CHAPTER 225: CHAPTER 225 DATA AND DECEPTION

Freya’s POV

Sleep evaded me all night.

I kept replaying our encounter in the bathroom doorway, the raw hunger in his eyes contradicting months of cold distance. More confusing was that brief flash of pain I’d caught when he touched me.

What was he hiding?

As dawn’s first light crept through our curtains, I abandoned any hope of sleep and slipped quietly from the bed. Silvano remained motionless, but I knew better—his breathing had changed the moment I moved. He was awake, yet choosing to maintain our charade of disconnection.

He’s ours, Selene growled insistently within me. The Alpha. Our mate.

Selene had been increasingly agitated lately, pushing me toward Silvano despite all evidence suggesting he’d gotten over whatever we once had.

I closed my eyes, forcing my breathing to even out, pretending I’d drifted back to sleep. I heard soft movement nearby—he seemed close, his breath warming my face. Then nothing.

When I opened my eyes again, the bedroom was empty. Obviously he was deliberately avoiding me.

After getting ready, I deliberately delayed going downstairs, listening for sounds indicating Silvano had finished breakfast. Luna Victoria would be there, of course—the convenient reason I was sleeping in our shared bedroom again. The woman could read people like an open book, her fae heritage granting her insights that made hiding anything nearly impossible.

When I finally descended, I found Victoria alone at the kitchen island, sipping tea from one of my hand-painted mugs.

"Good morning, Freya," she said, her ageless eyes studying me over the rim of her cup. "You look tired."

"Didn’t sleep well," I admitted, moving to the coffee maker. No point lying to a woman who could practically sense emotions in the air.

"Hmm." The sound carried volumes of meaning I chose not to decipher. "Silvano’s taken Isabella to school. He mentioned you have an important project launching today?"

I poured coffee into my travel mug, adding a precise amount of cream. "Yes. The predictive analysis system we’ve been developing goes live for beta testing."

Victoria nodded. She seemed like she wanted to say something else, but my phone chimed with a calendar alert. "I have to go. Johnny’s waiting at the lab."

"Of course. Don’t let me keep you from your work."

As I gathered my things, she added, "Freya? The bonds between true mates are stronger than most realize. Keep that in mind."

The cryptic comment lingered in my mind during my drive to Moretti AI Solutions.

Johnny was waiting for me in the main conference room, surrounded by multiple screens displaying code and energy mapping diagrams.

"There you are," he said, barely glancing up from his tablet. "The final patches are running. We should be up and running within the hour."

I set my coffee down, instantly switching to work mode. "Any glitches in the overnight diagnostics?"

"Nothing major. Though..." He swiped to a different screen. "There’s been some weird energy fluctuations around the northern quadrant. Similar to the readings we got last month, but more intense."

I frowned, moving closer to examine the pulsing red area on the map—exactly where Silvano had been beefing up pack presence after reports of rogue wolves crossing territories.

"Can you narrow down the pattern?" I asked, my stomach dropping.

Johnny tapped a few commands, and the energy signature appeared as a waveform on the main screen. "It’s unlike anything in our database. Almost like... interference with brain signals, if that makes sense."

Selene had always been sensitive to magical disturbances—a trait that had initially drawn Silvano to me when I joined Shadow Pack. She paced restlessly now, on edge.

"It’s some kind of mind manipulation," I murmured, almost to myself. "Like something is attempting to disrupt natural thought patterns."

Johnny gave me a strange look. "That’s a big jump from the data we’re seeing."

I shook my head, trying to focus. "Just... gut feeling. Run a cross-reference with known magical signatures in the grimoire database."

As the system processed my request, Johnny studied me intently. "Your eyes look different today."

"What?"

"They keep... flickering. Almost amber-colored for a second, then back to normal." He leaned closer. "And you’re wound tight. Usually when you get like this, either something’s wrong with the pack or..." He hesitated. "Or it’s something to do with your mate."

My pulse quickened. Johnny was sharper than I gave him credit for. "I’m just tired. Didn’t sleep well."

"Sure." He clearly didn’t believe me. "Well, whatever’s going on with you and the big bad Alpha, it’s making your wolf restless."

He pointed back to the screen. "Whatever this disturbance is, it’s getting your inner wolf all worked up. And in my experience, that usually means trouble."

The alert from our system interrupted before I could respond. A new pattern had emerged in the northern quadrant data—one that made my blood run cold.

"That’s—" I stopped, unsure how to explain what I was seeing.

On the screen, the energy disturbance had formed a distinctive shape—a spiral with tendrils extending outward, reminiscent of a parasite with its claws embedded in a host.

"It’s targeting something specific," Johnny said, frowning at the display. "Or someone."

Selene howled within me, a sound of distress so powerful I had to grip the table to stay upright. Suddenly, Victoria’s cryptic words from breakfast took on new meaning.

My son is struggling with something he doesn’t wish to burden you with.

The system chimed again, this time displaying a match from our database: "Classification: Bonding Interference. Origin: Unknown. Threat Level: Critical."

"Shut it down," I said abruptly, my voice unsteady.

Johnny blinked at me. "What? We’re about to go live with—"

"I said shut it down!" My eyes fully shifted to wolf amber now, making Johnny back up. "Lock down these findings and encrypt them to my personal server. Tell no one about this, understand?"

He nodded, quickly entering commands to secure the data. "Freya, what’s going on?"

I was already gathering my things, mind spinning. "Something I should have figured out months ago," I muttered, more to myself than to him.

I had to get to Silvano immediately and get to the bottom of all this.