CHAPTER FIVE

Tatsumi watched her sister closely, the crushing weight of the silver chains on her wrists completely forgotten as the pieces of the puzzle violently crashed together in her mind.

The suffocating, musty air of the cell no longer mattered. The piles of ancient bones in the corner blurred into nothingness.

The terrifying fear of being unjustly executed, of being dragged to the gallows for a slaughter she had absolutely nothing to do with sent a massive jolt of fury through her veins.

It was an awakening, for someone who had spent twenty-five years being passive, submissive, and quiet.

'Why did Liora know the exact minutes the pups died before the pack healers even finalized the autopsies?'

'Why was she wandering the royal corridors so late, completely ignoring a childhood bedtime routine she had fiercely defended for over a decade?'

'Why was she so desperately, fiercely eager to point the finger, jumping to the conclusion without a single shred of hesitation?'

The twisted logic fell into alignment in her head. Liora wasn't just a grieving sister doing a painful duty. She wasn't a victim of circumstance.

She was either protecting the real monster, or she was the monster herself. She had planned this. She had walked into that nursery, looked at those innocent, sleeping children, and severed their lives just to ensure that Tatsumi would never inherit the throne. She was framing her own flesh and blood.

The sickening truth became an absolute reality when Liora deliberately tilted her head. Safe in the knowledge that Tatsumi was securely locked behind bars, a slow, deeply malicious smirk spread across Liora's lips.

"She did it," Tatsumi’s mind screamed, the realization roaring in her ears like a physical explosion. "She killed them all just to destroy me."

A blind rage exploded in Tatsumi’s chest, an anger that completely consumed the timid, soft-spoken Omega she had always been. The injustice of the frame-up, the haunting imagery of little Raven slaughtered in his bed, and the sheer, calculated malice of her sister's smirk broke something inside her.

"You monster!" Tatsumi shrieked.

With a wild surge of physical strength she didn't know she possessed, Tatsumi lunged forward. The heavy silver chains clattered violently against her skin, biting deep into her wrists, but she felt no pain.

Her thin hands shot through the narrow iron railings of the cell block, her fingers curling like claws as they clamped directly around Liora’s throat.

Liora choked, her red eyes widening in shock as Tatsumi's grip tightened. Before Liora could step back, Tatsumi violently hauled her forward, slamming her face-first against the heavy iron bars with a loud thud.

"You killed them! You butchered those babies, Confess Liora!" Tatsumi screamed frantically, her voice echoing off the damp stone walls in agony. She squeezed Liora's windpipe with a desperate grip, pinning her against the steel. "Tell them the truth! Tell them what you did! Look at me and tell me why you killed them!"

"G-Guards! Get her off me!" Liora gasped out, her face rapidly turning a dangerous shade of purple as she clawed frantically at Tatsumi's iron-tight wrists. Her boots scrambled against the dirt floor.

The dungeon guards instantly snapped out of their paralysis, drawing their heavy silver-weighted swords and rushing forward to intervene. But before they could even lay a hand on the Grand Heiress, a massive, terrifying shadow erupted from the dark alcove at the end of the corridor.

"Tatsumi, stop!" Storm roared, his powerful aura flaring violently.

He hadn't seen the silent conversation that had transpired right before the outburst. He hadn't seen Liora's mocking, triumphant smirk, nor had he caught the subtle shift in her scent from grief to absolute arrogance.

From his vantage point in the deep shadows, all Storm had witnessed was his quiet fiancée suddenly transforming into a creature of unprovoked, terrifying violence.

Liora's carefully planted poison from earlier echoed in his mind: "She has a scary side she hides from the pack... What if she attacks me the moment I step into that cell?"

It was exactly as Liora had predicted. Every word was playing out right before his eyes. Tatsumi wasn't a victim; she was a dangerous, volatile threat. She was a mad, jealous monster who had lost her grip on reality, throwing herself at her grieving sister in a fit of rage.

Storm lunged forward, his massive hands reaching through the bars to grip Tatsumi’s thin wrists. He violently wrenched her hands away from Liora’s throat.

The sheer force of his pull sent Tatsumi flying backward, crashing hard onto the freezing, musty stone floor of her cell. The heavy silver chains wrapped around her arms clattered loudly against the stone, the metal bruising her skin and pinning her down in the dirt.

"Alpha Storm!" Liora collapsed into a pathetic heap on the floor outside the bars, clutching her bruised, reddening neck. She coughed and wheezed violently, playing up the injury as she squeezed her eyes shut to force a fresh, dramatic wave of tears to spill over her cheeks. "She... she tried to kill me... just like she killed the pups! She wanted to silence me!"

Storm didn't even cast a glance at the weeping Omega scrambling in the dirt of the cell. His bright blue eyes were completely consumed by fury as he stared through the iron bars.

Every single ounce of doubt he had carried into this dungeon, every shred of protective instinct for his fated mate, was utterly dismissed.

Roran’s warnings from the council room were wiped away, replaced by the visual proof before him. This wasn't a setup. Tatsumi was completely unhinged, an existential danger to the entire Bloodfang lineage.

"I have seen enough," Storm snarled, his deep voice dropping to a chilling growl that vibrated through the foundation of the palace. He looked down at Tatsumi with total repulsion, as if she were nothing more than a dirt to be cleansed. "You are a deceitful, cold-blooded monster, Tatsumi. I reprimand you before the eyes of the pack, and as your Alpha, I officially declare you guilty of high treason and mass murder."

Tatsumi pushed herself up from the dirt, her heart shattering into a million jagged pieces as she looked into the cold eyes of her fated mate. The bond between them screamed in agony at his rejection, but she forced her voice through her tears.

"Storm, please... she smirked at me! She framed me! She just admitted it with her eyes! You have to listen to me, please!"

"Silence!" Storm bellowed, the sound of his voice cutting through her pleas like a physical blow, leaving her breathless. He turned his back on her completely, utterly deaf to her cries. He faced the trembling dungeon guards, his expression hardened.

"Bind her up. Use the heavy silver suppression chains. Double the guard on this wing. No one enters this cell, and no one speaks to her until her public execution. Let her rot in the dark until the pack takes her head."

"Yes, Alpha!" the guards shouted in unison. They quickly unlocked the cell door, rushing inside to ruthlessly pin Tatsumi's fragile body against the stone floor, snapping the heavy, power-suppressing silver cuffs around her ankles and neck, weighing her down until she could barely lift her head.

Storm knelt down in the corridor, his terrifying expression instantly melting into deep, protective tenderness as he gathered Liora’s trembling, fragile form into his large arms. He lifted her effortlessly against his broad chest, shielding her from the dim light of the dungeon.

Liora buried her face into the crook of his neck, letting out a soft, pathetic whimper of pain for his benefit. But as Storm turned on his heel to carry her up the stone steps, away from the darkness, Liora subtly peeked over his shoulder.

Looking back through the iron bars at the heavily bound, weeping Tatsumi who lay defeated in the dirt, Liora flashed her one final, parting gift. The tears were gone, replaced by a wide, triumphant, and utterly evil grin.