C2

“You’re going to rot in there, Precious, and nobody is coming to save you.”

My public defender doesn’t even look up from his phone as he throws the words at me across the cold metal table of the holding cell. I sit shivering in last night’s champagne dress, the silk torn at the hem, stained with dirt and dried tears.

“I didn’t poison anyone,” I say, my voice raspy and thin. “I didn’t fabricate pack records.”

“Tell that to the television screens outside,” he sneers, slapping a folder closed. “They’re already calling you the Wedding Witch. The media wants blood, the pack wants blood, and Alpha Lancelot gave them full permission to execute you legally. You’re done.”

My stomach turns sickeningly. My wolf whimpers in the back of my mind, battered and bleeding from the broken bond.

Ten minutes later, guards drag me into the blinding white light of the courtroom. Flashbulbs explode instantly like lighting strikes. Reporters shout over one another, wave microphones, and glare at me with vicious delight.

“Look at her!” a voice shouts from the gallery. “Jealous bitch tried to kill our Luna!”

I lower my head, my hands shaking inside the cold steel handcuffs. I sit down in the hard defendant's chair, every eye in the room burning into my skin.

In the front row, sitting right behind the prosecution table, is Lancelot.

His jaw is set like iron, his broad shoulders squared in a tailor-made suit. He looks older than he did yesterday. Dark circles shadow his golden eyes, and his skin is pale. Beside him, Kara sits draped in pure white, leaning her delicate frame against his side.

I stare at Lancelot, begging him with my eyes to look at me, to see the girl he grew up with, the girl whose hand he held when her mother died. But every time my eyes catch his, he turns his head away instantly, his nostrils flaring with pure disgust. Like I am a disease. Like I am something dirty scraped off the bottom of his boot.

“Call the victim to the stand,” the judge commands, slamming his wooden gavel down.

Kara glides up to the witness stand, her movements soft and trembling. She takes the oath, her voice cracking delicately.

“I only ever wanted to be her friend,” Kara wipes a single, perfect tear from her cheek. “I knew she loved Lancelot. I knew she couldn't accept that the Moon Goddess chose me to be his mate. But when I found the poison in my tea... when I saw the altered pack ledgers in her room... I was terrified. She wanted to destroy my life.”

“Lie!” I scream, jumping out of my seat. “That's a lie!”

“Silence in the court!” the judge shouts, pounding the gavel.

Lancelot’s golden eyes snap to mine, burning with absolute fury. “Shut your mouth, Precious,” he growls under his breath, his voice laced with heavy Alpha aura that forces my knees to buckle back into my chair.

My heart hammers against my ribs, suffocating me. The prosecutor steps forward, playing audio clips of me arguing with Kara, showing doctored photos of me near the pack pharmacy, presenting forged bank transfers with my signature.

The case is too clean. The evidence is impossibly detailed. Someone engineered this downfall so thoroughly that my own truth sounds like a pathetic lie.

“We call Olu to the stand,” the prosecutor announces.

My heart leaps into my throat. Olu. My closest friend in the pack lodge. The one person who knew where I was every second of that night. He can save me. He knows I never went near Kara’s tea.

Olu steps up, his head hanging low. He refuses to look at me.

“Olu,” I whisper, leaning forward. “Please.”

“Mr. Olu,” the prosecutor says smoothly. “Did the defendant ever speak to you about her plans regarding Luna Kara?”

Olu’s hands tremble on the wooden ledge. He looks at me for one second, his eyes filled with overwhelming pity and fear—not loyalty. He looks terrified for his own life.

“I can’t testify for her, Your Honor,” Olu says, his voice shaking violently. “She... she confessed things to me. She told me she was going to make sure Kara never walked down that aisle.”

The courtroom erupts in loud gasps and angry shouting.

“Traitor!” someone yells from the back.

My chest collapses. They threatened him. Someone bought him or threatened his family to force that lie out of his throat. My wolf screams in raw agony, losing the very last thread of hope.

“The evidence is absolute,” the judge states, his cold voice cutting through the noise. “Precious Vance, you have brought dishonor, violence, and treachery to this pack.”

Kara rests her head softly on Lancelot’s broad shoulder. Through her pretend weeping, her eyes lock onto mine across the room. Her mouth curves into a tiny, cruel, victorious smile that no one else can see.

“I sentence you to maximum security at the Iron Ridge Detention Facility,” the judge slams the gavel down with a deafening crack. “Ten years. No early release. No pack protection.”

Ten years. A death sentence for a lone wolf without a pack.

“No! Lancelot, please!” I cry out as two heavy guards yank me out of my chair.

Lancelot finally stands up and looks directly at me as the guards pull my arms behind my back. The finality in his eyes is absolute. There is no pity left in him. No memory of us. Only pure, unadulterated disgust.

As I am dragged down the aisle toward the side exit, a figure in the back row stands up slowly.

It is the man from the wedding. The man in the tailored black suit.

He doesn't say a word. He doesn't join in the angry shouting of the crowd. He simply stands tall, his cold, piercing eyes tracking my every movement.

The judge pauses mid-sentence, his eyes flickering toward the back of the room. A flash of genuine shock and recognition passes over the judge’s face as he spots the man in black. The judge’s hands freeze on his papers, his mouth slightly open.

The man in black doesn't care about the judge. He casually places a thick, black business card on the wooden bench beside him, turns on his heel, and walks out the side doors before anyone can stop him.

“Keep moving, inmate,” the guard grunts, shoving me through the heavy steel doors leading to the transport van.

They throw me into the dark, cold metal back of the prison transport van. The heavy doors slam shut, locking me into pitch darkness as the engine roars to life.

I collapse onto the metal floor, my hands bound in front of me, heavy tears finally breaking past my eyes and burning my bruised cheeks. My life is over. My pack is gone. The man I loved hates me.

I shift uncomfortably on the cold floor, wiping my face against my shoulder.

As I move, something stiff scrapes against my waist.

I frown, pressing my cuffed hands against the pocket of my ruined champagne dress. My fingers slide inside and pull out a thick, black card.

It wasn't there before. Someone must have slipped it into my dress during the chaotic push through the courtroom hallway.

I hold the card up to the tiny sliver of sunlight streaming through the van's barred window.

There is no name printed on the front. No phone number. Just a dark, embossed wolf crest, a physical address, and a time stamped for tonight at midnight.

I flip the card over. On the back, written in sharp, bold, uncompromising handwriting, is a single line:

I know you didn't poison her. I know because I have the receipt for the poison she bought herself.