Chapter Four — Teeth in the Dark

Lillieth

The first morning she was allowed into Alpha council, Lillieth felt like she was being walked toward execution.

Not because Kade was dragging her — he wasn’t. He walked beside her, not behind, not in front. His hand didn’t touch her, but his presence was a wall and a warning all by itself.

It was because of the door.

Everyone in MoonRiver knew that door.

Thick, dark wood. Reinforced. Claw marks that hadn’t been sanded out — not accidents, but messages. The scent of old anger and fresh strategy bled under the frame. Only ranked wolves and patrol leads ever went through it.

Lillieth never had.

Until now.

Jane had braided Lillieth’s hair smooth and tight, pulling every glossy black strand into a long single coil that spilled down her back like night rope. She’d dressed her in a simple black dress that fit her instead of hanging off her, with long sleeves to hide her bruises and high collar to hide her throat. Nothing revealing. Nothing soft. She didn’t look like prey.

That had been Jane’s doing.

Jane, who had woken Lillieth gently at dawn with, “Up, Luna. You can’t let them see you shake,” and then kissed her forehead like they’d known each other for years.

Lillieth had almost cried at that part.

Now, at the council room door, Kade glanced at her.

“Remember,” he said quietly.

Her pulse raced. “Don’t speak.”

“Right.”

“Don’t meet anyone’s eyes but yours or his.”

“Right.”

“Stay behind me. If the Alpha talks to you, answer. If anyone else talks to you, don’t.”

“Right.”

“And if Draven gets sharp,” Kade said, voice lowering, “don’t flinch.”

Her stomach tightened. “Even if he yells?”

“Especially if he yells,” Kade said. “If he snarls at you and you make a sound, Marla and Cassia will feed on it for months. You give them nothing.”

Lillieth nodded shakily.

Kade watched her a beat longer, studying. Then, under his breath, he murmured, “You’re doing good.”

She didn’t know what that did to her.

Something in her chest loosened.

Something in her throat burned.

“I’ll be right there,” he added, twitching his chin toward the door. “He tries something stupid, I’ll break his nose.”

Her eyes flew wide. “You can’t break the Alpha’s nose.”

A corner of Kade’s mouth lifted. “I have, actually. Don’t worry. It heals.”

Before she could answer, he opened the door.

The council room breathed power.

Not like the training grounds, where rage and dominance and muscle ran loud. This was colder. Older. There was a heavy table of scarred oak in the center, surrounded by seven chairs. Maps layered the walls — borders, patrol routes, access trails through the forest. Weapons lined racks near the far corner: blades, batons, wolfsbane-tipped arrows for rogues.

And at the head of the table sat Alpha Draven.

Her heart stuttered. The bond snapped tight, hard.

He looked different.

Not softer. Never that.

He sat in his chair with lazy ownership, one arm braced along the back, the other resting on the table. His dark brown hair was damp, like he’d just showered after training. He wore a black Henley, sleeves shoved to his elbows, veins visible in his forearms. His lip ring glinted when he shifted his jaw. The gray in his eyes was sharper in here, like a blade edge.

He smelled like clean skin and cold water and that same storm-snap scent that had already imprinted in her bones.

She hated that she noticed.

She hated worse how badly her body noticed.

Her wolf, Nyx, lifted her head inside her skin and purred low. Mate.

Draven’s gaze slid to Kade first. Dismissed him. Then to her.

The room changed.

The warriors lining the sides went quiet. Kade wasn’t kidding — the lower-ranked sentries were here, but so were people like Marla and two patrol leads. All of them watched this moment like wolves watching the first drop of blood in snow.

Draven’s jaw flexed.

Something flickered in his eyes when he looked at her. Something like heat. Something like fury at himself for how much heat there was.

He covered it fast.

“Take your place, Kade,” he said, voice flat. “Lillieth, there.”

Lillieth startled.

There wasn’t a place “there.” Not for her.

Then she saw.

At his right.

Not beside him, not touching his chair — a deliberate two-step back from his side, close enough that if she reached she could touch his shoulder.

Claim-adjacent.

Not claimed.

Her stomach twisted.

She moved where he indicated, staying small, hands laced in front of her so no one saw them shaking.

Kade took the seat at Draven’s left without asking, like he always had.

Marla stood across the table, smug in a red wrap dress.

Cassia leaned in the corner, arms crossed under her chest to push it up as far as possible, lips pouty and perfect.

Draven didn’t look at either of them.

His eyes stayed on Lillieth, sharp, assessing.

