Chapter 10: Prove it.

Lyra POV

Within the next few hours, my life felt like a movie. 

Pack members gathered in front of the room I was in, peering through the door. The brothers, especially Leith, would not let go, even as they made arrangements to have me moved to the main pack house. 

I kept expecting someone to jump out, call my bluff, and mock me for being so gullible, but with each passing second, things kept escalating, and for those three hours, I let myself believe it. I allowed my mind to entertain the idea that I had suddenly gone from being invisible to important. 

Dorian moved me from the clinic to a private room in the main pack house. It was large, warm, with thick curtains and a bed that was softer than anything I had slept on in years. Cassian brought food. Leith brought blankets, then more blankets, then a pillow he swore was better than the first one. They hovered around me like I was made of glass, speaking softly, arguing quietly over who would stand guard outside my door.

I sat in the middle of it all and let the warmth settle over me like something I was borrowing. Because that was what it felt like. A kindness that would be retracted the moment someone looked more closely and realized they had made a mistake.

I had been here before. The Hartleys had taken me in too. Asher had given me a title too. And both times, the moment someone more deserving appeared, I was quietly moved aside.

Still, for those three hours, I let myself pretend.

Almost when I’d made up my mind to play along, the pack elders arrived. 

Four grey-haired people, both men and women. They’d all lined up in my room, staring at me, their eyes scrutinizing every part of my body until I was squirming with impatience. Then they’d filed into the main hall where Dorian had gathered the pack officials. Dorian had left the door slightly open, and from my bed, I could feel the change in the atmosphere instantly.

The eldest among them was a woman named Elder Soren. She spoke first. Her voice was respectful but unyielding.

"Alpha Dorian, we understand the significance of what you believe you have found. But belief is not proof." Her gaze moved to me. It wasn’t kind, only assessing. "A necklace can be stolen. A resemblance can be a coincidence. The Moonshard bloodline is the most powerful lineage in the region. We cannot confirm an heir on the basis of sentiment."

Cassian's jaw tightened. "This is not sentiment. Look at her. She carries our mother's—"

"Your mother was beautiful," Elder Soren interrupted gently. "Many women are. That alone does not make this woman your sister."

The words shouldn't have stung. They were logical and reasonable. Exactly the kind of thing a responsible pack elder should say. But they landed on a bruise so old and so deep that I almost flinched.

Prove you belong. Prove you deserve to be here. Prove you are more than what you look like.

I had been proving myself my entire life. To the Hartleys, who needed constant reassurance that their charity wasn't wasted. To Asher's pack, who bowed to my title while silently questioning whether I earned it. To Asher himself, who looked at me every day for three years and never once saw someone worth keeping.

And now here, in the one place I had dared to think might be different, I was being asked to prove it again.

"There is a way to settle this beyond dispute," a second elder said. He stepped forward and addressed Dorian directly. "The ancient family-binding ritual. If this woman truly carries the Moonshard bloodline, the ritual will confirm it, and she’ll formally rejoin the pack. If the blood resonates, the family crest will manifest on the heirloom. The bloodline cannot be faked, and the ritual cannot be deceived."

"And if it doesn't resonate?" Leith asked quietly.

"Then she is simply an ordinary wolf who happens to possess a piece of lost jewelry." Elder Soren's voice was not cruel, but it was final. "And we will welcome her as a guest, nothing more."

The room fell silent as every pair of eyes turned to me.

I wanted to say no.

Every fiber of my being wanted to stand up, walk out of that room, and tell them all that I was done being tested. Done being weighed and measured and found wanting. If they couldn't look at me and see someone worth believing in without a ritual and a glowing crest, then their belief meant nothing anyway.

But I didn't say any of that. Because Dorian was looking at me with an expression that said he already knew the answer, and Cassian's fists were clenched at his sides like he was ready to fight every elder in the room on my behalf, and Leith — quiet, gentle Leith — had positioned himself slightly in front of me without realizing it, as though shielding me from the judgment in the air was something his body did automatically.

These men believed I was their sister. They believed it with a certainty that didn't need a ritual to confirm.

But the pack needed proof. And I was too tired to fight a system I hadn't built.

"Fine," I said. "I'll do it."

Dorian turned to me sharply. "You don't have to. I can overrule the Council on this. You are my sister, and I don't need a ceremony to know it."

"I know." I met his eyes. "But I'm not doing it for them."

He studied me for a long moment, searching for the thing I wasn't saying. I placed my hand over my stomach, and his gaze followed the movement.

Understanding settled across his features.

"The ritual," he said slowly. "It's also a pack-joining ceremony. If you formally join the bloodline, the pack bond would extend to you. And to the baby."

I nodded. Dr Calloway had told me the baby needed a stable pack bond to survive. Without it, the fetus would continue draining my body until neither of us was left. The mate bond with Asher was severed. I had no pack, no anchor, no source of energy to sustain the life growing inside me. 

This was an opportunity to feed my baby.

But if the ritual worked — if I truly was a Moonshard — the family bloodline would become that anchor. The baby would draw strength from the pack bond instead of from my collapsing body.

I wasn't doing this to prove who I was. I was doing this to save my child.

"The ritual requires preparation, and it cannot be done tonight," Elder Soren said. "We will convene at dawn."

The elders filed out. Cassian let out a breath that sounded like he had been holding it since they walked in. Leith unclenched his hands. Dorian stood motionless for a moment, then crossed the room and placed his hand on my shoulder — briefly, carefully, as though he was still learning how to touch something he was afraid of losing.

"You won't have to prove yourself after this," he said quietly. "I promise you that."

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that there was a version of my life where I could stop performing, stop justifying my existence, stop being grateful for scraps of belonging that could be revoked at any moment.

But I had believed that before, and the wreckage of that belief was still smoldering behind me.

"I'll believe it when the necklace does," I said.

He almost smiled. Then he squeezed my shoulder once and left.

That night, I stood at the window of my room and looked out over the Silver Hollow grounds. The moon was nearly full, hanging low and heavy over the treeline, casting silver light across the courtyard below. 

I held the necklace in my palm. The tarnished metal caught the moonlight, and for a moment, I thought I saw the faintest shimmer along the groove where Dorian had opened it. The crest inside — the crescent moon between two wolves — stared up at me. I couldn’t believe I’d been carrying this all these years without noticing. 

Still, the question remained —

Who am I?

Not Lyra Hartley, the orphan the Beta family took in out of pity. Not Lyra Voss, the invisible wife. Not the Luna who ran. Not the Omega who was never enough.

Tomorrow, the ritual would either give me an answer or confirm what I had always feared: that I was exactly what the world had always told me I was.

Nobody.

I closed my fingers around the pendant and pressed it against my chest, right above my heartbeat. Right above the place where the mate bond used to live before I tore it out.

Please, I thought. Not to the Moon Goddess. Not to the elders. Not to anyone who had ever held power over me.

To the baby.

Please let this work. For both of us.