Chapter 5

Iris looked at this older, more mature Cassian with mixed emotions. She knew he was there to protect Viola and was probably going to chastise her over that little fall Viola had orchestrated, just like the others. Silas was just standing there, looking handsome as ever, though not as boyishly so.

It was impossible not to see in these young men the even younger brothers she had grown up with and loved so dearly. Silas was the playboy with a gentle and chivalrous manner, but underneath all that, Iris knew he had a steely resolution paired with the ruthlessness needed by a good alpha.

It used to make her proud of his strength, but then he had turned that ruthlessness on her. The results had been soul-crushing for her, and she found herself wondering if others had faced his icy resolve with any equanimity. She hadn’t.

Cassian, the youngest of the brothers by several minutes, was usually quiet, though when he spoke, as now, his words were direct. He held himself to the highest principles, and of the triplets he was openly the toughest.

However, looking at them, she could also see they looked distressed and a little pale from the cold outside. They had rushed here to protect Viola from her, the troublemaker, convicting her without knowing any of the facts.

Her heart went colder still. Were these really the people she had agreed to sacrifice herself for three years ago? These unfeeling wolves who stared at her with suspicion?

She looked down at Silas’s hand on her arm and shook him off as roughly as she could manage. It actually hurt her thin skin, but she was too angry to care.

“I am pretending nothing, Alpha,” she snapped, then allowed herself to enjoy the stunned looks on both the brothers’ faces. Iris thought of how Silas had been the one to personally frame her for Viola’s crime, arranging the evidence at the scene to make it look like Iris had been involved. And she thought of how Cassian, who used to say that he loved her as his sister, ignored her pleas for help over the phone after she had suffered her first beating in prison.

Iris felt the hot weight of disappointment press down through her whole body. As much as prison had been terrible, she had held onto the idea that, eventually, she would be back with her family.

Family? Silas and Cassian were obviously anything but.

“So, now I’m the one who pushed Viola to the floor, is that right?” she asked. “Did you actually see this happen? Do you have any idea what’s going on at all?”

Silas gasped quietly as Cassian stared at his sister in shock. He and his brother had been out of the city on pack business and rushed home as soon as they had heard Iris had returned from prison. They had expected a happy reunion and were eager to reconnect with their, hopefully, now less spoiled and attention-seeking sibling.

Instead, they had been greeted at the door of the packhouse with the news that Iris had attacked Viola and pushed her to the ground. The news had filled Cassian with anger. To think that he had been the one to push so forcefully for Iris’s reformation! Obviously, prison had done nothing to change her ways at all.

He remembered he’d actually been shocked when he’d first heard of Iris’s actions three years ago, so blatantly criminal. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but he’d heard her admit it in front of him.

And now here she was; three years in prison had done nothing to change her selfish ways. She was, if anything, worse. Was she about to throw one of her tantrums now?

Iris wondered what Cassian thought he was looking at with his incredulous eyes. She knew he and Silas had hurried back because they were worried she’d reveal Viola’s guilt, which was ridiculous, considering her silence the last three years.

“The two of you need to calm down, Alphas,” she told them. “You can rest assured I’ll continue taking the blame like a good family member, even if you don’t remember my loyalty.”

Silas scowled at her. Cassian looked confused and opened his mouth as if to ask something, but then the healer arrived, looking at Iris.

“Cedric told me you need some attention,” the healer said with a frown marring his otherwise gentle face. He seemed to peer at Iris closely. “You’re very thin, my dear.”

The healer’s view of Iris was blocked, however, when Silas and Cassian crowded around him.

“Is Viola all right? Did she get hurt in the attack?” Silas demanded. “Take us to her now.”

Iris watched the healer being led away and told herself it didn’t matter. Was the healer going to make the last years disappear?

Cassian turned to look at her as they walked away, and his eyes might as well have been looking at something unpleasant on his shoe.

“If you really have learned so little in prison about the proper way to behave,” he told her coldly. “Perhaps you should go back there for more reformation.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be here long enough to show you my reformed self,” Iris retorted. “I’m leaving this pack as soon as possible. You needn’t worry.”

Cassian was stung. He had wanted to speak properly with his sister. He hadn't expected things to go this way at all. He left the healer’s side and marched to her to grab her by the wrist. How preposterous! As if they would ever let her leave the pack!

Confident her wolf would protect her, Cassian flung open the door to the floor’s main storage room—plenty of room in there—and threw her inside before slamming the door shut. She obviously needed some time to cool off.

After her immediate shock lessened, Iris realized her “brother” had thrown her into a dark, windowless room and locked the door behind her. Her claustrophobia clawed at her throat even as she screamed to be let out.

But in the hallway, Cassian only shook his head at his brother and mumbled that Iris needed a timeout. Then the brothers took the healer back to Viola’s room. Iris’s strangled screams and pleas for mercy quickly faded.

The hallway grew silent as Iris’s moans turned to quiet sobs.

Footsteps echoed suddenly, and the Queen turned into the hallway. One of her betas was reporting on the investigation into her daughter and into Iris.

“We haven’t been able to determine much yet about Iris’s life in prison,” he was saying, “but there have been rumors that Iris has been trying to frame her sister Viola for the fire, despite all the evidence to the contrary.”

“Just tell me about her arrival here,” the Queen said with only somewhat repressed impatience.

The Royal Beta reported, “The area where Princess Emelia was lost years ago is exactly on the border of the Moonstone Pack, near the site where Iris is said to have been found, orphaned and alone.”