[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.