Father. Save me.

Cyrus's POV

"Where is she?"

I yanked the door open with my outer robe still half-fastened, and nearly knocked Gamma off his feet.

"In— in the Moonlight Forest, Alpha. The Council had her taken there."

I tied the sash as I walked toward the end of the corridor, boots thudding on the stone, Gamma jogging along behind me with his words coming out in pieces. First that Morton had already called the whole pack together, then that the Council's verdict had been drawn up and was only waiting for my signature.

"The testimony?" I didn't turn my head. "What actually happened?"

Gamma stalled behind me.

"You… should read it yourself." He held out the scroll.

I waved it away, impatient. "Just tell me."

"Carl says he was passing the back door of the kitchen that night and saw the offender come out of the storeroom with a paper packet in her hands. An hour ago the Council searched that room and found the packet — exactly the way Carl described it."

I didn't break stride. I pushed open the side door at the end of the corridor and the cold outside poured in, light off the snow making me squint.

"How many years has Carl worked in that kitchen?"

"Fi— five years."

"Five years." I repeated it. "A kitchen servant of five years watches someone come out of the storeroom with a paper packet, and he doesn't raise the alarm, doesn't report it to the guards, doesn't mention it to a single soul — and then waits ten whole days before it comes back to him in front of the Council?"

Gamma had nothing to answer.

Two more steps and something struck me as wrong.

Gamma had been talking too smoothly the whole way. But every time I asked for a detail, he swallowed before he spoke. I stopped and turned to face him.

"Gamma."

He met my eyes and went rigid.

I slowed down, taking it one word at a time. "The person who did the poisoning. Who is it?"

Gamma's mouth opened. His throat worked twice. Then he held out the roll of parchment he'd been gripping the entire way.

"Alpha. The Council's testimony… read it yourself."

I took it and unrolled it.

Carl's statement was written up properly — the time, the place, the person he saw, what was in her hands, laid out line by line, all of it neat and complete. The last line was in Elder Morton's hand.

Investigated: the wolfsbane residue concealed in a hidden compartment in Mira's room matches the substance found on the Alpha's plate. To be handled under pack law.

"Mira couldn't have done this."

Gamma stayed silent, and I realized I had said it out loud.

I said nothing more. I closed the parchment. Gamma kept his head down, not daring to look at me, and I walked on, faster than before.

One thing turned over and over in my head: the paper packet. If she really had done it, why leave the leftover residue in a hidden compartment in her own room? Someone who could keep the fact that I'd been unconscious for seven days from ever getting out — would she be stupid enough to hide the evidence under her own bed?

But Carl's statement held up on every point. Time, place, object — it all matched.

The Council had already accepted it. The whole pack was waiting in the Moonlight Forest for me to go and give the nod.

The Moonlight Forest lies north of the territory. That wood has never let in much moonlight at any time of year; the canopy is so dense that it's murky there even in daylight.

By the time I arrived, the clearing in the middle of the trees was packed.

Nearly every wolf in the pack had come. They stood in a ring, and in the middle of the ring stood Mira.

Her back was straight, her chin slightly lifted. Her face gave nothing away, but I could tell she was holding herself together by force — the fingers hanging at her sides were trembling.

The voices around us dropped for a moment as I stepped into the trees, then surged back up louder than before.

"That's her! The Alpha treated her so well, and she poisoned him!"

"An Omega — she should count herself lucky she was let into the core grounds at all, and she wants the Alpha's life!"

"I never trusted her. Always acting so soft and helpless, and behind everyone's back she pulls something like this—"

Morton came out from the front of the crowd, the Council's verdict in his hand. "Cyrus, she's been brought. Under pack law, poisoning the Alpha is punished in public by—"

"Wait."

I didn't even know myself why I cut him off.

Morton stopped and looked at me.

The crowd quieted a little, all of them waiting for me to speak. I stood at the edge of the ring, seven or eight paces from Mira. She raised her head and looked at me past the crowd.

Her eyes were shot through with red, as though she hadn't slept for days. She looked at me, her lips moved, no sound came out — but she shook her head. A very small movement.

I understood it anyway. She was asking me for help.

In that instant my instinct outran my mind. It had already decided for me — walk over, pull her out of that ring.

A hand reached in from the side and closed around my forearm.

"Cyrus."

Angelina stood at my shoulder, her fingers tight in my sleeve. "You said before that you'd let her go. Don't you remember? You said she was nothing. You said you didn't acknowledge the child in her belly."

I stopped.

The crowd was getting louder, some of them starting to press forward. Morton raised his voice and asked again: "Alpha. How is she to be dealt with?"

I opened my mouth.

Dealt with. Under pack law, poisoning the Alpha — public execution.

I should say the two words, then turn around and let Morton handle it. My mind told me this was the simplest way out. The evidence was solid, the whole pack was watching, and it would be over.

But looking at Mira's face, the two syllables jammed in my throat and would not come out.

Someone in the crowd shouted, "What are we waiting for?" — and then I heard a blade cut the air. A young Gamma warrior shoved his way out of the crowd and flung a naked knife toward the middle of the ring. The point was aimed at Mira's belly.

The knife spun twice in the air.

And I heard a voice.

Very thin, very soft, as though it came from somewhere far away — and yet it landed in my head with perfect clarity.

"Father. Save me."

I froze where I stood. The voice had come from inside her belly.

The knife was still flying.

My body moved first.