Backed by the murmured encouragement of the grown wolves crowded around him, the little pup broke free from his parents' hold and rushed toward me. Before I could react, he grabbed my hand and sank his teeth into it. Hard. The pain shot through me instantly, sharp and raw, and he didn't let go. Even his small jaw carried the early strength of a born wolf, and somewhere beneath my skin my own wolf flinched, going low and quiet, refusing to answer a pup.

"Hey—" someone gasped, but no one stepped in.

The more gently Aurelia crouched beside him, coaxing him in a soft, soothing voice, the deeper his teeth seemed to press into my skin, as if her words only fueled his stubbornness. Her scent of jasmine and cold copper drifted sweet over the table, and her tone was all concern, all patience, the picture of kindness.

"Sweetheart, let go… okay? You're scaring me," she murmured, reaching out but never quite pulling him away.

I stood there, frozen.

I couldn't exactly push a pup off me. Couldn't raise my voice. Couldn't bare my teeth without looking like the villain they already believed I was.

So I swallowed everything.

Swallowed the pain. Swallowed the humiliation.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly, forcing the words out as evenly as I could. "I'm sorry, okay?"

The pup finally loosened his grip, stepping back, still sniffling. My hand throbbed where his teeth had broken the skin, a dull, pulsing ache that quickly turned wet. The scent of my own blood rose between us, and I forced my wolf still.

But Salveth wasn't satisfied.

He didn't notice the blood slowly seeping from the bite mark. Didn't notice the way my fingers trembled slightly from the pain. Didn't even glance at me properly.

All he cared about was salvaging someone else's dignity.

He reached out and grabbed my arm just as I turned to leave. His grip carried the weight of an Alpha's aura, and the air around us thickened, pressing down until even the wolves at the next table dropped their gazes.

"Selene," he said sharply, his grip tightening. "Apologize. To Aurelia."

Aurelia immediately put on that same gentle, self-effacing expression, tugging lightly at his sleeve as if trying to stop him. One finger drifted to the moonstone at her throat and touched it, barely, the way someone checks a pin before walking into a room full of watching eyes.

"Salveth, it's fine," she said softly. "Really, it's not a big deal. I'm okay." She paused, lowering her gaze with perfect timing. "It's just the little one… he got hurt, and he's probably scared."

Her words were modest.

Her tone was forgiving.

And yet, they only made everything worse.

Salveth's attention shifted instantly.

His eyes dropped to the back of her hand, where a faint red mark had formed, barely noticeable, nothing compared to the blood on mine.

But to him, it was everything.

Something in his expression softened, almost pained.

Then, just as quickly, it hardened again as he turned back to me.

Before I could react, he grabbed my injured hand and shoved it straight into the bowl of scalding broth that had just been set on the table.

The heat hit me instantly.

The broth wasn't quite boiling, but it was scalding enough. The liquid soaked into the fresh bite wound, salt and heat combining into a sharp, searing pain that shot up my arm like an electric current.

My entire body jerked.

A gasp tore out of me before I could stop it. Deep inside, my wolf threw herself against the cage of my ribs with a sound I had never heard her make, a high, broken keening that had no name.

The pain was unbearable.

It spread, burned, throbbed, every nerve screaming at once. My fingers curled involuntarily, trembling as I tried to pull back, but his grip held me in place for a second longer. An Alpha's grip. The kind that didn't negotiate.

"Selene, what is wrong with you?" Salveth hissed, his voice low but cutting. "You need to be taught a lesson."

My vision blurred slightly from the pain.

Still, I looked up at him.

"Is that who I am to you?" I asked quietly, my teeth clenched so tightly they ached.

I already knew the answer.

But I still asked.

Maybe some part of me hadn't fully given up yet.

Around us, the whispers grew louder. The other wolves at the pack trading-post weren't even pretending to look away anymore.

"Wait… so which one is his actual mate?"

"Are you blind? Obviously the one he's protecting."

"Yeah, look at them. Matching scents, paired marks on their crystals… it's obvious."

Their voices weren't even hushed anymore.

Their gazes shifted toward me, heavy with something worse than judgment.

Pity.