She dropped her gaze, remembering Kade’s warning. Don’t challenge.

“Report,” Draven said.

Patrol lead Rowan launched into border status, voice crisp. “Southern line is holding. Scent markers were refreshed at dawn. We ran off two rogues mid-ridge. No signs they were scouts. Looked desperate, hungry. Nothing organized.”

Draven nodded once.

Lillieth stared at the table grain and tried not to sway.

Just standing this close to him made everything inside her too aware. His heat. His scent. The way the bond in her chest had settled from ripping agony into dense pressure, like something big laying its head down across her ribs and staying there.

For a moment, it almost soothed.

Then she heard it.

His heartbeat.

She didn’t know how she knew it was his. She just did. It pulsed low and steady, like thunder too far off to see. The sound wrapped around her bones.

Her breath hitched.

She caught it fast.

Don’t flinch.

“North?” Draven asked.

Marla spoke, voice bright. “We’ve had howls across the ridge near Blackwater, but not on our side. Probably nothing but strays.”

“Probably?” Draven said without looking at her.

Marla hesitated. “It could be the Bitterpine pack testing distance. They lost two hunters this winter. They’re restless.”

Draven’s jaw ticked. “Kade.”

“We’ll send double patrols to the ridge,” Kade said. “I’ll take first run. If Bitterpine’s even sniffing south, we’ll find out before dark.”

“Good.”

Lillieth was quiet. Still. Breathing slow. But her mind was racing.

She remembered Bitterpine.

When she was thirteen, an older omega whispered about Bitterpine males buying girls from weak packs and calling them “spoils.” It was said like campfire gossip. Mocking. Distant. But that whisper now wrapped cold around her spine.

Bought girls.

Spoils.

Her stomach rolled.

If MoonRiver had turned its back on her—if Kade hadn’t stepped in, if Draven hadn’t cared enough to keep her under his roof—if another pack heard “Alpha Draven won’t claim his mate” and saw opportunity—

They wouldn’t try to court her.

They’d try to take her.

Her hands trembled.

Draven’s head snapped toward her like he’d felt it through the bond.

Lillieth went still.

He stared at her for a long moment. Sharp. Too focused. The room’s air went tight.

“Problem?” he asked quietly.

Every wolf in the room leaned in, hungry.

Lillieth’s pulse pounded so hard she heard nothing else for a beat. “No, Alpha,” she said softly.

“Good,” he said.

And every wolf in the room flinched.

Because that tone—that tone was a warning.

Kade’s mouth twitched.

Marla’s smile cracked for half a second.

Cassia glared pure venom.

And Lillieth felt, for just an instant, something like… shield.

He thinks shaking is disrespect. Kade’s voice echoed in her head from earlier. Don’t let them smell weakness.

But it wasn’t that.

Not right now.

Right now? Draven had heard fear spike in her and bared his teeth at the room for smelling it.

Her chest flooded warm.

She hated that.

She hated how it made something inside her want to lean toward him, desperate for more of that protection, that rage bent outward and not at her.

He will never claim you.

She swallowed hard.

The briefing moved on.

Patrol schedules. Rogue scent patterns. Questions of supply and training readiness in case Bitterpine did push south. Draven’s voice stayed cold, even, brutal-efficient. He spoke like a general. Kade matched him calmly, slotting answers where needed, anticipating questions before they were asked.

Lillieth listened.

She absorbed.

She learned the shape of her cage.

At some point, someone mentioned her.

It was so casual she almost missed it.

Cassia, of course.

“So,” Cassia purred, twirling a curl around her finger, eyes cutting to Lillieth like knives wrapped in sugar. “Now that she’s…” she fluttered her lashes, “settled… where exactly are we placing her in rank, Alpha?”

The room went silent.

Even the torches on the wall seemed to lean in.

Lillieth’s heart lurched.

Rank.

Rank was everything. Rank decided who ate. Who slept near heat. Who could speak. Who could punish. Who got punished.

If Draven said omega, the pack would have free license to rip her apart for sport.

If he said Luna—

He wouldn’t.

He’d said he wouldn’t.

And even if he did, they’d revolt. Half the ranked females would riot on the spot.

Draven leaned back slowly in his chair.

His eyes cut to Cassia.

Lillieth had seen him give deadly looks before.

This one was worse.

“Do you think,” he asked quietly, “you get to ask me that?”

Cassia paled.

“I—Alpha, I just meant—”

“I know what you meant,” he said. “You meant ‘is she beneath me.’”

