CHAPTER FIVE : BLAME AND BETRAYAL

SAMANTHA'S POV

The Crescent Moon Pack was silent.

Not the kind of silence that comforts, but the kind that presses on your chest until breathing hurts. The kind that makes you feel like you don’t belong in it at all.

I sat at the bottom of the pack house steps, hugging my knees to my chest, watching the wolves file in and out dressed in mourning black. Not one pair of eyes met mine. Not even the children, who used to sneak me smiles when their mothers weren’t watching. Now they hid behind skirts and cloaks, as if even looking at me might curse them.

My shirt was still stained with blood. Some of it mine, most of it Luna Marie’s. They hadn’t let me change. No one had brought me water. No one had even spoken to me except in whispers I wasn’t meant to hear.

“She should’ve protected her.”

“She was there, wasn’t she?”

“She’s the only one who came back.”

Their words dug claws into my skin, harsher than any beating.

I tried to tell myself I was imagining it. That grief twisted people’s tongues. But then dusk fell, and the mourning bell tolled through the forest, deep and hollow, and Alpha John’s voice carried over the gathered wolves.

When I stepped forward, every breath was a knife. My bare feet whispered against the dirt, but the silence that met me was louder than any roar.

“Alpha John,” I whispered, forcing myself to look at him though his eyes were colder than I’d ever seen. “I tried to save her. I swear it.”

“You were the only one who came back,” he said flatly. “Explain that to me.”

“I—I don’t know how I lived. I passed out. When I woke—”

“Exactly,” he cut in. “When you woke, my mate was already dead.”

The pack shifted, murmuring like a tide. My throat burned. “I loved her too—”

“Your love didn’t keep her alive.” His voice cracked like a whip.

Behind him, Elias stood stiff, his arms crossed, his face carved into stone. Beside him, Rose Ryder smirked as though she had been waiting for this moment.

The whispers turned to accusations.

“Why didn’t you shift?”

“What kind of wolf can’t protect her Luna?”

“She’s cursed!”

“I would never hurt her!” I cried, but my voice only fueled them.

And then John said the words that destroyed what little remained of my place here:

“As of today, she is no longer under my protection.”

It was not a punishment. It was abandonment.

The ground tilted beneath me. My body felt hollow. For years I had clung to the fragile safety of this pack, the scraps of belonging Marie had stitched together for me. Now it was gone—ripped away by the man who had once carried me on his shoulders to Moon Festivals, who had called me his daughter.

I stumbled away, numb, until the night swallowed me whole.

The garden bench was cold stone against my legs. I dug my fingers into it until my knuckles ached, trying to anchor myself, but nothing held.

The stars blinked overhead, indifferent.

I sank to the cold stone bench Marie used to sit on while plucking herbs for healing tonics.

What had I done wrong?

Was survival now a crime?

I didn’t know what to feel. Anger? Shame? Grief? It all blurred together until I wanted to claw my own skin off just to escape it.

Why had I survived when she hadn’t?

Maybe they were right. Maybe I was cursed. Maybe I’d been brought here only to destroy the only person who had ever loved me.

The thought came soft, seductive: You don’t have to stay. You don’t have to hear their whispers. You don’t have to carry this anymore.

My mind twisted the thought darker: You don’t have to live at all.

The words sank their teeth in, and for a heartbeat, I almost let them pull me under. Almost believed the world would be better without me in it.

But then I saw Luna Marie’s face in my mind—the way she used to smile when I helped her with herbs, the way she called me little leaf. Her voice whispered as if from the wind itself: Live.

My chest cracked, and I sobbed into my hands. But another thought, more dangerous than death itself, began to coil in my chest.

I could leave.

If I couldn’t belong here, maybe I could belong somewhere else. Anywhere else. I could vanish before they decided to banish me, or worse. I could run and never hear my name spat like poison again.

The idea burned in me, reckless and wild. For the first time in days, it felt like freedom.

I stood, swaying on trembling legs. My eyes lifted to the tree line where the road began. Beyond it—unknown, but away from here. Away from Elias’s cold stare. Away from Rose’s mocking smirk. Away from John’s betrayal.

A twig snapped behind me.

I turned—and three wolves emerged from the trees.

Beta’s son. A kitchen boy. One of the young guards.

Their faces were masks of contempt.

“You heard the Alpha,” the Beta’s son said. “You’re nothing now.”

I stood slowly. My body trembled, but not from fear. From rage. From grief.

“Don’t come closer.”

The youngest guard snorted. “Or what? You’ll cry?”

The kitchen boy lunged first.

I dodged instinctively, but his fist clipped my shoulder, sending me sprawling. The stone scraped my palms, fresh blood blooming across old scabs.

They descended.

Fists. Kicks. A boot to my ribs.

No wolf to protect me. No Alpha to shield me.

The world became a blur of pain, snapping branches, and the iron tang of blood in my mouth.

Somewhere deep inside me, something stirred.

A whisper.

A heartbeat.

A howl.

But it died just as fast, buried beneath years of suppression.

I curled into myself, too weak to fight back, too afraid to scream.

Then—

“ENOUGH!”

The voice split the night like lightning.

Elias.

He stood on the path, eyes glowing gold, voice rough with fury.

The boys froze, scrambling back.

“She’s not your punching bag,” he growled.

“She’s not yours either,” the Beta’s son snapped, backing away.

Elias took a step forward, and they fled into the trees.

Silence returned. Elias stood still for a beat, then looked down at me.

I forced myself to sit up, bruised, bleeding, but still breathing.

He didn’t offer a hand.

“Why did you save me?” I asked bitterly.

“I didn’t save you,” he muttered. “I saved them. From what they would’ve become.”

He turned to go.

“You used to love me,” I whispered.

His back stiffened.

“I used to believe in a lot of things,” he said. “Then I grew up.”

And then he was gone.

I remained on the ground, the pain in my body nothing compared to the shattering inside my chest.

The wind howled through the trees, echoing a question I no longer had the strength to ask.

From the shadows near the garden gate, Alpha John watched the entire exchange. He said nothing… but his hand twitched once—just once—and the guard beside him nodded silently.

The next attack wouldn’t be so merciful.