Chapter 5

“What the hell is going on?”

Lucian’s voice cut across the entrance to the great hall.

He had come straight from the evening council. Dust still marked his boots. His gaze found me first—my hair half-fallen from its tie, my clothes gray from the quarry, my palms dripping blood onto the stone floor.

Seraphina stood in front of me with several guards gathered behind her.

The moment she saw him, her expression crumpled.

“I gave her a simple work assignment,” she said, her voice shaking. “She threw her father’s position in my face and said I had no right to order her. Am I Luna only when it’s convenient for everyone else?”

Lucian looked at my hands.

His eyes lingered on the blood for one second.

Then he looked away.

Seraphina had the legal authority to assign pack labor. The quarry was brutal, but it was still within her power.

Lucian knew exactly what she had done.

He also knew that challenging her in front of the elders would weaken her position as Luna.

So he chose the pack again.

He chose her.

“Riona’s father still has influence with the council,” he said evenly. “She’s used to being treated with deference. Don’t take her words personally.”

It was not a defense.

It was an excuse that allowed him to avoid defending either of us.

He turned to me.

“You had no right to challenge your Luna in public. Do you understand?”

I lifted my head.

He went still when he saw my face.

There was no anger left in me. No grief. Nothing he could soothe with a jar of ointment or silence with another promise.

“I understand,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Lucian’s mouth tightened.

“You’ll move to the old cabin on the west edge of the compound. You’re not to leave without my permission.”

The west cabin had been abandoned for years. It stood beyond the main residences, cut off from the rest of the pack grounds.

Seraphina’s mouth curved almost imperceptibly.

“Understood.”

The cabin smelled of rot and cold earth. Dust covered every surface, and old hides sagged from the walls. The floorboards had warped so badly that dirt showed through the gaps.

Morwen spent the entire day cleaning one corner so I would have somewhere to sleep.

That evening, she knelt beside me with a basin of warm water and began washing the blood from my hands.

Stone dust filled the cuts beneath my nails. My palms were torn open. My clothes were stiff with dirt, and my hair had knotted against my neck.

I watched the water turn red.

“Do you think I let this go on too long?” I asked.

Morwen’s hands stopped.

“My father taught me that control was strength. Don’t lash out. Don’t give your enemies a scene they can use against you. Stay calm and wait.”

I looked down at my hands.

“I waited when they took my son. I waited when they took my daughter. I stayed quiet while Seraphina worked me until my hands split open. I apologized while Lucian punished me for what she did.”

Morwen said nothing.

“My father wasn’t wrong. But silence only protects you when the people hurting you have limits.”

I pulled my hands from the basin.

My fingers were ice-cold.

“They don’t.”

For three years, every time I endured something, Lucian and Seraphina took it as permission to take more.

My children. My place in the pack. My dignity. My freedom.

They believed I would endure forever.

“I’m done being quiet.”