Cassia opened her mouth, then closed it.

Lillieth held perfectly still.

Draven tilted his head a fraction. “Would you like to test that theory?”

Cassia let out a shaky laugh. “Alpha, I—I didn’t—”

“Because,” Draven went on softly, “if you touch her without permission, I’ll gut you and feed you your own throat. Do you understand me?”

The room went so silent Lillieth could hear her own heartbeat.

Cassia’s face drained of color. “Yes, Alpha,” she whispered.

“Good,” Draven said, voice dropping. “Then don’t ask again.”

A pulse of heat shot through the bond.

Lillieth nearly staggered at the force of it.

Her wolf was practically delighted. Nyx stretched like a queen in her bones, smug and vicious. Ours. Ours defends. Ours threatens. Good.

Lillieth’s breath shivered out unsteady.

She hated how good it felt.

She hated how some deep, half-feral part of her purred.

Because even if he wouldn’t claim her, he had just announced to the room: she is untouchable unless I say otherwise.

Not Luna.

Not equal.

But marked.

Her.

His.

The room moved on like nothing had happened, but everyone’s posture had changed.

Cassia wouldn’t lay claws on her now.

Neither would Marla. Not openly.

They’d have to be smarter.

Slower.

More poisonous.

Safer for her skin. More dangerous for everything else.

Kade didn’t smile, but he relaxed a degree.

Lillieth let out the breath she’d been holding.

Her knees felt weak.

You are not nothing, Kade had told her. Don’t you dare call yourself nothing again.

She didn’t.

Not in that moment.

Because for a brief, terrifying slice of time, she understood:

She had weight.

Not her power.

His.

But it wrapped around her like armor anyway.

She almost hated him for giving it.

Almost.

⭑

Draven

Draven didn’t let himself look at her again until everyone was gone.

He couldn’t.

If he did, he’d lose his grip.

He felt off-balance, all day, every breath since the bond hit. It was like walking on splintered bone and pretending not to limp.

The meeting ended.

Kade stayed. Of course he did.

Marla and Cassia left first, practically stumbling in their hurry to obey that heavy, angry silence sitting in the room. Patrol leads filed out behind them.

Lillieth didn’t move.

That burned.

It shouldn’t have burned.

Draven wanted her gone from his sight and off his nerves. He wanted her far from his chair, far from his reach, far from the part of his mind that wouldn’t stop flashing her face every time he blinked. That face—too beautiful, too soft, too breakable—had no business sitting in his war room.

And still.

Still.

Something in him uncoiled just having her near, in his line of scent, in his awareness.

It made him furious.

He hated being ruled by anything. Not the moon. Not the curse in his veins. Not the rumors they whispered about his red wolf like he was some old prophecy stalking around in skin.

And sure as hell not by some trembling omega with eyes that looked like forest fire trapped in glass.

When the door finally shut behind the last patrol lead, the room fell into a new kind of silence.

The dangerous kind.

Lillieth stood almost where he’d put her, hands folded, eyes cast low, shoulders drawn in, but not cowering. He noticed that. He noticed everything.

Last night’s cuts on her hands had been dressed.

Her cheek had healed to a faint pink line.

Her hair was braided smooth and perfect, like someone had taken their time on her. Not in service. In care.

That bothered him.

More than it should have.

Kade leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, watching him with that particular unimpressed look he’d been throwing at Draven since they were old enough to bleed together.

Draven rolled his jaw. “Out,” he said.

Kade arched a brow. “No.”

Draven’s eyes slid to him, gray flashing dangerous. “You forget how this works?”

“No,” Kade said. “I remember exactly how it works. I also remember you telling her last night not to open a door for you. So if you want her alone, you can go fetch her permission like everyone else.”

Draven let out a low growl.

Kade didn’t twitch.

Asshole.

Draven dragged a hand down his face and exhaled slow through his nose, trying to throttle back the anger before it jumped his skin.

“Fine,” he rasped. “Stay.”

Kade’s mouth twitched, almost a smirk. “Generous.”

Draven ignored that.

He turned his attention — full, unfiltered — on Lillieth.

She felt it.

He saw the way her breath stuttered, just a fraction. Saw the way her pulse jumped in her throat. Her scent spiked, too. Not fear.

Something darker.

Warmer.

That affected him more than it should have.

His jaw clenched so tight it ached.

“Come here,” he said softly.

Her head lifted a fraction, eyes darting instinctively to his face before she caught herself and dropped them again. “Yes, Alpha.”

Her voice did something to him.

