Chapter 4

KELLY

The council hall smelled of ash and incense, a cruel perfume for judgment.

I stood in the center, wrists bound by silver thread, while my husband and my sister performed their twisted theatre of righteousness.

Ever since I collapsed, Nevaeh has been taken away from my side.

I didn't even know if she was still alive.

Ezekiel’s face was carved from stone. Eve stood just behind him, her hand resting on his shoulder like a poisonous crown. Her lips trembled in a show of fragility that only made my stomach turn.

“Kelly,” Ezekiel said, voice low but sharp enough to draw blood. “You’ve brought shame to my name and to this pack.”

I almost laughed. Shame? The word tasted foreign in my mouth. I’d lived my whole life trying to cleanse him.

“What are you talking about?” My voice cracked, the sound echoing off the cold marble walls. “My daughter is dying, Ezekiel. That’s what we should be talking about.”

Eve stepped forward before he could answer, holding a bundle of papers tied with red string. “He deserves to know the truth, sister,” she said softly, her tone dripping honey. “It’s time your deceit came to light.”

She tossed the papers onto the table between us. Images and letters spilled out, forged records, false reports, grainy sketches of me leaving the palace grounds at night. Lies dressed as evidence.

“You’ve been sneaking to the pack house,” Eve continued, her voice shaking with rehearsed grief. “To see his brother. To see Kayden.”

For a moment, I couldn’t even form words. Kayden, the man Ezekiel had imprisoned years ago, forgotten like a broken sword.

Maybe Eve had forgotten who the marriage was initially meant for, and so had I, once.

But when she decided Ezekiel wasn’t worth her time because then he wasn't the heir, she convinced our parents to offer me instead, to marry him.

I accepted, out of duty more than desire, even though my wolf was weak… broken, some would say.

Then there’s Kayden. Ezekiel’s brother. My first crush.

We were just kids back then, full of promises and unspoken feelings.

He was supposed to meet me one night, and when he didn’t show, I thought he’d changed his mind. Until I heard about a prophecy and how he was locked away to die.

“That’s impossible,” I said. “He’s been locked away since before Nevaeh was born! He might as well be dead.”

Ezekiel’s eyes flared, something primal and ugly flickering behind them. “Then how do you explain these?” He shoved the papers toward me as if they burned his hands.

“They’re forged,” I snapped. “Eve made them. She’s the liar here, not me.”

But the guard at the doorway stepped forward, one of Eve’s loyalists. “I saw her, Alpha,” he said, voice steady. “Leaving the western gate after midnight. Several times.”

A tremor ran through me. Betrayal was a familiar taste by now, but it never got easier to swallow.

Ezekiel’s gaze hardened into ice. “So it’s true. You betrayed me… with my own blood.”

I took a slow step forward, anger replacing fear. “Listen to yourself,” I said, low and cold. “You’re letting my sister’s venom drip straight into your veins.”

He didn’t blink. “You’re a disgrace, Kelly. I should have known. You’ve always been ambitious. Hungry for power, you are meeting with the traitor.”

I wanted to scream that I’d only ever wanted peace. That I’d bled for this pack, that I’d given him a daughter when no other could bear his cursed line.

But instead, I met his gaze and let him see the fury there.

“You think I’m the problem?” I whispered. “Look beside you, Ezekiel. There’s your downfall.”

Eve flinched, barely, then turned the act up a notch. She grabbed her stomach dramatically, tears brimming in her eyes. “The stress… It's too much. The baby.”

Ezekiel caught her before she could even stumble.

That was the moment I knew I’d lost him completely.

“You’ll pay for this,” he said quietly, still holding Eve protectively. “For lying. For treason. For bringing dishonor to our line.”

“Treason?” I repeated.

Ezekiel’s voice rose, “Enough! You’re no longer my Luna. You’re nothing.”

The words struck harder than a blade. Still, I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me break.

“You’ll regret this, Ezekiel,” I said. “Not today. But soon. When you see the monster in Eve.”

He didn’t answer. He turned away.

Eve’s lips curled. “You always did talk too much, sister.”

Ezekiel motioned to the guards. “Take her to the dungeons. She’ll remain there until I decide what’s to be done.”

As they dragged me away, I caught one last glimpse of Eve leaning into him.

The dungeon kept time by the drip of water and the scrape of iron. Days here blurred into one another, a slow, cold ache where hope used to live.

I mapped every crack in the stone with my fingers, measured each shadow, and learned the rhythm of the guards’ steps.

Escape felt like a thin fantasy I’d play while the rats watched.

