Chapter Three - The Public Execution

Dawn came too quickly.

I had not slept. How could I, when every breath felt like shards of glass in my lungs? The rejection wound was unlike anything I had imagined—a constant, burning ache that radiated from my chest through my entire body. My wolf was silent, retreating so deep inside me I could barely feel her presence.

Maybe she had died. Maybe part of me had died with her.

The cell door crashed open. Beta Damon stood there, his expression unreadable. Behind him, I heard voices. Many voices.

"Get up," he said quietly. "It is time."

"Time for what?" I forced myself to stand, using the wall for support. "You said I would be escorted to the border—"

"Plans changed." He would not meet my eyes. "Alpha's orders."

Dread pooled in my stomach. "What orders?"

He did not answer. Instead, he grabbed my arm—not roughly, but firmly—and led me out of the cells. We climbed the stairs and I realized we were heading toward the main courtyard, not the border gates.

The morning sun blinded me as we emerged. When my vision cleared, my heart stopped.

The entire pack was assembled. Hundreds of wolves lined the courtyard in a massive circle. At the center stood a wooden platform that had not been there yesterday. And on that platform stood Kieran, dressed in formal Alpha attire, his face a mask of ice.

"What is this?" I tried to pull back but Damon's grip tightened.

"I am sorry, Sera." His whisper was genuine. "I tried to talk him out of it."

They dragged me toward the platform. The crowd parted, and I saw their faces—contempt, satisfaction, indifference. No one looked at me with pity. No one was going to help.

Damon forced me to my knees at the base of the platform. Kieran looked down at me, and for a fraction of a second, something flickered in his amber eyes. Then it was gone.

"Shadowpine Pack." His voice carried across the courtyard with Alpha command. "We are gathered to witness the formal banishment of Sera Winters, who dared to claim a bond with your future Alpha."

Murmurs rippled through the crowd. I saw Lydia Frost standing near the front, a satisfied smile on her perfect face.

"This Omega," Kieran continued, and the word dripped with disdain, "presumed to rise above her station. She attempted to use the sacred mate bond to manipulate her way into a position of power she could never earn."

"That is not true!" The words burst from me before I could stop them. "I did not choose the bond—the Moon Goddess—"

"Silence!" Kieran's Alpha power slammed into me like a physical force, driving the air from my lungs. "You will not speak unless given permission."

He descended the platform steps, each footfall deliberate and measured. When he reached me, he crouched down so we were eye level. Up close, I could see the dark circles under his eyes, the tension in his jaw, the way his hands trembled slightly before he clenched them into fists.

"You thought you could trap me," he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "You thought your pathetic bond would force me to make you Luna. But you are nothing, Sera Winters. You have always been nothing. An orphaned burden this pack took in out of mercy."

Each word was calculated to destroy me. The crowd murmured approval.

"Please," I whispered, so only he could hear. "Why are you doing this? Just let me go—"

His hand shot out and gripped my chin, forcing me to look at him. His amber eyes burned into mine and for just a heartbeat, I saw it again—that anguish, that barely restrained pain.

Then his lips moved, forming words so quiet no one else could possibly hear: "Forgive me."

Before I could process what he meant, he released me and stood.

"Strip her of the pack mark."

The healer stepped forward, an ancient woman who had tended my childhood injuries more times than I could count. Even she would not look at me as she pressed her hands to my shoulders. Magic burned through me, searing away the invisible mark that identified me as Shadowpine Pack.

The pain was excruciating. I screamed.

"Let this be a lesson," Kieran's voice cut through my agony. "To anyone who attempts to manipulate the sacred bonds for personal gain. To anyone who forgets their place in the natural order."

The marking burned away completely and I collapsed forward, gasping. Without it, I was nothing. Worse than nothing. I was a rogue.

"However," Kieran said, and something in his tone made me look up. "I am not without mercy."

He gestured and warriors dragged someone forward. My heart lurched.

It was Thomas, the elderly groundskeeper who had sometimes snuck me extra food when I was a child. The kindest soul in this entire pack.

"This wolf," Kieran announced, "was discovered helping the rejected Omega. Providing her comfort. Questioning Alpha authority."

"No," I whispered. "No, he did not—"

"Sera Winters, you have a choice." Kieran's eyes locked on mine, and I saw something terrifying there. Something desperate. "Accept your banishment in silence and leave immediately. Or speak against this pack one more time, and Thomas dies. Executed for treason."

The crowd went silent. Everyone was watching me now.

Thomas shook his head frantically. "Do not, child. Just go. Save yourself—"

A warrior hit him, and he crumpled.

"Choose," Kieran demanded. His hands were shaking now, those strange black marks flickering across his skin again before vanishing. "Speak and he dies. Or accept your fate and he lives."

I looked between Kieran and Thomas. Between the Alpha who was destroying me and the old man who had shown me kindness.

There was no choice.

"I accept," I said, my voice breaking. "I will go. I will never speak against this pack or its Alpha. Just please, do not hurt him."

Kieran's face remained impassive, but I saw his throat work as he swallowed hard.

"Then run, Omega. And pray our paths never cross again."

The warriors released me. The crowd parted. And I ran, broken and bleeding, toward a border I would not survive beyond.

But as I reached the edge of the territory, I heard it—a sound that made my blood free

ze.

A wolf's howl, full of such anguish it did not sound like triumph.

It sounded like goodbye.