Chapter 2 The Traitor's Daughter
The word landed like a physical blow.
Omega.
The lowest rank in the pack. The ones nobody wanted. The ones who did the jobs nobody else would do.
"You have until the end of the week to vacate the Beta residence," Garrett continued. "You may take only personal belongings. All family property, all Beta privileges, all status protections are revoked immediately."
Lilith stared at him.
This man who had eaten at their table. Who had held her when she was a baby. Who had told her father he was the finest Beta Shadowmere had ever had.
"My mother," she said quietly. "She's in the hospital. She needs...."
"Your mother will receive basic medical care," Garrett said. "As long as the pack deems it necessary. But her treatment costs will be recorded as debt. When she wakes, she can work it off. If she doesn't wake...." He left the sentence unfinished.
If she doesn't wake, they'll let her die.
Lilith understood perfectly.
"This is wrong," she said. Her voice was shaking now, the control she'd been holding onto starting to fracture. "Everything about this is wrong. My father didn't betray anyone. He died serving this pack. He died protecting....."
"Your father died a traitor," Garrett said coldly. "And you would do well to remember that when you speak about him in public. The Blackwoods are watching, girl. They're waiting to see how we handle this situation. If they think we're defending a traitor, if they think we're protecting his family...." His jaw tightened. "We can't afford to make them think that. Do you understand?"
She understood.
She understood that her father was being sacrificed to save the pack's skin. That his name was being dragged through the mud to appease three Alphas who wanted revenge. That everything he'd built, everything he'd worked for, everything he'd died for was being erased to protect people too afraid to stand up for the truth.
"Is that all, Alpha," she said quietly.
Garrett looked at her for a long moment. Something almost like regret flickered across his face.
"That's all," he said.
She turned and walked away.
Past the body bags containing what was left of her father. Past the crowd of people who wouldn't meet her eyes anymore. Past the guards and the whispers and the life she'd had just hours ago.
Behind her, she heard someone say, loud enough to carry: "Traitor's daughter."
She didn't look back.
She just kept walking.
And tried very hard not to think about the fact that she'd lost both her parents in the space of a single afternoon.
Her father was dead and being called a traitor.
Her mother was unconscious and might never wake up.
And she had just been stripped of everything that had ever made her safe.
She had nothing left.
Absolutely nothing.
Lilith had three days to pack up her entire life.
Three days to sort through twenty-two years of memories and decide what was worth keeping and what the pack would claim as "Beta property" the moment she walked out the door.
Three days before the locks changed and everything left behind became theirs.
She started with her mother's things.
The bedroom her parents had shared for over two decades looked exactly the way it had the morning her father left for the treaty meeting. The bed was made with military precision.....her father's habit. Her mother's reading glasses sat on the nightstand beside a half-finished book. A framed photo of their wedding day hung on the wall, both of them young and smiling and completely unaware of how the story would end.
Lilith picked up the photo and stared at it.
Her father looked so alive in it. Strong and proud in his Beta ceremonial clothes, his arm around Cassandra's waist, his smile genuine and warm. Her mother looked radiant....dark hair swept up, white dress, eyes bright with joy.
They'd been so happy.
Before the world took everything from them.
She wrapped the photo carefully in one of her mother's scarves and set it in the small box she'd designated for her mother's belongings. The box was pathetically small. She could only take what she could carry, the housing coordinator had said. Everything else stayed.
Everything else became pack property.
She moved through the room mechanically, choosing items with care. Her mother's favorite blanket.....the soft grey one she always wrapped herself in while reading. A few pieces of jewelry, nothing expensive but all meaningful. The leather journal Cassandra kept tucked in her nightstand drawer.
Lilith opened the journal briefly, saw her mother's handwriting....neat and precise....filling the pages with thoughts and memories and observations about daily life.
She closed it quickly and added it to the box.
Some things were too private to read. Even now.
"You're not taking any of that."
The voice came from the doorway.
Lilith turned to find Owen Briggs standing there....the pack services coordinator, a man in his forties with a permanent sneer and eyes that enjoyed other people's suffering a little too much.
"These are my mother's personal belongings," Lilith said, keeping her voice even.
"Your mother is a pack liability with outstanding medical debts." Owen stepped into the room uninvited, his eyes scanning the space like he was taking inventory. "Her belongings stay with the pack until those debts are settled. Pack law."
"She's unconscious in a hospital bed...."
"Which is costing the pack money every day she stays there." Owen picked up one of Cassandra's necklaces from the dresser....a simple silver chain with a small moon pendant. Victor had given it to her on their tenth anniversary. "Everything in this room is collateral against her debt. You don't get to just take it."
Lilith's hands curled into fists. "That necklace is worthless. It's sentimental value only....."
"Then you won't mind leaving it." He dropped it back on the dresser with a careless clatter. "Pack through your own things, omega. Your mother's belongings stay here."
The word omega came out like an insult.
Which it was, she supposed.
That's what she was now.
Owen moved to the door, then paused and looked back at her. "And make sure you're out by Friday morning. We've got a new Beta family moving in this weekend. They'll want the place cleaned."
He left.
Lilith stood in her parents' bedroom and stared at the small box of her mother's things.
Pack property.
All of it.
The necklace her father had given her mother. The blanket she loved. The journal with twenty years of memories written in her careful handwriting.
Pack property.
She wanted to scream. Wanted to grab everything and run. Wanted to tell Owen Briggs and Alpha Garrett and the entire pack to go to hell.
But she couldn't.
Because they held all the power and she had none.
So she put the box back on the shelf where she'd found it and left the room.
Her own bedroom was easier.
Mostly because she'd never had much to begin with.
A bed....which she couldn't take. A dresser....also staying. Clothes, books, a few personal items she'd collected over the years. Nothing valuable. Nothing the pack would want.
