Chapter 5

"What the hell is going on here?"

Gideon's voice cut across the doorway of the pack hall.

He'd come straight from the evening council, still with dust on his boots. His eyes found me first. My hair was half out of its tie. My clothes were gray with rock dust. Blood was dripping off my palms onto the stone floor.

Delphine had her guards march me straight from the rock pile into the hall. Now she stood in front of me with a few of them at her back.

The second she saw him, her face crumpled.

"I gave her one simple job," she said, voice trembling. "She threw her father's position in my face and said I had no right to tell her what to do. So am I only Luna when it's convenient for everybody else?"

Gideon looked at my hands.

His eyes stayed on the blood for one second.

Then he looked away.

Delphine had every legal right to assign pack work. The rock pile was brutal, but it was still within her power.

Gideon knew exactly what she'd done.

He also knew that calling her out in front of the elders would make her look weak as Luna.

So he chose the pack again.

He chose her.

"Tamsin's father still carries a lot of weight on the council," he said, his voice even. "She's used to people bowing and scraping. Don't take it personally."

That wasn't defending her.

It was an excuse, so he wouldn't have to defend either of us.

He turned to me.

"You don't get to challenge your Luna in public. Understand?"

I lifted my head.

He went still when he saw my face.

There was no anger left in it. No hurt. Nothing he could fix with a kind word or another empty promise.

"I understand," I said. "I'm sorry."

Gideon's mouth pressed into a thin line.

"You're moving to the old trapper's cabin by the east tree line. You don't leave it without my say-so."

That cabin had been empty for years. It sat way past the main houses, cut off from the rest of the pack lands.

The corner of Delphine's mouth curled, just barely.

"Understood," I said.

The cabin smelled like rot and cold dirt. Dust covered everything, and old hides sagged off the walls. The floorboards were so warped you could see dirt through the gaps.

Hattie spent the whole day scrubbing one corner clean so I'd have somewhere to sleep.

That night, she knelt beside me with a bowl of warm water and started washing the blood off my hands.

Rock dust was packed into the cuts under my nails. My palms were ripped open. My clothes were stiff with dirt, and my hair was matted against my neck.

I watched the water turn red.

"Do you think I let this go on too long?" I asked.

Hattie's hands stopped.

"My dad always told me that control is strength. Don't lash out. Don't hand your enemies a scene they can use. Stay calm and wait it out."

I looked down at my hands.

"I waited when they took my son. I waited when they took my daughter. I kept my mouth shut while Delphine worked me until my hands split open. And I said sorry while Gideon punished me for what she did."

Hattie didn't say anything.

"Dad wasn't wrong. But keeping quiet only protects you if the people hurting you know when to stop."

I pulled my hands out of the bowl.

My fingers were ice cold.

"They don't."

For three years, every time I put up with something, Gideon and Delphine took it as permission to take more.

My kids. My place in the pack. My pride. My freedom.

They thought I'd take it forever.

"I'm done keeping quiet."