Chapter 3
I went down on one knee. The hand in my hair didn't let go.
"Chained for six years and still no shame—"
"A traitor's a traitor—"
"She brought the Rogues to our door—"
The voices were ones I knew. The Beta enforcer from the eastern den. The juvenile wolf my mother used to bake for. Eight years ago their hands had been around my arms helping me carry boxes into the den I'd shared with Aldric.
A boot caught me in the ribs. Then another. Their ceremonial silver cuffs scraped across my skin when they reached for me, and the metal opened the old shackle burns along my wrists like seams. Hot blood ran down into my palms.
I curled.
Somewhere above the noise I heard Cael moving—the heavy stride of an Enforcer about to break up a brawl.
He didn't get there.
"Brother—" Vesper's voice rose, soft and broken. "There are too many of them—I can't—I can't breathe—"
The rhythm of feet around me changed. Even the wolves who had been kicking turned. Aldric did not look back at me once. He crossed to her in five strides.
I stayed curled. Silver-blood ran across the dirt in slow lines. No one came.
The Pack hall was warm. A fire pit at the centre, low couches around it. They had brought Vesper there to recover. Three of the Pack matriarchs were fanning her and pressing cool water to her temples.
I made it to the doorway under my own power. Barely.
My mother saw me and her face shut down.
"Who are you putting on that dirty look for?"
Vesper turned her head against the cushion to look at me. Her eyes were wet, fragile, perfect. Then, when no one else was watching her, she rose and crossed the room.
She caught my hand. Her fingers were warm and gentle. She leaned in close to my ear, like a sister offering comfort.
"I'm bored of Lyra," she murmured. "And your organs are nearly through—convenient. Be a good girl and leave me something before you go."
The thing that had been keeping me upright for the last hour snapped clean.
I lifted my free hand.
Cael's palm met my cheek before mine had moved an inch. The blow snapped my head sideways. I tasted copper.
"Don't you dare touch her," he said.
A flicker of motion at my hip. I looked down.
Lyra had stepped up beside me, both hands wrapped around the haft of a hunter's silver needle. The kind we used for tagging field game. Six inches, hollow-tipped. She had driven three of those inches into my side.
Her face was white. She hadn't expected the resistance to give.
But she didn't let go of it. She glared up at me.
"Don't talk to my mother."
I looked at her. At the tiny precise face I had seen for thirty seconds in the birthing chamber before the world went dark.
"You're protecting her because she's your mother," I said. "But what if I told you your mother is me?"
My father Marcus moved. The wineglass in his hand came down across my forehead in one quick motion. Glass and silver edging—the rim was ceremonial—opened the skin above my eyebrow. Blood ran into my eye.
Lyra's lip curled.
"You? You wear shackles. If a Pack slave was my mother, I'd rather not have one."
Cael held out his phone.
The video was already playing. The same one. Three Rogues in the trees, off the back road. Six years ago.
"Last chance, Seren. Record the clarification. Or this goes to every wolf in this Pack."
I laughed. It came out wet, and the tears came with it.
"No," I said. "Let me send it for you."
I took the phone out of his hand. He let me. He thought I was reaching for the recording app.
I pressed forward. All Pack contacts. Send.
His face went still.
He had not lied about everything in that video. Just one thing. The men were not actors. They were Rogues—real crest-marks, real dialect—and any wolf who had ever served a border watch would know which clan they belonged to.
I gave him back the phone.
Then I walked out of the hall, across the clearing, and onto the path that ran along the cliff.
I could hear them behind me. Aldric. My mother. My father. Even Cael now.
"Where do you think you're going? Seren, get back here—"
"You're not going to die from that fall and you know it. A Beta drops from twice that height every time we run boundary patrol—"
"You will not embarrass this Pack tonight. You will turn around and apologize to Vesper. Now."
The wind was up. The diagnosis from the Pack physician lifted out of my coat pocket and went sideways into the dark, white against the trees for one moment, and then gone.
I stopped at the edge.
I turned. I looked at them.
"My daughter. Six years of my life. And tonight," I said. "If those aren't enough to balance what you owe me—take this too."
Their faces went white. They lunged.
I let myself fall back.
