Chapter 4

"Faye, you saw. Valerie was right. We must learn to forgive."

Wyatt's voice suddenly came from behind me. "Kael's family has agreed to ally with us now. It's for the good of the pack. Let the past be the past."

"We can have more children."

There wasn't a shred of concern in his tone.

I stared at that damned tombstone, my nails digging so deep into my palms they drew blood.

"You buried him next to my son?" My voice trembled.

"Don't be like this, Faye. Valerie only suggested this to promote peace. You should be grateful for her magnanimity."

Magnanimity? Grateful to her?

"Luna," Valerie's voice was a fragile whisper, "please forgive my presumption."

She stopped before the two graves and bowed reverently.

"But I believe hatred should not be passed down to the next generation."

"Kael's son has just joined our pack. He commands an elite unit and is a very promising young warrior."

"To help him truly integrate, I suggested the Alpha erect a monument for his father. After all, the dead deserve respect."

Her arm was still in a sling, her face as pale as paper, and every step she took seemed a struggle. But her eyes held a triumphant gleam.

Every word she spoke was another cut of a knife into my heart. My dead child was nothing more than a pawn in her political game.

I turned to Wyatt. "And you agreed?"

"Faye, stop being unreasonable." He frowned, his eyes filled with impatience. "A capable young warrior, the future of the pack. That's more important than your stubbornness."

"I already told you, we can have more children."

I had carried that child for seven months, whispering to my belly every day.

I named him Aiden, meaning "little fire," hoping he would be as warm and powerful as a flame.

I had prepared a small cradle, knitted a tiny blanket.

That small life fought for three days and three nights inside me as I felt his heartbeat grow fainter and fainter, until it stopped completely.

I nearly bled to death on the operating table, and for the first month after, I woke up screaming from nightmares every single night.

And in their eyes, all of that could simply be replaced.

"Get out of my way." I walked toward that cursed tombstone, my voice low.

"Faye!" Wyatt's voice turned sharp. "What do you think you're doing?"

I didn't answer. I raised my right hand.

Healing power gathered at my fingertips, not the golden light of life, but the silver, crackling energy of undoing.

A dangerous energy began to saturate the air.

"Stop! You can't do that!" Valerie shrieked, her pretense of weakness gone, her voice laced with panic. She forgot all about her "injury" and rushed toward me.

I backhanded her with a wave of silver energy that slammed her into a birch tree.

"Ah!" she cried out, crumpling to the ground.

But I wasn't finished.

I grabbed her by the hair, dragging her toward the traitor's tombstone.

"You want peace? You want unity?" I snarled. "Then you can be united with your ally!"

I seized her head and slammed her face into the stone.

THUD!

The sickening impact echoed through the silent forest. Her forehead split open, and blood streamed down her face.

Wyatt roared and charged, his iron grip clamping down on my shoulders as he threw me aside. I crashed against Aiden's memorial stone, a sharp pain shooting through my back.

But it was nothing, not a fraction of the agony of losing my child.

"Faye, you're insane!" Wyatt's eyes burned with rage. "I'll have you before the Alpha King for this! Using healing arts to harm someone is forbidden!"

"Report me?"

I slowly turned to face him. His words could no longer hurt me.

The air around us crackled with unstable energy. I could feel the healer's power boiling inside me. This power, once used only to save lives, was now something I would use to destroy.

"Then let the Alpha King see," I raised my hands, silver light pouring from my fingertips, "who the real lunatic is."

The birds in the forest took flight in a panicked flurry, and the leaves on the trees trembled under the pressure of my power.

Sensing the danger, Wyatt instinctively took a step back. "Faye, stop! You don't know what you're doing!"

"I know exactly what I'm doing." My voice was as cold as frost. "I'm getting justice for my son."

The healer's silver light solidified, tearing through the air like a bolt of lightning.

I unleashed twenty years of raw power and aimed it at the traitor's monument.

It was instantly obliterated. Debris rained down as dust and smoke filled the birch forest. Kael's memorial was gone, reduced to nothing but dust. A massive crater smoked where it once stood.

The shockwave sent Wyatt and Rory flying several meters, slamming them into trees. Valerie, trembling, scrambled into Wyatt's arms, letting out a pained whimper.

I stood at the epicenter of the blast, all my pent-up rage and grief finally released. I stared at the two of them clinging to each other, a wave of disgust washing over me.

I picked up a rock and began smashing what little remained of the stone base.

"If a single piece of that bastard's tombstone is left when I'm gone," I said, my voice low and lethal, "I swear I'll put Valerie in the ground myself."

Wyatt stared at me for a long moment, as if seeing a stranger. Then he struggled to his feet, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.

He saw it in my eyes then: pure, undisguised killing intent.

For all these years, to be a sensible, respectable, and considerate Luna, I had almost never defied him, giving him all the respect and face he could want.

But now he saw it. His obedient Luna was gone. In her place stood a wolf ready to kill.