I tried everything. I tested the hinges at dawn, listened for loose mortar at dusk, counted breaths and prayers until my throat went raw.

The sound of their mirth was worse than chains.

“Eve’s to be made Luna this hour,” one of them muttered as they passed my cell, voices muffled by the corridor.

“They’ve already hung the new banner over the main hall.”

My chest convulsed at the words, like a fist closing where my ribs should be soft.

The idea of my sister draped in my houserobes, taking my place before the eyes of the pack, it was more than humiliation.

I pressed my forehead to the cold wall, willing the stone to give me strength. “Nevaeh,” I breathed into that dark, as if the sound alone could crawl to her bedside and pull her back. “Hold. Wait for me.”

I didn't even know if my daughter was still alive, she was taken away from me.

A key turned. For a half-second I thought it was one of the gaolers, coming to mock me, then the figure slipped through the gloom and the air itself seemed to change.

He was taller than I remembered, narrow as a blade, and wore the dust of a road that had no business touching the pack house. His hair lay in a rough tangle, his face was mapped with scars the years had handed him.

He didn’t speak at first. He only stood there, and in that silence I felt the old pull under my skin, the thrum that had waked when Nevaeh’s eyes had silvered.

Something old and hungry recognized something old and lonely.

“You’re alive,” I said, too loud against the quiet. My voice broke. “Kayden?”

He gave a short, sharp laugh, one that had neither warmth nor mockery. “Alive enough,” he said. “They buried me by design, not by deed. I’ve been busy learning how to unbury myself.”

Relief uncoiled in me like a small animal. “You must…” I began, then stopped. The words crumbled. “My daughter is ill. They turned their backs on her.”

His face changed. The softness in his features carved into resolve. He crossed the cell in two long strides and crouched beside me, close enough that I could smell rain and metal on him.

“I might as well sneak her out of the pack house if she's still alive. This is not a common remedy. It won’t cure everything, but it will buy time.”

Tears rose so fast I had to swallow them, I was so grateful. “What do you want? I’ll give anything in return for saving my daughter."

“Not anything,” he said. “Three promises. I need three promises, Kelly. No bargaining here, when I name them, you speak and bind them. You owe me no explanations.”

Accepting unknown future favours is ridiculous. But my daughter is more important.

“All right,” I whispered. “Name them.”

He knelt to my eye level.

“First, When I ask, you will leave this place with me and not look back.”

“Second, You will swear to stand with me when I come for what has been stolen.”

“Third, You will answer the call when I summon you, no matter the hour, no matter the place.”

Each promise landed like a stone. I barely had time to think of what each might cost when I found my tongue.

“I swear,” I said, one by one, not because I trusted him yet, but because of my daughter.

He bowed his head. “Good.”

“I’ll return,” he promised. “If anyone asks, say you spoke to no one. If they question you, say only that a stranger passed by.”

He moved like a shadow, and then he was gone.

The prison swallowed the hope he left behind, but it left a thread I could hold. I clung to it until my knees left impressions in the straw.

Hours later, or perhaps it was minutes, time here no longer kept its calendar. The key turned on my door again.

This time it was the heavy, public march of authority.

Voices thundered outside, a scuffle, the clink of armor, a harsh command. My pulse drum-quickened.

Ezekiel stood in the doorway, coat flaring like a storm cloud. Behind him, Eve walked with that practiced air of sovereign innocence, eyes wet and bright as if she’d been the one robbed of sleep.

Her belly pressed against the cloth like a promise.

He did not waste breath.

“You broke my trust, Kelly,” he said. His voice boomed off the stones. “You consorted with rogues. You tricked the pack. You have no honor.”

I looked at him and saw only a ruler who’d traded his judgment for rumor.

I wanted to shout that it was false, that I had only spoken to a man who once wore his brother’s name and had pulled a life back from the edge. But the words tangled in my throat.

Ezekiel’s gaze went flat. “You are to be punished. For treachery. For sowing dissent.” He turned his face toward Eve and added, with a thin smile that was meant to be kind, “We will make a proper Luna of her.”

My heart was hammered. “You cannot…”

“If you value your legs,” he said, and his voice dropped to a whisper that cut colder than iron, “you will not move against my will.”

The guards shifted, a pair moving to stand close. One of them produced a blade and laid it on the table between us, a ceremonial thing that had always been used for ritual, not cruelty. Ezekiel’s eyes were coals.

“Cut off her hands,” he said without flinching. “Let her rot where rogues gnaw and rats feast.”

The sentence made the air go thin. My breath stalled as if the world had forgotten how to breathe.