The Delta who delivered the assignment couldn't look at me. He stood in my doorway holding the work order like it might burn him, eyes fixed somewhere over my left shoulder.

"Banquet prep," he said. His voice was flat. "All ceremonial crystal. Hand-wash only. Ice water. Report to backstage corridor tomorrow at dawn."

He set the paper on my chair and left before I could acknowledge it.

I picked up the order and read it twice. Hundreds of goblets. Three days of preparation. Ice water mandatory for proper crystal cleaning, per pack tradition. The assignment was allocated specifically to me — Alexandra Wren, Omega — by name.

I pressed my left thumb against my scarred knuckles. The nerve damage in my right hand made cold water a particular kind of torture. Dean knew that. Aubrey definitely knew that.

I tore a strip from the hem of my Omega uniform, folded it carefully, and tucked it into my waistband. Then I lay back on my cot and stared at the ceiling until the single bulb went dark.

Selene stirred faintly in my chest. Not a voice. Just warmth. I pressed my hand over my ribs and breathed.

The backstage corridor smelled like stone and old wood. Crates of crystal goblets lined one wall, stacked six high. A single metal basin sat on a prep table with a bucket of ice beside it.

I filled the basin halfway. Added ice until the water went cloudy-cold. Picked up the first goblet with my left hand.

The glass was delicate, etched with the pack's crest. I submerged it slowly, turning it under the surface. My right hand gripped the basin's edge for balance. The cold bit into my palm immediately.

I counted. Thirty seconds per goblet. Rinse, inspect, set on the drying rack. Repeat.

By the tenth goblet, my right hand was shaking.

By the twentieth, the tremor had spread up my wrist.

By the fortieth, I couldn't feel my fingertips.

I kept washing.

Two hours in, a goblet slipped.

My right hand spasmed mid-grip. The glass caught the basin's edge and my knuckles hit the metal rim. Skin split across two joints. Blood swirled into the wash water, thin ribbons of red curling through the ice.

I set the goblet down carefully. Pulled the torn fabric strip from my waistband. Wrapped my hand tight enough to stop the bleeding but loose enough that I could still move my fingers. The cloth turned pink immediately.

I dumped the bloodied water. Refilled the basin. Washed the goblet again.

Then I kept going.

Three ranked wolves passed through the corridor that afternoon.

The first was a Gamma I didn't know. He walked past the prep table without slowing, his boots loud on the stone floor. He didn't look at me. Didn't look at the basin.

The second was a Beta-ranked she-wolf carrying event schedules. She paused at the doorway, glanced at the drying rack, then left.

The third picked up a goblet I'd just finished. He held it up to the light streaming through the high window, turned it slowly, examining the crystal for spots. He set it back on the rack without a word and walked out.

None of them looked at my hands.

I worked until the light through the window went grey. My right hand was wrapped in cloth that was more red than white now. My left hand ached from gripping goblets for eight hours straight. I'd finished maybe a quarter of the total.

I dumped the final basin of water, stacked the clean crystal carefully, and walked back to my quarters.

The fabric strip came off in the narrow shower stall, stuck to my skin with dried blood. I ran cold water over the cuts until they stopped bleeding, then wrapped my hand in a clean strip torn from my only spare shirt.

Selene's warmth pulsed once in my chest. Faint but steady.

I ate the dried meat and bread I'd been hoarding — rations I'd taken from the kitchen before I stopped touching the communal food — and lay down on my cot.

Through the thin wall, I heard voices again. Aubrey and Marcus Hale, the pack's Healer. Their words were muffled but the rhythm was familiar. Administrative. Transactional.

I pressed my ear against the cold concrete and listened.

The second day, Aubrey came to watch.

I heard her heels first — a precise click-click-click down the backstage corridor. Then her scent rolled into the narrow space: warm amber and pine, thick enough to coat my throat.

I didn't turn. I kept my hands submerged in the ice water, turning a goblet slowly under the surface. My wrapped right hand throbbed. The cuts from yesterday had opened again within the first hour.

Aubrey stopped in the doorway. I felt her presence like pressure against my back.

