Chapter 2: The Room Full of Strangers

The door of Alpha Nero's office was heavier than I remembered, and it took everything in me not to let my hand shake against it before I pushed it open.

They were all there. Alpha Nero behind his desk, Luna Amanda standing at his shoulder like a portrait carved from ice. My three brothers lined along the far wall — Jared in front, arms crossed, already wearing the expression he used when he'd decided to be “reasonable.” Behind him, Marcus and the youngest, and I could already tell which one of them was going to enjoy this. My parents near the window. And Emilia, folded into Michael's chest, crying like she'd rehearsed it in the mirror on the drive over.

Nobody offered me a chair.

My eyes caught on the door in the corner — the one that led down to the cellar. Even from here, I could smell the damp stone seeping through the cracks. My stomach turned.

“Raven.” Alpha Nero's voice was careful, diplomatic. “We understand this is difficult for you. But you need to let your sister take your place in the mating ceremony.”

“It's already decided.” My father cut in before I could even process what Alpha Nero had said, harsher than I'd ever heard him speak to an Alpha in his own house. “She needs to understand her duty. We didn't raise her to be selfish.”

I turned on him. “You're really going to stand there and call me selfish for not wanting to watch my sister marry my mate?”

“I'm telling you your feelings don't outweigh pack stability.” His voice went cold in the way I remembered from childhood, the voice that ended arguments before they started. “They never have.”

“Emilia is pregnant,” Alpha Nero said, before I could answer that. “The child is Michael's.”

The room tilted. My vision tunneled, edges going dark, and for a moment I couldn't hear anything except the rush of blood in my ears. Heat crawled up my neck, then cold — like my body couldn't decide which way to break. I looked at my sister — still crying, still tucked against Michael's side, her hand resting protectively over her stomach — and felt the last thing holding me together snap clean in half.

“You're lying. Tell me you're lying.”

“It's true.” My father's voice cut through the room, flat and final, like he'd already moved past the part that should have mattered. “And we are not waiting three more days for whispers to spread through three territories before we deal with it. Every Alpha who matters is already under this roof for your ceremony. The binding happens tomorrow instead — Emilia in your place. The guests are here, the officiant is here, everything is already arranged. There's no reason to wait, and every reason not to.”

“You're moving up my wedding,” I said, disbelief threading through every word, “to bury an affair faster.”

“We are protecting this family,” he said, like that answered anything at all.

“Raven, that's enough.” Michael's voice, sharp, impatient. Not for me. For the scene I was making. “You want honesty? Fine. Emilia understands what it means to be a Luna. She doesn't question every decision I make. Doesn't challenge me in front of the pack. She makes me stronger. You would've made me weak.”

I stared at him like I'd never seen him before. “That's what you tell yourself so this doesn't feel like what it is.”

Emilia lifted her head off his chest, and for the first time all night she looked directly at me — no tears left in her eyes at all.

“I'm not the mistress, Raven.” Her voice was steady, almost gentle, which made it so much worse. “I'm carrying his heir. That makes me his future. You're just the mistake he made before he knew better.”

Something in me went very quiet and very cold. “The mistake.” I laughed, and it came out ugly. “Funny. I've been the mistake in this family since I was seven years old and you decided you wanted whatever was mine. I just didn't think you'd take this too.”

“You need to think about someone besides yourself for once,” my mother said, stepping forward. “I warned your father you weren't ready for a match like this. That you were too proud, too stubborn. And here you are, proving me right. Emilia was always the better choice. She knows how to be grateful.”

“Grateful.” My voice cracked. “For what, exactly? For learning early that nothing in this house was ever really mine?”

“Do you know how many sacrifices I made for this family?” she snapped back. “How many times I swallowed my pride for the good of this pack? And you can't do it once. Not even for your own sister.”

Luna Amanda spoke for the first time, and the whole room seemed to still around her voice.

“You won't ruin the ceremony, Raven.” She said it calmly, like a fact rather than a threat. “Despite all your fire, some part of you is still desperate for this family to love you. You'll stay quiet, because you're still hoping they'll choose you in the end. They won't. They never will.”

The words landed somewhere worse than the slap that came a second later.

I didn't see my mother's hand move — just felt the crack of impact, sharp and bright across my cheek. The sting bloomed into fire. My eyes watered involuntarily, and I tasted copper where I'd bitten my tongue. For a second, the room went silent except for the ringing in my ears.

And underneath the pain, something in me finally broke loose completely.

“The baby isn't even his,” I said, voice shaking. “Ask her about the timing. Ask her who she was really seeing before she came running back to Michael. I saw something, months ago, and I told you, and none of you believed me—”

“How dare you say something like that about your sister.” My mother's hand was already rising again, but Alpha Nero's voice cut through first.

“Wait.” He wasn't looking at Emilia anymore. He was looking at my mother — and for the first time all night, something like doubt moved across his face. “What do you mean, you saw something? Seriously?”

Emilia's composure cracked for exactly one second. One. But I saw it — the flash of panic before she smoothed it away.

“She's lying,” she said, too fast, words tumbling over each other. “She's desperate and she's lying, don't listen to her—”

“That's enough.” My father's voice, final, drowning out whatever might have come next. “Get her out of here. Now.”

Jared reached me first. “Raven, if you'd just listen for once—”

“She's embarrassing us,” Marcus snapped, already grabbing my other arm. “Just get her out.”

I fought them. Twisted, dug my heels into the floor, grabbed the doorframe until fingers were pried off it one by one. “You think you're better than all of us, don't you,” Marcus hissed in my ear as he hauled me back. “Always did.”

“Should've thought about that before you threatened the ceremony,” Jared muttered, not quite meeting my eyes.

Nobody asked what I'd seen. Nobody wanted to know. That was almost worse than the slap — the whole room simply closing the door on it, like the truth mattered less than making sure I stopped talking.

They dragged me toward the stairs, and I found my voice one last time.

“Not the cellar,” I said, and for the first time all night it cracked with something other than anger. “You know I can't — please, not the cellar—”

“You brought this on yourself,” my father said, and didn't look at me again.

The door at the bottom of the stairs groaned open, and the smell hit me first — damp stone, mildew, years of nothing. Then the dark swallowed everything, and the lock turned with a sound like a verdict.

Through the door, muffled, my father's voice reached me one last time.

“The ceremony is tomorrow. I expect you to have come to your senses by then.”

Nobody came to take it back.

I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold stone floor, pressing my burning cheek against the damp wall. In the darkness, I could finally let myself shake.