Chapter 2

The next morning, just before dawn, the wedding lights at Silvercrest's pack house hung torn from their cables. The portico was littered with broken glass and shredded red banners. Every piece of furniture, every dress, every wedding plate had been cleaned out by Crimson Moon's warriors overnight.

Lucien stood at the entrance in a wrinkled suit. His face was gray.

The omega staff hadn't been paid, so they'd all walked out overnight. So had the driver. Silvercrest's Alpha was driving himself to the Council's morning meeting. He'd kept the windows down all night to stay awake, and his jacket was creased beyond saving.

On the way there, neighboring pack Alphas drove past in their own cars. A few of them slowed down deliberately, just to look at him. He pretended not to notice, even waved at the ones who knew him, like everything was fine.

In Silvercrest's living room, Vivienne stared at the empty space and smashed the last mug from the previous night against the wall.

"Lucien, you're really just going to let her do this?" She pressed a hand to her belly, voice trembling. "I know I'm just an omega. I'm not worth as much as Nora. But this whole pack house is empty. Even the crib for the baby is gone. How am I supposed to take care of our pup like this?"

Lucien came back from the Council meeting with mud on his shoes. He helped her up, pressed a palm to her stomach, and lowered his voice.

"Vivienne. Don't. The baby comes first. You rest. This pup is the next Alpha of Silvercrest, and he's not going to suffer. Once the dust settles, I'll handle her. Crimson Moon's territory and the warriors her father left, all of it, it's only a matter of time."

Vivienne smiled through her tears and curled into him. "Lucien. I knew you'd have a plan."

He patted her hand, told her to rest, and went into his study. Closed the door.

What he didn't know was that every word had come through the bug planted in that room, straight into my ear.

I was sitting on the sofa in the main hall of Crimson Moon Pack, a cup of black coffee on the side table.

He really did love his adoptive sister, especially now that she was pregnant. What he didn't know was that the baby wasn't his.

The real father was an Omega who worked Silvercrest's stables, the exact kind of Omega Lucien considered beneath him: vulgar, rough, low-blood.

In my previous life, I'd known. The Omega's name was Cyrus. Good-looking, in his way. He'd done six months as a security guard at Crimson Moon's estate. My father had caught him in something compromising and thrown him out. He'd ended up at Silvercrest. Daphne, my own assistant, had been the one to find out what was between him and Vivienne.

That time, I hadn't held back.

I'd gone to Lucien and told him everything. I'd thought he'd believe me. I was his Luna.

He'd looked at me with the calmest expression I'd ever seen on him, calmer than I'd been expecting.

"You're saying Vivienne is sleeping with an Omega?" He repeated it like he wanted to make sure he'd heard right. Then he laughed. "Nora. Your jealousy is getting out of hand."

Vivienne had cried hard that day. She said she'd known from childhood that I didn't like her. She said she walked on eggshells in Silvercrest because she was just an Omega. She said she'd never imagined I'd come after her like this. She'd looked at Lucien, sobbing. "Lucien. Do you really think I'm that kind of person?"

Lucien had turned and looked at me for a long time. The look gave me chills.

"Listen to me carefully," he'd said. "Say something like that again, and you don't belong in Silvercrest anymore."

I'd been locked in my chamber for three days. When I came out, there were two new rose bushes in Vivienne's garden, planted by pack warriors on Lucien's orders. A small comfort, he'd said, after she'd been through so much.

Daphne had cried and asked me, "Why did you still tell him? He won't believe a word you say."

I hadn't answered.

After that, I never said another word.

I picked up the cup of herbal tea steaming on the table — the one Lucien used to make the pack healer watch me drink every day. The one he'd called calming.

I walked over to the windowsill and poured it into the rose pot.

The rose's roots blackened on contact. White foam bubbled up through the soil. There was no mistaking the reaction. An Alpha's blood working against silver.

In my previous life, I drank this tea every day. I never doubted it. I was actually grateful that he was watching out for my health.

It was only a month before I died that Daphne quietly brought in a healer from a neighboring pack. The new healer ran the test, went pale, and asked me, "Luna, how long have you been drinking silver?"

I told her I'd never touched it.

She handed me the test report. "It's in the tea. Long-term ingestion will strip the wolf out of your bloodline."

That was when I understood. Lucien hadn't just wanted my dowry and my territory. He'd wanted me dead. More than dead, he'd wanted my Alpha bloodline gone. He was afraid I'd give birth to a pure-blooded Alpha pup before Vivienne could, and that the pup would block him and his child from the line of succession.

By then I'd been coughing up blood for six months, just skin and bones. I didn't even have the strength to shift. I never went to confront him. I knew what he'd say. He'd just say, "What are you upset about now?"

I lay in bed and thought through one entire night. About the pack gathering when I was twelve, where I'd first seen him: the rogue orphan Silvercrest had taken in, who'd beaten three Alpha candidates to inherit the title. The way my heart had cracked open at the sight of him.

About begging my father at sixteen to back his bid to formally take Silvercrest. About my hands shaking with hope on the day I accepted the mate bond.

This time, I wouldn't.

Kieran came down in the black Tom Ford suit my designer had fitted for him. Stripped of the mud and the prison rags, he stood like a drawn blade.

He walked over and sat across from me. Set a hard-cover folder and a stack of letters sealed in blood wax on the coffee table.

"This is everything I've gathered over the years. Proof Lucien cheated his way through the Alpha succession trials. He bribed the Silvercrest Elder Bran for the trial route. Avoided the real challenges of the Blood Trial. Paid off the witness Alphas. With this, the Council can strip him of his title."

I took the folder and flipped through. Bank transfers, dates, meeting locations, every detail laid out.

I stood up and walked to the window. Looked out at the empty stretch of land to the north.

"One more thing. There's an abandoned auto shop just past the Northern border. An Omega named Cyrus lives there. Send your scouts. Take him. Quietly."

Kieran raised an eyebrow, didn't ask why, just made a low sound of agreement.

A scout shifted and slipped away into the morning.

Half an hour later, the scout was back. The job was done.

I sat back down on the sofa and refilled my coffee.

Cyrus was already in a silver cage, a piece on the board waiting for the right moment to move.

It wasn't time yet.