Chapter 5

TASHA

They were treating me like a porcelain doll.

Two maids stood behind me, fingers working carefully on my hair like I might shatter if they pulled too hard. The last gold clasp clicked into place at the side of my braid. My reflection stared back at me. I looked calm, polished and pretty.

A lie.

Behind me, the room stayed busy. Fabric being folded. Jewelry cases opening and snapping shut. Quiet footsteps moving around like I wasn’t even there, just another thing to prepare for display.

I hated this part.

The last time I stood in front of a mirror like this, I still believed parties were harmless. I still believed smiles meant something. That people actually cared.

I adjusted the sleeve of my dress and forced myself to really look at it.

It had gold thread, clean lines and old pack insignias. My mother’s taste.

She always said tradition mattered. That power looked better wrapped in beauty.

I dragged my fingers over the stitching, running against it slowly and careful. It used to calm me down. When I was younger, it was the one thing that kept me steady whenever my chest tightened.

It still helped.

A little.

My reflection looked… composed. Too composed. Like a stranger. Someone who didn’t have memories of cold floors and locked doors and nurses who barely looked at me.

The party wasn’t for me.

It was for everyone else.

To show the city I was “fine.”

To show the families I was still useful.

To show the pack I could still wear the title of Luna without embarrassing them.

They didn’t care what it cost me.

Rank wasn’t something you said out loud around here.

It was something you acted out. In the way you stood. The way you smiled. The way you lowered your gaze when an Alpha walked past.

Just another performance.

I fixed the clasp at my collar and adjusted the gold chain around my neck. The pendant rested against my skin — cool. Familiar.

One of the few things left that still felt like mine.

“Would you like brighter earrings?” the maid asked softly.

I shook my head. “No.”

I didn’t want brighter, I wanted normal. I wanted something that didn’t feel like it belonged to a stranger.

I pressed my palms onto the vanity, feeling the cold glass bite into my skin. I focused on that instead of the suffocating feeling climbing up my throat.

The room smelled like new fabric and metal and makeup.

It reminded me too much of clinics. Of trying to look “presentable.” Of being examined like I wasn’t human.

I lifted my chin and practiced a smile.

It looked real, I could feign happiness.

They’d trained me well.

“You look perfect, Luna,” the maid said.

Perfect.

A year ago, they called me unstable. A danger. A psycho.

Now they wanted me perfect.

I adjusted my bracelet again, just to give my hands something to do. To stop them from shaking.

The party would start soon.

People would stare, they will whisper and they will judge.

And I’d stand there and let them, because that’s what they brought me back for.

I inhaled slowly.

You can survive this. You’ve survived worse.

A soft knock came as I fixed my earrings.

“Open it,” I said, expecting another servant.

But instead… she walked in.

My mother.

Angela.

The entire atmosphere shifted the moment she stepped inside. Like the air thickened. Like someone had pulled the ground from under me and then expected me to keep standing.

Her eyes were wet. Her lips trembled. And for a second, just a second, she didn’t look like the powerful woman who controlled half the city.

She looked… small.

Vulnerable.

It threw me off more than anger would have.

My back straightened on instinct. My shoulders locked. It was an old habit.

She didn’t say my name.

She just crossed the room and pulled me into her arms like she was scared I’d disappear again.

Her scent filled my lungs — citrus and vanilla. The same perfume she wore when she visited me at the clinic. When she stood beside my bed pretending she wasn’t as helpless as I was.

Her grip tightened around me. I felt her shaking.

She was crying.

I froze for half a second… then my arms moved around her automatically.

Because no matter how much hurt I carried,

my body still remembered who she was.

And it hated me for that.