Too soft.

Too obedient.

Too his.

That last part was what made heat crawl up the back of his neck in a fury he aimed at himself.

He watched her walk toward him.

Every step was careful. Balanced. Ready to run and ready to kneel at once. She moved like a creature who was always braced for a strike. He knew that gait. He’d seen it in half-broken rogues they’d dragged in off the ridge.

It filled his mouth with the taste of iron.

He had to force his wolf — the restless, bloodred monster pacing inside him — not to snarl.

She stopped an arm’s length from him.

Close.

Too close.

Close enough for her scent to slam into him like impact.

He swallowed a curse.

“Look at me,” he said.

This time, she did.

And for a second, he forgot how to breathe.

He’d thought her eyes were just pretty. Unfortunate pretty, the kind that drew trouble. He hadn’t understood until now. Up close, they weren’t just green. They were alive. Alive with pain and defiance and something bright under the bruises. Not timid. Not empty. Bright like witchfire in the dark.

His chest burned.

He shoved that feeling down with all the force he had.

“You don’t speak unless I ask you something,” he said, voice rough. “Understand?”

“Yes, Alpha,” she whispered.

Her lips moved on Alpha like a sin.

He swallowed again.

“Last night,” he said, keeping his gaze on her face and nowhere else, because if his eyes dropped — if they traced her throat, the line of her collar, the way his clothes hung off her body in a way that absolutely wasn’t helping anything inside him calm down — he didn’t trust himself, “you told me no.”

Her breath hitched.

Kade made a quiet sound that he immediately pretended wasn’t a laugh.

Lillieth’s fingers curled together tight in front of her. “You ordered me to break Beta Kade’s rule,” she said softly.

Draven’s mouth twitched. “So you listen to him now.”

Her jaw flexed, the smallest bit. “Yes, Alpha.”

Something dark and viciously pleased rippled through Draven before he could stop it.

So she listened to him, too.

Good.

Good.

His wolf’s hackles lowered a degree.

“From now on,” Draven said, “you follow Kade. You don’t breathe without him knowing where you are. You sleep in the room he set up for you. You eat what he brings you.”

Her lashes fluttered. “Yes, Alpha.”

“You don’t leave that wing of the house unless you’re with him or me. If Marla asks where you’re going, you tell her to ask Kade. If Cassia asks you anything, you don’t answer at all. If Tomas or Reed comes within arm’s reach of you, you scream and you bite.”

Lillieth blinked, startled. “Bite?”

Draven bared his teeth. “You have fangs for a reason.”

Her lips parted.

Heat went through his chest hot and fast at the sight.

He swallowed it down with another stab of anger. “If any of them so much as grab your wrist,” he said, voice dropping to something lethal, “I will hang what’s left of them over the training grounds to drip.”

Kade cleared his throat. “So we’re aligned then.”

“Shut up,” Draven muttered.

Kade hummed.

Lillieth swallowed, throat working. “Yes, Alpha.”

Her voice was small, but not as frightened as before.

That settled something in him he refused to name.

He leaned back slowly in his chair, reining himself in a notch. He didn’t want to scare her. He hated that he didn’t want to scare her.

“This isn’t kindness,” he said coldly.

He watched the way she flinched like she’d been struck.

Good.

She needed to hear this. He needed to hear this come out of his own mouth.

“You are not here because I want you here,” he went on, forcing each word out controlled and hard. “You are not special. You are not Luna. You are not mine.”

Her eyes flickered.

Something in her face cracked open and then shut again so fast he almost missed it.

It shouldn’t have bothered him.

It bothered him like claws raked down his own ribs.

He snarled at himself silently and didn’t back down.

“You are here,” he said, gray eyes locked on hers, “because if you vanish, MoonRiver becomes a target. If you’re snatched, I become weak. If you die, I lose control. And I do. Not. Lose. Control. Are we clear?”

Lillieth swallowed hard. Her voice wavered, just a hair. “Yes, Alpha.”

Her pulse hammered at her throat.

He could hear it.

He could smell the sting of hurt rolling off her, the bitter ache of it — like burned sugar, sharp and ruined.

He almost took it back.

That scared him more than anything else today.

So he made his voice harder. Colder. “You breathe because I allow it,” he said softly. “You sleep in my packhouse because I gave the order. You eat my food because I decided you would. You are under my protection because I put you there. Not because you deserve it. Not because you earned it. Because I willed it so. Say you understand.”

Her hands were white-knuckled now where she held them tight together in front of her. Her throat worked once.