"Hey, enough is enough," a wolf at a nearby table muttered. "Another few seconds and you're going to boil her hand off."

Only then did Salveth hesitate.

I stood there, my lips pale, my body still trembling slightly from the pain, and yet, somehow, I was smiling.

A faint, fragile smile.

I looked straight at him.

And for the first time, something flickered in his eyes.

Unease.

Just for a moment.

Then he let go.

He released my hand as if nothing had happened, reached for Aurelia instead, and took her by the arm.

"Let's go," he said quietly.

And just like that, he walked away with her, her jasmine scent trailing after them while the bitter clove of his own faded toward the door.

Didn't look back.

Didn't say another word.

When I got home, the den felt colder than usual. The hall was dark, the inner latch still drawn the way he always left it, as though guarding the threshold mattered more than the wolf locked within. His obsidian-and-ash scent clung faintly to the walls, stale now, like something already gone.

A notification glowed on my crystal communicator.

He had sent a vial of burn salve to me through a courier-wolf.

I stared at it for a long moment before opening the message that came with it.

[Selene, please stop being so sensitive and antagonizing Aurelia. The two of you are going to be sharing the same den for a long while. I expect you to get along from now on.]

I let out a quiet breath.

So that was it.

That was his solution.

A jar of burn salve in exchange for silence.

For obedience.

For pretending nothing had happened.

For accepting that he would keep both of us in his life, as if we were things an Alpha could arrange however he pleased.

I didn't reply.

I worked the salve into the burn in silence, the cool sting biting at the raw skin, then lay down on the bed. Through the wall I could hear the faint hum of the den-wards cycling through their nightly watch, the low pulse that warded Bloodmoor against intruders. The whole place had been built for the Alpha's safety. Not mine. My wolf lay flat somewhere beneath my ribs, too quiet, the way a beaten thing goes quiet.

He didn't come home that night.

The next morning, the moment I stepped into the front of the Bloodmoor trading-post, I could feel it.

The change.

Eyes followed me everywhere I went. Conversations cut off the second I drew near, only to resume in hushed whispers the moment I passed. The serving-Omegas. The floor runners. Even the old wolf behind the bar who always rumbled a low good-morning wouldn't lift his gaze to mine. Their scents had soured with something close to contempt, and I caught it on every breath.

It felt like walking into a den that had been violently overturned.

As I sat down at my station, Giselle leaned over almost at once, her ledger-scroll curling between her fingers as she twisted it tight. Chamomile and warm cedar shavings, threaded with something anxious.

"Selene… they're saying you tried to take the Alpha for yourself," she whispered. "That his woman caught you at it. It's spreading through every sending-stone thread in the pack."

She slid her communicator-crystal toward me.

An image was moving across its surface.

The feast-hall scene from the night before.

Someone had caught all of it in a crystal orb.

At some point during the chaos, a new mind-link channel had been opened for nothing but this. Message after message scrolled past, speculation, accusation, mockery. The whispers off the floor made permanent, captured and passed wolf to wolf.

They painted me as a concealed Omega who'd tried to scent her way into the bloodline's favor and been dragged into the light for it.

I stared at the crystal, my expression calm, even as something inside me went completely still.

Before I could turn it over further, the front doors swung open.

Salveth walked in.

With Aurelia right at his side.

His scent reached me first, obsidian and cold ash, dried clove, old leather gone bitter, and beneath it the jasmine-and-copper note of her, the two woven so close they were nearly one. The silver lighter rolled across his knuckles in that slow, idle rhythm, catching the high lamps once, twice.

"Pack," he said, his voice clear and carrying the weight of an Alpha's command, "this is your new overseer of the front den. Aurelia."

So that was what he had meant.

When he said we would be sharing the same den for a long while.

He hadn't been exaggerating.

He had brought her straight into the heart of the pack's front operation.

As my superior.

The room fell silent.

Every pair of eyes turned toward me. The air thickened, the faint press of an Alpha's aura settling over the floor, and on instinct half the wolves there dropped their gazes.

For the past several moons, ever since the old overseer broke ties and vanished into the northern ranges, I had carried most of the work alone. Everyone had assumed the rank would pass to me.

