Chapter 4

My father's roar was still echoing off the walls, and I couldn't have cared less.

"Go on," I said, my voice steady, not raised. "Tell everyone how much you despised Cyrus for being a cripple."

"And how you begged your family to shove me into that fire instead of you."

Selena's lips parted, but nothing came out.

Because every word I'd said was true.

The Alpha King's gaze swept between Selena and my father.

Then a scream tore through the dead silence of the hall.

Harper.

Her hands were clamped around her own throat, nails digging into flesh.

Black veins were crawling up her skin like a spreading web, climbing from her neck toward her jaw.

The women who'd been the loudest with their insults minutes ago dropped one after another, gasping like something had ripped half the life out of them, their limbs jerking and twitching, gone numb.

Selena pressed a hand to her chest, every trace of color gone from her face.

A cold, needling pain was crawling up through her veins.

She stared at me, terror creeping into her voice, shaking apart. "You—"

I smiled at her, my tone as light as if I were commenting on the weather.

"So sorry. Looks like you're all poisoned."

The hall dissolved into chaos.

Some screamed and stumbled backward. Others clutched at each other, unsure which direction to even run.

Harper thrashed on the floor, her throat torn raw from her own nails, sobbing and begging for the antidote.

The sound was grating enough to raise hairs on the back of your neck—though to me, it sounded a little like the boy whose voice I'd taken when I was five.

Selena's eyes were locked on me, her voice trembling. "When—when did you poison us?"

I brushed my fingertips together, like flicking off a speck of dust.

"Whose fault is it that you all got close enough, and couldn't keep your mouths clean?"

A flicker of real fear finally crossed Selena's eyes—but she was still clinging to what little dignity she had left, refusing to let go of it.

The Alpha King's palm slammed against the arm of his chair. The wood splintered with a sound sharp enough to cut through the noise.

"Enough!"

The roar came wrapped in genuine dominance, and every wolf in the hall dropped to their knees on pure instinct, spines bowing low.

Every wolf except me. I stood straight through the weight of it.

The Luna Queen chose that moment to try smoothing things over.

"Aria. Hand over the antidote, and we'll consider this settled."

I laughed coldly, looking straight at her.

"When they were humiliating me a few minutes ago, where was the Luna teaching them to 'settle' anything?"

Her expression soured at that.

The royal physicians filed forward one after another, each face paler than the last, until finally they were all kneeling in a row, unable to name the poison at all.

Tristan stood at the edge of the crowd, watching me with something close to pleading in his eyes.

I ignored him.

The Alpha King's gaze pressed down on me again, his voice carrying the weight of a command that expected no argument.

"Hand over the antidote."

I didn't move an inch.

Selena dropped to her knees, forehead slamming against the floor hard enough that when she looked up again, the skin had split and blood beaded along the scrape.

"I'll die in their place," she sobbed. "Please, Alpha King. Spare Aria."

Several Betas and Omegas nearby immediately teared up, faces twisting with sympathy.

My so-called mother threw herself forward too, wrapping her arms around Selena's shoulders and weeping like her heart was breaking.

Watching the whole performance, all I felt was disgust.

So tears could be a weapon too.

"Well acted," I said.

Selena's head snapped up, the tears in her eyes still wet, but something poisonous already hiding beneath them.

I pulled a small white vial filled with black liquid from inside my coat and held it up in front of her.

"There's something in here that eases it. One drop each. No one dies."

Selena lunged for it like it was a lifeline.

I pulled it back, just slightly, and held her gaze.

"But the witch's poison stays in your blood. Forever."

Her hand froze in midair.

"Every full moon from now on, your bones will ache like something's eating through them, inch by inch."

Selena's face went white as paper.

Harper's eyes rolled back the second she heard that, and she dropped, unconscious.

"What do you want?" Lucius finally spoke.

I held up two fingers, laying it out clean and clear.

"First. Harper kneels on this floor, wipes every one of my broken moonstone beads clean, and strings them back together with her own hands."

"Second. Selena admits—in front of every pack in this hall—that she's a fake heiress. That she's the one who despised Cyrus for being crippled, and forced me to marry him in her place."

Dead silence swallowed the room. Even the breathing seemed to quiet down.

The first condition was nothing but humiliation for Harper.

But the second one—if Selena admitted to that, the pure, delicate image she'd spent over twenty years building would shatter on the spot.

Selena's head snapped up, and whatever fragile tears had been there were gone, replaced by something twisted and full of hate.

"Don't even think about it."

I let out a soft laugh and turned away, done looking at her.

"Fine. Then you can all wait to die."

The words had barely left my mouth when the doors to the gala hall were kicked open with brutal force from the outside.

A guard's voice rang through the entrance, unable to hide the shake in it.

"Alpha Cyrus has arrived!"