“I… understand,” she whispered.

He watched her eyes.

He saw it.

Under the obedience, under the yes Alpha, under the shaking, there was a flash of something else.

Anger.

Small. Buried. Banked like coals.

But there.

It made his wolf go very, very quiet.

Interesting.

Draven leaned in a fraction without meaning to. “Say it correctly, omega.”

Her jaw clenched.

“I understand, Alpha,” she forced out.

Heat shot through him so hard it almost made him dizzy.

He exhaled through his teeth, trying to bleed off some of it before it lit his temper up in the wrong direction.

His voice dropped. “Good girl.”

Her breath caught.

He heard it.

He felt it.

It punched through the bond like a shock, straight to his spine.

Oh.

Oh, that—

That was—

That was a problem.

Kade cleared his throat loudly. “Okay,” he said dryly. “This is getting weird.”

Draven shot him a glare sharp enough to cut. “You’re still here.”

“I noticed,” Kade said, completely unbothered.

Lillieth’s cheeks had gone flushed warm rose. She ducked her gaze fast, staring at the floor like it could swallow her. Her pulse had jumped. Her scent had gone sweet and dizzying.

Mine.

The thought was instant.

Reflex.

It ripped through him so raw his vision flashed for a heartbeat, wolf-close, red at the edges.

He swallowed a growl and shoved the word back down hard.

No.

No.

No.

Not mine.

Not ever.

Can’t be.

Won’t be.

He couldn’t let that word stand. Not even in his skull.

He’d seen what love did to Alphas. He’d seen what loss did to them, too.

He’d held Kade back a year ago when they’d found Hannah in pieces — when Bitterpine had tested a border they shouldn’t have and MoonRiver hadn’t gotten there fast enough. He’d watched Kade try to crawl into grave dirt with her because he didn’t know how to keep breathing without her.

Draven had sworn, that night, colder than moonlight in his own bones: Never. Never me. Never again.

He wasn’t going down like that.

He wouldn’t shatter for anyone.

Not even her.

Especially not her.

He tore his gaze away from Lillieth and scraped it across Kade instead. “Patrol rotations stand,” he ground out. “Double up on the ridge. Send Riley and Ash to sniff Bitterpine’s scent markers and report if anything’s fresh. I want updates by nightfall.”

Kade nodded. “Done.”

“And Kade,” Draven said, voice going dangerous quiet.

Kade met his eyes. “Hm.”

“If Marla or Cassia so much as say the word Luna where she can hear it,” Draven said, jerking his chin toward Lillieth without looking at her, “you break their ribs. I don’t care if they’re ranked females. You put them on the floor and make sure they remember where the line is.”

Kade’s brow lifted. His mouth curved very slightly. “With pleasure.”

Lillieth made a tiny sound in her throat.

Draven didn’t let himself react.

He sat back, tension coiled tight in every muscle.

“You,” he said without looking at her, voice clipped. “Go with Kade.”

Lillieth dipped her head. “Yes, Alpha.”

He felt her turn.

The bond ripped as soon as she took her first step away.

Not tore, not like it had when he’d stormed off the first time.

No — this was a pull. A drag. A too-fast stretch of something that didn’t want distance that fast and made sure he knew it. It lit pain under his sternum, deep and hot.

His jaw clenched.

He bit back a snarl.

He did not reach for her.

He did not tell her to stop.

He did not order her back.

He sat there in absolute stillness while the ache under his ribs sharpened and sharpened with each step she took farther from him.

This is nothing, he told himself.

She’s nothing.

Let it hurt.

Let it burn.

You’ll get used to it.

You always get used to pain.

The door shut behind Kade and Lillieth with a low click.

Silence fell like thick snow.

Draven dragged both hands over his face and let out a sound that was half-growl, half-broken laugh.

He hated this.

He hated the bond.

He hated the Moon.

He hated the way the entire goddamn pack had looked at her today, like she was meat and weapon and gossip all in one.

He hated more the way Kade had stood like a wall in front of her — not against him, but with him — because that meant Kade had already made his choice, and Draven knew what Kade’s loyalty cost.

And under all of it, like a splinter he couldn’t dig out:

He hated how it felt when she flinched.

He hated worse how good it felt when she didn’t.

He’d told her the truth. Brutal, cold, necessary. You breathe because I allow it. You live because I say so.

He’d watched the pain hit.

He’d watched her swallow it.

He’d watched something under that pain burn steady instead of go out.

And that?

That did something to him he didn’t have a name for.