It had seemed obvious.

Until now.

Salveth added Aurelia to the inner mind-link thread right there in front of everyone. Almost at once, the two of them sent into it.

Their marks appeared side by side in the thread.

Matching.

A bonded-pair image.

Smiling.

Perfect.

The meaning couldn't have been plainer.

The rest of the morning passed in a haze of whispers and sidelong glances. No one was truly working. Everyone was watching.

Talking.

Judging.

But I no longer cared.

I was leaving.

Before midday, I drafted my letter severing ties from the pack and sent it through the proper channels.

With nothing left holding me to this place, I rose and walked to the back room.

I needed something warm. Something simple.

I steeped myself a cup of honeyed grapefruit tea and watched the steam climb slow off the surface, the scent soft and quieting. Sweet. Light. Nothing like the bitterness I had just walked out of.

I had barely taken two sips when the door opened again.

Aurelia walked in like she held the deed to every stone of it.

Confident. Unhurried. Her jasmine and cold copper filled the small room until it crowded out my own scent entirely.

She fixed herself a cup, then crossed to me and settled into the seat at my side, folding one leg over the other with the ease of a wolf taking a throne that had always been hers.

Her presence pressed against the walls.

When she spoke, her voice was smooth and sweet, but underneath it ran something with an edge.

"Selene," she said, her lips curving faintly, "I know you've been Salveth's little secret for five years. His unclaimed Omega, hidden away where no one could scent you."

She tilted her head, studying me.

"But I'm his Luna now. In the open, before the whole pack."

A pause.

"I'm back," she went on softly, "and it's time the concealed one learned when to slip away."

Her smile didn't waver.

"As long as you keep your mouth shut, the way you always have," she added lightly, "I won't make this any harder for you."

The threat was gentle.

Courteous.

And unmistakable.

As she spoke, Aurelia drew out her communicator-crystal and tapped a stored voice-message, holding it just close enough for my ears to catch.

The recording played.

It was the little pup from the day before.

His voice came through bright, sweet in that practiced, childish way, but there was something smug beneath it, something that had no business living inside innocence at all.

"Auntie Aurelia, wasn't I clever? Don't forget the carved storm-hawk you promised me!"

The message ended on a soft click.

And just like that, everything fell into place.

Every detail. Every movement. Every perfectly timed cry from the night before.

It hadn't been an accident.

None of it had.

Every instinct beneath my skin screamed at me to leave. To get out of that den immediately, before things escalated further. But before I could even take a step back, Aurelia moved.

Fast.

She snatched the cup of moon-tea straight out of my hands.

Before I could react, she tilted it and poured it over her own head.

The liquid splashed down her hair, soaking through the strands and dripping over her face, her neck, her blouse. It wasn't hot anymore, the tea long gone cold, but that didn't matter. The effect was exactly what she wanted.

Then, without hesitation, she slammed the ceramic cup onto the ground.

Right at my feet.

It shattered instantly.

The sharp crack echoed through the room as fragments of porcelain exploded outward. Several pieces skidded across the floor, a few slicing lightly into my ankles.

A sharp sting followed, but I barely registered it.

Aurelia stood there, drenched, her hair clinging to her face in messy strands, her blouse soaked and sticking to her skin. Beneath the spilled tea I could still catch her scent, jasmine over cold copper, sharp with the citrus edge of a wolf playing a long game. She looked utterly disheveled.

Pitiful.

Humiliated.

Perfect.

This female wasn't just ruthless. She was terrifying.

Before I could move past her, she stepped forward, blocking my path completely.

And then she screamed.

"Selene! What are you doing?! Why would you hurt me like this?!"

Her voice was high, shrill, and filled with raw, trembling emotion.

It carried. Through the front of the den, past the half-open doors where Bloodmoor wolves nursed their morning brews, into the back rooms where guard-wolves and runners kept their heads down and their ears pricked. Within seconds, the whole outer den began to stir. Doors opened. Chairs scraped. Wolves rushed in from every direction, drawn by the commotion, noses lifting to read the air.

But Aurelia wasn't done.