"The crystal looks... delicate," she said. Not to me. To the Delta escort standing behind her. Her voice carried that pleasant, observational tone she used when she wanted something heard without claiming she'd said it. "I hope the Omega's hands are steady enough. It would be unfortunate if anything broke before the banquet."

The Delta murmured something I couldn't make out.

"Wolfless," Aubrey continued, "and those tremors. I've noticed them. Haven't you?"

Silence.

"Well," Aubrey said lightly, "I suppose we'll see."

Her heels clicked away. The Delta lingered a moment — I felt his hesitation like a weight in the air — then followed.

I set the goblet on the drying rack. My left hand, submerged in ice water, pressed my thumb against my scarred knuckles where no one could see.

Selene surged.

It wasn't warmth this time. It was heat. Sharp and furious, blazing up through my chest like a flare. My wolf — dormant for seven years, chemically locked in silence — was angry.

Not whimpering. Not cowering.

Angry.

I stood very still, hands dripping ice water onto the stone floor. The feeling didn't fade. It sat in my chest like a coal, burning steady.

I didn't know what it meant yet. I didn't know what the wolfsbane withdrawal was building toward, or how long Selene had been waking in the chemical darkness without me realizing it.

But I knew anger when I felt it.

I picked up the next goblet and kept washing.

By the end of the second day, I'd finished half the crystal. My right hand was wrapped in three layers of torn fabric. Blood had soaked through to the outermost layer, a dark stain spreading across my palm.

I walked back to my quarters, stripped the fabric, washed the cuts, and wrapped my hand again.

Selene's heat pulsed steady in my chest.

I pressed my left hand over my ribs and closed my eyes.

One more day until the banquet.

Marcus Hale passed me in the Omega corridor the night before the banquet. His eyes went to the wall, the floor, anywhere but my face. He walked fast, shoulders tight, carrying a leather medical case that smelled like wolfsbane and guilt.

I stopped walking.

"Marcus."

He froze mid-step. Didn't turn around.

I kept my voice quiet. Clinical. The way I used to speak when I was the pack's best Healer and he was still an apprentice who couldn't identify a fractured rib without an X-ray. "Have you reviewed the long-term neurological effects of prolonged wolfsbane suppression on a she-wolf with pre-existing nerve damage?"

Silence. His knuckles went white around the case handle.

"I'm asking a medical question," I said.

He turned halfway. His face was pale under the corridor's single bulb. "It's not my concern."

"Whose concern is it?"

He didn't answer. He walked away fast, his boots echoing off the concrete walls until the sound faded completely.

I stood there for a long moment, watching the empty corridor. I wasn't waiting for his conscience. I was watching how a guilty man moved when he thought no one was measuring him.

Selene's heat pulsed in my chest. Steady. Angry.

I pressed my left thumb against my scarred knuckles and went back to my quarters.

The great hall was full.

I'd never seen it this packed. Every ranked wolf in the Ironveil Pack had turned out, plus visiting Alphas from three neighboring territories. The air was thick with competing scents — dominance, territory, the particular tension of Alphas forced to share space without conflict.

Dean sat at the head table with Aubrey beside him. His Alpha aura filled the room like pressure before a storm. Aubrey wore deep blue silk that caught the light every time she moved, and her Luna mark gleamed on her neck like a brand.

They looked perfect together. Strong. United. Everything a visiting Alpha was supposed to see and carry back to their own pack.

I moved through the hall in my Omega uniform, carrying a tray of crystal goblets. The ones I'd washed with ice water and my own blood. My right hand was wrapped in clean fabric under my sleeve. The cuts had stopped bleeding this morning, but the nerve damage made my grip uncertain. I kept my left hand under the tray for balance.

No one looked at me.

I was furniture. Part of the hall. I set goblets on tables, refilled water pitchers, cleared empty plates. The ranked wolves talked over me, through me, around me. Their conversations were political — territory negotiations, alliance discussions, the kind of pack business that required witnesses and formality.

I caught Lily Ashford's eyes once.

She sat in the ranked seating, three rows back from the head table. Dean's younger sister. Mid-ranking Delta. She watched me the way she'd been watching me for seven years — with that quiet, powerless grief that sat in her face like something she couldn't swallow and couldn't spit out.