It was easier when she cried.

It was cleaner when she begged.

He knew what to do with fear.

He could cut fear. He could shape fear. He could break fear and put it back in a cage.

But defiance, quiet and bright, sitting in a girl who should have already shattered?

That was dangerous.

That was how wolves rose.

That was how revolutions started in the marrow instead of on the field.

His wolf — that red monster thing everyone whispered about like a curse wearing his skin — paced slow and satisfied in his bones and rumbled one word like worship.

Ours.

Draven slammed his fist down on the table hard enough to rattle the maps.

“Shut up,” he snarled, to his own chest.

The wolf just laughed.

⭑

Lillieth

“Don’t smile,” Kade muttered as they walked down the corridor.

Lillieth blinked. “I’m not.”

“You’re about to,” he said.

She frowned, confused. “Why can’t I?”

“Because if Marla sees you happy after he threatened to gut Cassia for you, she’ll poison your bath water out of spite.”

Lillieth’s eyes widened. “She—people don’t poison baths.”

Kade glanced down at her. “In MoonRiver they do.”

“Oh,” she whispered.

She smoothed her face.

Neutral. Calm. Tired.

Inside, her heart was running wild.

She couldn’t stop replaying it.

Not just the threat — though hearing Draven say I’ll gut you and feed you your own throat in that calm, almost bored tone while looking right past Cassia had done something delicious and mean to her insides.

But the other parts.

Good girl.

The way his voice had gone low and rough and dangerous-quiet on those words, like he wasn’t praising her, exactly. Like he was claiming the behavior. Approving it. Branding it.

The bond had flared so hot in that moment she’d thought her knees would give out.

And he’d felt it.

And he’d reacted.

And Kade had said “this is getting weird.”

She wanted to laugh. Or scream. Or hide. She didn’t know which.

She hadn’t known a body could feel so many things at once and not tear itself apart.

Fear. Shame. Fury. Warmth. Need.

Need most of all.

That need scared her most.

Not because she didn’t understand it.

Because she did.

Because every cell in her body had started to learn the shape of Draven’s presence — the way the air felt thicker around him, the way his scent calmed the screaming-ache in her chest even as his words cut her raw, the way his eyes flickered red when someone so much as said her name wrong.

Her wolf was obsessed with it.

Nyx prowled just under her skin now, pacing low and smug. Mate threatens for us. Mate bleeds for us. Mate bares teeth at pack for us. Mate is angry. Mate is beautiful. Mate is ours.

Lillieth swallowed.

He’s not ours, she whispered back inside.

Nyx snorted. He says lies with his mouth. Bond says truth with his blood.

Lillieth’s steps faltered.

“Kade?” she whispered.

“Mm.”

She kept her voice barely above breath. “Is he… always like that?”

Kade huffed softly. “Define that.”

“Like…” Her face heated. She stared forward at the hallway instead of at him. “Like that. With me.”

Kade was quiet for a beat. Then: “No.”

Her heart jumped.

“No?” she whispered.

“No,” Kade said. “You’re a problem he doesn’t know how to solve and it’s driving him insane.”

Her stomach did something fluttery and terrified. “I don’t want to be a problem.”

Kade snorted. “That’s the thing, Lillieth. You don’t get to not be. Not anymore.”

Her throat went tight. “Because of the bond.”

“Because of the bond,” he confirmed. “Because you exist where you’re not allowed to. Because he can’t stand you and can’t stand you hurting worse. Because this pack was built on fear and you just cracked that fear by standing next to him without breaking.”

Her brows pulled in. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Exactly,” Kade said. “That terrifies them more than you know.”

They reached her door.

Jane was waiting outside with her arms folded, chin lifted in a way that made Lillieth want to smile again.

“Well?” Jane whispered, the second Kade opened the door to let them in. “How did it go? Do I need to poison anyone, or did the Alpha do it for us?”

Kade grunted. “Don’t poison anyone without telling me. It’s messy.”

Jane perked up. “So it went well.”

Lillieth gave her a helpless look.

“It… was…” she started.

Her heart squeezed.

Her throat thickened.

She didn’t have words.

She didn’t know how to say: He humiliated me and then he shielded me and then he called me good girl and I think my soul fell out.

Jane’s eyes softened like she saw all of that anyway.

“Okay,” Jane whispered. “Then we’re okay for now.”

Kade rolled his shoulders, tension cracking out of his neck. “Jane.”

“Yes, Beta?”