Not even close.

She picked up her coffee, her hand trembling just enough to make it look real, and splashed it across her own chest.

The dark liquid spread quickly across the fabric, staining it unevenly.

Then, just like the night before, she lifted her hand to her neck and began scratching. Hard.

Red marks bloomed instantly across her skin, raw and irritated, as if someone had grabbed her violently.

I stood there, watching.

Something inside me finally snapped. Deep beneath my ribs, my wolf surged up snarling, hackles rising at the lie laid out in plain sight.

Enough.

Before I could think it through, before I could stop myself, I stepped forward and slapped her.

Hard.

The sound rang out, sharp and clear.

Everything went silent. The kind of silence that only falls in a place run by wolves who understand violence. The kind where nobody breathes until they know whose side to take.

And that was the exact moment Salveth walked in.

He saw everything.

Or at least, what it looked like.

Me, standing there, upright, composed.

And Aurelia, soaked, disheveled, trembling, like a fragile creature that had just been attacked.

There wasn't even a second of hesitation.

His hand came down across my face.

The force sent my head jerking to the side, a sharp sting blooming across my cheek. His Alpha aura crashed down with it, thick and cold, pressing every wolf in the room toward the floor.

"Selene!" he snapped, his voice cold with anger, the obsidian and cold ash of his scent sharpening to a blade. "If you don't want to be here anymore, then get the hell out."

He didn't wait for a response.

Still visibly furious, he shoved me aside, his shoulder hitting mine hard enough to make me lose my balance. Then, without another glance in my direction, he bent down, scooped Aurelia up into his arms.

A perfect bridal carry.

Like an Alpha rescuing someone who needed saving.

And carried her straight into his inner den. The heavy door slammed shut behind them, and the silver lighter he'd left on the edge of his desk didn't so much as rattle. It just sat there, still.

I staggered back from the force of his shove, my body colliding with the edge of a nearby desk. Pain shot up my spine instantly, sharp and blinding. My vision blurred for a second as tears welled up in my eyes.

But I didn't cry.

I just stood there. Inside me, my wolf had gone quiet, a low keening folding in on itself until there was nothing left but silence.

The overseer of the front operation, who had been hesitating over my severance papers just minutes ago, now stepped forward without a word. His expression had changed completely.

He picked up the document.

Signed it.

Stamped it.

Approved.

No questions asked. No delay.

Salveth didn't even come out. He didn't look at the form. Didn't ask anything. Someone brought it into his inner den, and while he was busy comforting Aurelia, he scribbled his signature across the page without even glancing at it.

Then tossed it aside like it meant nothing.

Like I meant nothing.

The treasury wolves moved quickly after that.

Too quickly.

Always eager to stay on the good side of whoever held power in the pack's front operation, they rushed to process my final pay in moon-credits, efficiency driven not by duty but by their desire to please the Alpha's favorite.

I still had work to finish. A stack of client materials from the den-trade accounts that needed to be handed over properly. So I sat down, sorted everything, organized the files carefully, and prepared to send them to Salveth.

But the moment I tried to open my access, denied.

I tried again.

Nothing.

My credentials had already been struck from the pack's records. Completely wiped.

There was only one wolf who had the authority to do that.

Salveth.

I paused for a second, staring at the crystal screen.

Then I pulled out my communicator.

I sent him a message.

No response.

I called.

The call didn't even go through.

Blocked.

The mind-link channel.

Severed.

Everything. Every possible way of reaching him, gone.

I stood there for a moment, completely still.

Stunned.

But only for a moment.

Then I exhaled slowly.

I smoothed the edge of my skirt until the crease was sharper than anything I could bring myself to say.

Picked up my bag. Packed the last of my things. Cleared every trace of myself from what I could still touch in the system.

And walked out.

No hesitation.

No looking back.

Past the wolves who wouldn't meet my eyes. Past the corridor where a guard-wolf held the door open for me with the careful neutrality of one who had already chosen whose name to forget. Past the front entrance of the Bloodmoor trading-post, where the awning cast its shadow over the path like a territory line drawn in the dirt.

I didn't go home.

I went straight to the airfield.