storm.

No idea that the spell Selena had begged Mara to cast—using her own blood, her own essence—was now clinging to Azura’s skin, marking her with a false identity that no wolf could ignore.

The bracelet was humming with magical energy, pumping out Selena’s scent like a cheap air freshener in a speeding car. And it would keep doing so for ten whole minutes.

Ten. Minutes.

And in the world of werewolves, ten minutes was an eternity.

---

The car door opened.

Azura’s brain, which had been running on fumes and embarrassment, suddenly slammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt.

Kyler Blackwood.

He was emerging from the vehicle.

His eyes—those cold, calculating, I-have-seen-the-abyss-and-it-blinks-first eyes—were now glowing a molten gold. His gaze swept across the scene like a predator scanning a field of prey.

And it landed on her.

Azura’s thoughts became a single, chaotic scream in her skull:

WHY IS HE GETTING OUT? WHY ARE HIS EYES GLOWING?

OH NO. OH NO. OH NO. IS HE GOING TO MAKE ME PAY FOR THE DAMAGE WITH MY ORGANS? DOES HE KNOW WE WERE STALKING HIM AND HIS NEPHEWS? IS THIS THE PART WHERE I GET FOLDED INTO A SUITCASE AND THROWN INTO A RIVER? IS THIS HOW I DIE—MURDERED BY A GOLDEN-EYED ALPHA WITH RESTING MURDER FACE?

But then—

Wait.

A single, terrible, beautiful, moronic idea sparked in her mind like a firework made of bad decisions.

If I pretend to be unconscious... he won’t kill me, right? He wouldn’t kill an unconscious woman. That would be bad PR. Even for a cold-hearted Alpha.

And if he puts me in his car... I can do ANYTHING. I can figure out where he’s going. I can stop him from reaching Crimson Crest Pack. I can headlock him. I can pretend we met years ago and claim he abandoned our son who is now being held hostage in Antarctica by penguin mafia.

Her idiot plan formed at the speed of light.

Without a second thought—because thinking would have stopped her—Azura shoved Karina sideways, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Then she herself collapsed with the grace of a fainting Victorian maiden, her body going limp, her eyes fluttering shut.

She whispered to Karina, barely moving her lips:

"Pretend to be grass this time."

Karina, lying flat on her back, stared at the sky and wondered what her life had become.

The pedestrians watched in stunned silence.

They had seen many things in this city. They had seen car crashes, street fights, and a man once try to fight a pigeon for a french fry.

But this?

This was the first time they had seen someone fake unconscious with such boldness. Such audacity. Such lack of shame.

Cameras kept rolling.

Kyler Blackwood, however, did not care about the pedestrians. He did not care about the cameras. He did not care about Karina, who was now lying on the ground contemplating her life choices.

His golden eyes were fixed on the woman on the ground. The source of that scent.

He walked over to her. His footsteps were measured. Calm. Terrifying.

Then he reached down.

He did not scoop her up in a romantic, dramatic gesture. He did not cradle her like a precious treasure.

He grabbed her by the arm—the uninjured one—and dragged her across the pavement like she was a sack of potatoes. A very annoying sack of potatoes that smelled like his fated mate.

Azura’s body bumped over every crack, every pebble, every tiny rock that seemed personally offended by her existence.

He tossed her into the back seat of his car.

Not gently.

She landed with a muffled thump.

Azura’s brain, still pretending to be unconscious, screamed internally:

....?????!!!!

EXCUSE ME, MALE LEAD?! CAN YOU LEAVE AT LEAST 0.1% OF MY DIGNITY INTACT IN FRONT OF THESE PEOPLE?! OR DO YOU THINK POTATOES DON’T HAVE FEELINGS?!