“You stay with her unless she’s behind a locked door,” Kade said. “You don’t send anyone else in, I don’t care who asks. If Marla calls you to the kitchens, you still don’t leave Lillieth alone. You make them come to me.”

Jane nodded instantly. “Of course.”

Kade looked at Lillieth again. “Eat. Sleep. I’m running the ridge this afternoon.” He paused. “And Lillieth.”

Her eyes lifted to his.

“You did good,” he said.

Her breath caught.

Warmth bloomed under her sternum, slow and stunned and a little shaky.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Kade grunted, like the words bothered him but the truth of them didn’t. “Lock the door,” he muttered, and left.

When it shut behind him, Lillieth let out a slow breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and leaned her forehead against the wood.

Her body was buzzing.

Her chest ached in that place the bond lived.

Her mind replayed Draven’s voice, low and dangerous: You will not die. Do you hear me?

Not I care.

Not I want you.

Not you matter.

But You will not die.

It should have sounded like a cage.

Instead it sounded like a promise.

And that — that right there — was how the Moon Goddess got pretty girls killed in old stories. That was the trap.

Luna-blood, whispered the old legends. Luna-blood will make kings kneel or burn.

She wasn’t Luna.

He’d said so.

He’d say it again.

The whole pack had heard it.

Still.

Jane touched her shoulder gently. “Come sit,” she said quietly. “I’ll bring you something warm to drink. I stole honey from the kitchen.”

Lillieth blinked. “You stole—?”

“It’s not stealing if they deserved it,” Jane said primly. “You’ll learn.”

For the first time since she could remember, Lillieth let out an actual small laugh. It felt strange. It felt good. It felt a little like healing.

She sat on her new bed, and Jane fussed, and the ache in her chest hummed softer.

The MoonRiver Forest outside her window whispered in low wind.

Kade’s presence lingered like stone and steadiness.

Draven’s presence lingered like lightning at the edge of a storm.

And for just a sliver of an afternoon, Lillieth wasn’t waiting for hands around her throat.

She was waiting for what came next.

Not if.

When.

Because Kade was right.

Because Jane was right.

Because her wolf was right.

This wasn’t over.

This wasn’t safety.

This was the start of a war inside the pack.

And whether Draven liked it or not, she was in it.

⭑

Draven

He couldn’t stop smelling her.

That was the worst part.

Not the politics. Not the threat. Not even Kade’s insufferable smugness about “see, I told you she’s not just an omega,” like that helped.

It was her scent, stuck in him like a hook he couldn’t dig out.

Every time he inhaled, there it was.

Wildflowers and river water. Pine smoke from Kade’s room. And under it all, something that didn’t exist before her. Something older. Something that tasted like midnight and old promises and the first breath after a wound closes.

Magic.

He hated magic.

Magic had marked his wolf red and made him a story the elders still whispered about with reverence and fear.

Magic had just handed him a mate that would rip his pack’s order apart from the inside out if he wasn’t careful.

He stalked through the hallways like a blade unsheathed, and wolves flattened themselves against walls to let him pass.

He barely saw them.

His jaw ached. His fists wouldn’t unclench. His chest burned with that steady, infuriating ache that only eased when she was close.

And that was another problem.

He’d thought, at first, that keeping her near would be weakness.

He’d been wrong.

Keeping her near was control.

Keeping her near meant he could feel that bond hum steady instead of spike sharp with fear. It meant he could smell if she bled. It meant he knew, instantly, if anyone laid hands on her.

Letting her out of his reach was a liability. Letting her out of his reach was a message to every ambitious wolf in MoonRiver and every starving Alpha past the ridge: she’s available.

He almost saw red just thinking about it.

He turned a corner and nearly ran into Marla.

Her eyes went wide, then soft. “Alpha.”

Not now.

“Walk,” he snapped, not slowing.

She stumbled to keep up. “Of course.”

She babbled something about stock levels, the kitchen’s complaints about meat rotations, a request from the washerwomen for new basins. He didn’t hear a word of it. His mind was already three steps ahead, calculating rotations, scent coverage, risk lines.

Kade was already on the ridge with two trusted wolves. Good. That left the interior lines.

He’d have to rotate the enforcers. Tomas and Reed had to go. Tomas first. He’d break Tomas’ nose in front of everyone and reassign him to waste duty on the eastern pits. Reed could run midnight garbage until he cried. They’d think twice before they touched what stank of Alpha again.

As for Marla and Cassia—

“Alpha?” Marla said sweetly. “About tonight’s meal—”

“If you or anyone in that kitchen says the word ‘Luna’ within her hearing again,” Draven said flatly, “you’ll be peeling potatoes with a broken wrist for the next month.”