I looked away first.

Midway through the banquet, Aubrey rose.

I was crossing the hall with a loaded tray when I felt her move. Not saw. Felt. The Luna presence she carried made the air shift, made my suppressed wolf flinch in the chemical darkness.

She walked toward the ceremonial display alcove near the far wall. The one with the ancient pack crest and the silver chalice Dean's grandfather had commissioned. She passed within three feet of me.

Close enough that I caught the full weight of her scent. Warm amber and pine. Trustworthy. Pack-loyal. The lie she'd layered over my truth seven years ago, thick enough that Dean had never questioned it.

She stumbled.

Her ankle caught the table's corner — I saw it happen, saw the exact angle of contact, saw how her weight shifted in a way that looked uncontrolled but wasn't. She gasped. Grabbed the table edge. Went down in a fall that was perfectly calibrated: shocking enough to draw every eye, controlled enough to avoid real injury.

The hall went silent.

Aubrey sat on the floor, one hand pressed to her ankle, her face twisted in pain that read as genuine from every angle in the room. Every Alpha stopped talking. Every ranked wolf turned to look.

And then Aubrey's eyes found me.

I was standing three feet away, frozen, the tray still balanced in my hands. My wrapped right hand gripped the edge. My left hand pressed against the underside.

I hadn't moved. I hadn't touched her. I hadn't been anywhere near her path.

But every wolf in that hall saw where she was looking.

Dean was out of his seat before I could breathe. He crossed the hall in four strides, his Alpha aura blazing so hot I felt it through the residual mate bond like a hand closing around my throat.

"What did you do?" His voice carried to every corner of the room.

I didn't answer. I couldn't. The Alpha tone in his words locked my jaw.

Aubrey made a soft sound — pain, or the performance of it. "I didn't see her," she whispered. "I didn't see—"

"You." Dean's eyes were on me now. Not Aubrey. Me. "Put the tray down."

I set it on the nearest table. My hands were steady. I didn't know how.

Dean stepped closer. The bond flared, transmitting his fury directly into my chest. Not words. Just heat. Pressure. The weight of seven years of contempt compressed into a single moment.

"Show me your hands," he said.

I held them out. Left hand bare. Right hand wrapped in fabric.

Dean grabbed my right wrist. His grip was iron. He pulled my arm up, holding it at eye level for the entire hall to see.

Then he ripped the fabric off.

The cuts were visible immediately. Two across my knuckles, one along my palm, all of them scabbed over and angry-red. The nerve damage made my last two fingers curl in their permanent half-fist. The scars from the fire — the ones I'd gotten dragging him out of the burning pack house seven years ago — twisted up my forearm in patterns that no wolf could look at without knowing exactly what had caused them.

Dean held my hand higher. His voice was cold. Precise. Designed to carry.

"This," he said, "is what a wolfless Omega looks like when she can't even perform basic pack duties without injuring herself." He turned my hand slowly, making sure every Alpha in the room could see. "Broken. Disgusting. Unfit."

The bond transmitted his contempt like acid through my veins.

Selene surged.

Not warmth this time. Not heat.

Rage.

My wolf exploded to the surface of my consciousness with a force that knocked the breath out of my chest. Seven years of chemical suppression shattered in a single instant. I felt her — not as a distant flicker but as a presence, furious and awake and done.

The suppression cuff on my left wrist cracked.

I heard it before I saw it. A sharp snap like breaking bone. The leather split down the center. The wolfsbane-laced interior fell away in pieces.

Dean's grip on my wrist loosened. Just a fraction. Just enough that I felt it.

I looked up.

And the banquet hall doors blew open.

Elder Silas Ford stood in the threshold. He was backlit by the corridor lights, his shadow stretching across the stone floor. In his arms, he carried something that made every wolf in the room go completely still.

A wolf pelt. Charred. Blood-blackened. The fur matted with ash and old smoke.

In his other hand, he held a sealed evidence case.

His voice cut through the silence like a blade.

"Put her down, Alpha," Silas said. "Or I tell every wolf in this room whose hand was really under that beam."