Chapter 3

On the day of the Blood Moon rite, Viola insisted on climbing the steps of the ceremonial platform with me.

She wore a loose white ceremonial gown, and there was something hidden under the skirt that I could not see. On the top step she seized my wrist, dug her nails deep into the old silver burn, and threw herself backward.

I grabbed for her without thinking and came away with nothing but a torn piece of her sleeve.

The blood bag under her skirt burst, and blood with a strong metallic smell ran down the stone steps. Viola clutched her belly and screamed that I had pushed her and killed the child she was carrying with Damian.

With no wolf, I could not tell animal blood from human blood. The only thing that spoke for me was the deep scratches she had left on my wrist.

"Seal the altar and send for the healers," I said to Damian. "She grabbed my wrist before she fell."

Damian stood in the middle of the shouting, weeping crowd and looked over the Elders and the onlookers. The whole check would have taken fifteen minutes. But the longer the scandal continued, the more his authority as Alpha weakened.

He picked the easy answer.

He tore the Luna's shawl off my shoulders and draped it over Viola, who was covered in blood.

Helena raised her hand in front of everyone and slapped me across the face. "We gave you everything. Why would you hurt my own daughter?"

Garrick announced there and then that I was struck from the family register. Adrian took the family crest off me. Lucas held my shoulders down so I could not get a step closer to Viola. Rank, property, my good name, my freedom. All of it was stripped away under wave after wave of shouting.

But at the back door of the dispensary I found the spent pulp of the pregnancy herb, and the requisition slip that went with it.

"Give me fifteen minutes." I held the slip out to Damian. "The stamp is still on it. Verify it before you sentence me."

Viola wailed that I had planted all of it. Damian saw the dispensary stamp in the corner of the paper perfectly well, and he dropped the whole slip into the ceremonial fire.

"The child is already gone," he said. "Digging further only humiliates everyone."

As the fire ate the evidence, I finally understood. He had never lacked the chance to believe me.

He simply did not want the trouble that believing me would cost.

Aunt Maeve shoved through the crowd and dropped to her knees at Garrick's feet, begging, "The priestess warned us. Whatever she has done, you must never use silver or wolfsbane on her. It will kill her, sir. It will actually kill her!"

Garrick shoved the old woman aside. "If she really had all this power, why could she not even dodge a slap?"

Damian signed the order committing me to the Silver Cells. His pen hesitated once, as if he wanted to leave his conscience a narrow gap to breathe through. "Question her, but do not take her life."

Silver cuffs closed on my wrists. That narrow gap sealed itself soon enough.

The whole family came down to the cells to visit me. They did not bring a key. They brought a confession. If I admitted to murdering an unborn pup, left the family voluntarily, and gave up every claim to Blackstone Manor, they would let me stay on Ashbourne land as a servant.

I could give up the manor. I could not carry a crime I had not committed and let Viola climb into the Luna's seat on my ruined name.

"I am not signing this."

Helena turned away with disappointment all over her face, and my brothers marched Aunt Maeve out with them. Late that night Damian came back alone. I held out my hands, blistered and raw from the silver cuffs, and pointed at the half of the dispensary stamp that had not burned away in the ashes of the ceremonial fire.

He saw it clearly.

"Once Viola has calmed down, I will reopen the investigation," he said.

That was the last scrap of hope I had left for him, and he left it outside the iron door of the cell.

Not long after, Viola came in and ordered the guards to tighten the cuffs. The moment my blood hit the cold floor, every torch in the cells dimmed at once, and something thudded behind the wall, as if a huge creature had rolled over in the dark.

She bent down to my ear and jeered. "Even the family that raised you threw you away. You poor little bitch. How sad. You piece of garbage."

I clenched my teeth and said nothing. Everything had changed. My family would never have treated me like this before, and now it seemed that nothing I did could change the fact that they had stopped loving me.

Being rejected by my own family hurt a hundred times worse than anything my body was going through.