Marla choked. “I—I never—”

He cut her a look that shut her mouth with a click.

She swallowed. “Yes, Alpha.”

He didn’t wait for anything else. He left her standing in the hall, breath a little too fast, perfect smile cracked at the edges.

Good.

Fear was order.

Fear kept the pack from exploding in his face while he figured this out.

He hated that, too.

He never used to need fear inside the walls. Only at the borders. Only in war.

Inside, loyalty had been enough.

Until now.

Until this.

Until her.

He reached the end of the hall outside Kade’s wing and stopped.

The scent hit him first.

Warmth. Soap. Honey.

His jaw tightened.

Honey.

Kade was spoiling her.

Of course he was.

Draven clenched his teeth so hard his temple throbbed.

He didn’t knock.

He didn’t go in.

He didn’t dare.

Because if he walked in there and saw her in that bed — his bed, in his house, under blankets he had ordered and clothes he had approved and safety he had enforced — and she looked up at him with those eyes and that hurt and that stubborn ember of defiance still burning in her like she refused to go out—

He didn’t know what he would do.

He didn’t trust what he would do.

He didn’t trust his hands not to touch.

He didn’t trust his mouth not to say mine out loud.

So instead, Alpha Draven of the MoonRiver Forest — feared, obeyed, and cursed by rumor — stood outside a door like a starving wolf outside a butcher’s and let his rage hold the frame in place.

He didn’t go in.

He just stayed long enough to feel the bond settle into that low hum again.

Her presence. Safe.

Her heartbeat. Steady.

Her breathing. Even.

The ache in his chest dulled from a blade to a weight.

His shoulders dropped half an inch.

His wolf stopped snarling and laid down.

For now.

Just for now.

He exhaled hard and turned away.

This wasn’t weakness, he told himself as he stalked down the hall.

This wasn’t softness.

This was containment.

He was containing a threat.

Protecting an asset.

Maintaining order.

He repeated it in his skull like a chant. Like law. Like a cage he could lock around his own throat.

Not mine.

Not my Luna.

Not my heart.

Just my problem.

He almost believed it.

Almost.

⭑

Lillieth

That night, lying in a real bed for the second time in her life, Lillieth stared up at the dark ceiling and whispered into the quiet:

“Jane?”

A soft rustle from the little chair near the door. “Mm?”

“Today he said I wasn’t his,” Lillieth breathed.

Jane hummed. “He did.”

“And then,” Lillieth whispered, struggling, “he threatened to peel Cassia and hang Tomas and break Marla and told me to bite anyone who touched me.”

Jane’s smile came through in her voice. “He did.”

“It doesn’t make sense.”

Jane yawned into her sleeve. “It makes perfect sense,” she said sleepily. “He’s an Alpha.”

Lillieth blinked into the dark. “That’s not an answer.”

“It is, actually,” Jane murmured. “Alphas say things with their mouths and different things with their teeth. The teeth are the truth.”

Lillieth swallowed.

Her heart beat slow and aching.

Her body buzzed with leftover tension, leftover fear, leftover heat.

Her fingers curled into the blanket he’d ordered for her.

Not a gift.

Control.

Not kindness.

Containment.

Not love.

Protection of asset.

She repeated Kade’s logic to herself like armor.

It helped.

It didn’t cure anything.

Her chest still ached where the bond lived. Her body still hummed traitor-soft at the memory of his voice going low and harsh when he said good girl.

But she also wasn’t shaking.

She also wasn’t hungry.

She also wasn’t alone.

“Jane?” she whispered again, softer.

“Yes, Luna?” Jane mumbled.

Lillieth smiled into the dark.

The word still felt dangerous. Forbidden. Precious.

“I think,” Lillieth whispered, voice small but steady, “tomorrow might be worse.”

Jane snorted a sleepy laugh. “Tomorrow is always worse in MoonRiver. Sleep anyway.”

Lillieth huffed out a ghost of a laugh.

“Okay,” she whispered.

She closed her eyes.

Her wolf curled around her heart like a living shadow, guarding it.

Outside, somewhere in the hall, she felt him.

Not saw, not heard.

Felt.

Like a red sun behind a closed door.

Like a promise and a threat at once.

The bond hummed.

And for the first time in her life, she slept inside the house of the monster that everyone feared.

And she wasn’t afraid of the monster.

She was afraid of what would happen to anyone who touched her without his permission.