Chapter 21: Amelia

Victoria entered the throne room like a feral animal, dragged between two guards whose expressions remained professionally blank despite her struggles. Her perfect blonde hair hung in tangled clumps, her face blotchy and tearstained. The ice-blue dress she'd worn to the ball had been replaced by plain prison garb that hung loosely on her frame. One night in the cells had accomplished what years of my suffering never could – it had broken her carefully constructed image of perfection. Athena stirred within me, her satisfaction curling through our shared consciousness like smoke.

'Look at her now,' she purred, her presence pressing closer to the surface of my mind. 'Not so perfect anymore.'

I kept my expression neutral as the guards forced Victoria to her knees before the thrones. She resisted briefly, earning a sharp jerk that sent her sprawling forward onto her hands. When she looked up, her eyes widened at the sight of me seated beside Lukas, wearing formal attire and a crown that had been placed on my head just before we entered.

Recognition flashed across her face, followed by disbelief, then naked hatred. The emotion seemed to revive her spirit; she straightened as much as the guards would allow, her spine stiffening with the last remnants of her pride.

Dominic stepped forward, his scarred face impassive as he unrolled a scroll. His single functioning eye never left Victoria as he began to read.

"Victoria Bloomsbury of Silver Lake Pack," he intoned, his voice carrying effortlessly through the hushed chamber. "You stand accused of assault against Her Royal Majesty, Queen Amelia Volkov. Specifically, that on the night of July 26th, during the royal ball, you did willfully and with malice aforethought physically attack the King's claimed and marked mate."

He continued, listing each blow Victoria had landed, each injury I had sustained. The clinical description of my split lip, concussion, and bruised ribs made the attack sound almost mundane, stripped of the hatred and fear that had accompanied each moment. Yet hearing it recounted before hundreds of witnesses restored something I'd lost years ago – validation. My pain mattered now. My suffering had become a crime against the crown itself.

"Furthermore," Dominic concluded, "you attempted to desecrate the royal marking, an offense punishable by immediate execution under pack law. How do you plead?"

Victoria's gaze shifted between Lukas and me, calculation replacing some of her fear. I could almost see the thoughts racing through her mind, weighing her options, searching for any path to survival.

"I confess to striking the servant girl," she said finally, her voice hoarse but carrying a shadow of its former arrogance. "But I had no knowledge she was the King's... mate." She spat the last word like poison. "Had I known, I would never have touched her."

'She lies,' Athena growled. 'She saw the mark. She clawed at it deliberately.'

Lukas leaned forward slightly, his presence seeming to fill the entire chamber. "Continue," he commanded, his voice deceptively soft.

Victoria swallowed visibly. "I did see a mark on her throat, but I believed it to be fake. A pathetic attempt to elevate her status." She shifted her weight, wincing as her knees pressed against the hard stone floor. "I've known Amelia for years. She's nothing but a human foundling Marcus Blackwood took in out of pity. When she failed to shift at sixteen, we all knew the truth – she has no wolf. She's not one of us."

A murmur rippled through the assembled crowd. I felt their eyes on me, questioning, wondering if Victoria's accusations held any truth. My hands tightened on the arms of my throne, knuckles whitening with the effort not to show weakness.

"And yet," Lukas said, each word carrying deadly intent, "my mate shifted before your Beta's eyes, did she not? Moments after he rejected her, proving him the fool I always suspected him to be."

Victoria's face contorted with rage. "She's a freak! An abomination! Her shifting doesn't make her one of us!" Her composure cracked entirely, revealing the ugliness that had always lurked beneath her perfect exterior. "She deserved everything I did to her! Everything we all did to her over the years! Servant, slave – that's all she'll ever be to me!"

Athena surged forward with such force that I nearly lost control of my human form. My vision sharpened, colours fading as my wolf's senses overlay my own. I could smell Victoria's fear now, sour and pungent beneath her rage. Could hear the rapid flutter of her heart, the shallow pace of her breathing. Could almost taste her blood on my tongue.

'Let me tear her apart,' Athena demanded, her fury a white-hot flame in my mind. 'Let me feel her throat between my teeth.'

I felt Lukas's attention shift to me, his blue eyes searching my face. Through our bond, I sensed his question – silent but clear.

'Little luna?' His mental voice was gentle despite the rage I could feel simmering beneath his controlled exterior. 'What do you wish for her?'

I met his gaze, knowing my eyes had shifted to Athena's gold-green. In that moment, I surrendered to the primal justice that had been denied me for so long.

'I won't stop you,' I replied through our bond. 'She has earned this.'

A smile touched his lips – cold, predatory, promising violence. He rose from his throne in a single fluid movement, stepping down from the dais with lethal grace. Victoria shrank back, but the guards held her firmly in place, preventing retreat.

"Victoria Bloomsbury," Lukas announced, his voice carrying to every corner of the throne room, "I find you guilty of assault against the Queen. The sentence is death."

A collective gasp rose from the assembled crowd, though none dared voice objection. Victoria's face drained of colour, her struggles against the guards growing frantic.

"Please," she begged, her voice cracking. "I didn't know! I made a mistake! Alexander will pay any price—”

Lukas moved with inhuman speed, closing the distance between them in less time than it took to draw breath. His hand shot out, punching through her chest cavity with a wet, tearing sound that would haunt my dreams. Blood sprayed across the stone floor, droplets splattering the first row of observers who had unwisely chosen to sit close to the proceedings.

Victoria's eyes bulged, her mouth opening in a silent scream as Lukas withdrew his hand, her still-beating heart clutched in his bloody fingers. She remained upright for one impossible moment, staring at her own heart with disbelieving eyes, before collapsing to the stone floor.

The metallic scent of blood filled the chamber, thick and cloying. I should have been horrified, disgusted, sickened by the violence I'd just witnessed. Instead, I felt a cold satisfaction settle in my bones. Athena howled her approval in my mind, the sound echoing in my skull like thunder.

'Justice,' she growled. 'Finally, justice.'

Lukas turned to face me, Victoria's heart still clutched in his bloody hand. His eyes met mine, searching for revulsion or fear and finding neither. With deliberate care, he set the heart aside on a silver tray a servant hurriedly presented, then wiped his bloodied hand on a cloth offered by another.

He extended his clean hand toward me, palm up. An invitation. A question. Would I still accept him, knowing what he was capable of? Having witnessed the violence he dealt to those who crossed him?

I rose from my throne, aware of hundreds of eyes tracking my every movement. The midnight blue of my dress contrasted starkly with the crimson pooling on the floor as I descended the dais steps. Without hesitation, I placed my hand in his, feeling the strength in his fingers as they closed around mine.

Together, we walked past Victoria's crumpled form, her blood soaking into the hem of my dress as we moved toward the exit. Not once did I look down, my gaze fixed ahead, my spine straight. This was wolf justice – brutal, decisive, final. And for the first time in my life, that justice had been served in my name.