I didn't sleep after that night in the corridor. How could I? Every time I closed my eyes, I heard Drake's voice—clinical, detached, describing me like a chess piece positioned to absorb damage.

For three days, I moved through the pack house like I was underwater. I smiled when required. I attended pack meals. I performed the role of Luna with mechanical precision while my mind cataloged every exit, every ally, every resource I'd need when the time came.

But I wasn't fast enough.

The summons came on the fourth morning. A formal blood punishment tribunal. Sylvia's voice echoed through the pack house mind-link with that unhurried authority that made even high-ranking Deltas straighten their spines. "All pack members to the courtyard. Immediately."

My wolf stirred uneasily as I descended the stairs. The courtyard was already filling—warriors forming a loose circle, pack members gathering at the edges with the particular stillness that comes before violence. The enforcers stood in the center, their expressions carefully blank.

Sylvia waited on the raised platform, Drake beside her. Celine stood slightly behind them both, one hand resting delicately against her collarbone. She looked worried. Perfectly, practiced worry.

I took my place at the edge of the circle and tried to breathe normally.

"A serious breach has occurred," Sylvia announced. Her voice carried easily across the courtyard. "Three nights ago, a patrol route was left unsecured. Rogue wolves crossed our border undetected. They were apprehended before damage occurred, but the negligence cannot stand."

Murmurs rippled through the assembled wolves. Border security was sacred. Whoever had failed this badly would face consequences that left scars.

"The evidence clearly identifies the wolf responsible," Sylvia continued. She didn't look at Celine, but something in her tone made my stomach drop. "The patrol assignment records are unambiguous."

Celine's eyes widened. That breathless, vulnerable expression she wore so well. "I... I can explain. There was confusion about the rotation schedule. I thought—"

"Silence." Sylvia's command cut through the courtyard like a blade. "Blood punishment will be administered."

The enforcers shifted, awaiting designation. I watched Celine's face—the slight tremor in her lower lip, the way her fingers pressed harder against her collarbone. She was performing distress, but beneath it I caught something else. A flicker of calculation. She was looking at Drake.

And Drake was looking at me.

"Aria." His voice carried that Alpha authority that made my bones ache. "Step forward."

I didn't move. Couldn't move. My wolf was suddenly howling inside my chest, clawing at my ribs. "Drake, I wasn't on patrol that night. I wasn't even—"

"Step. Forward." The Alpha tone slammed into me like a physical blow.

My legs obeyed before my will could resist. I felt my body moving toward the center of the circle, my muscles responding to his command while my mind screamed in protest. The mate bond amplified it, made resistance impossible. I was halfway across the courtyard before I even processed what was happening.

"Drake, please." My voice came out smaller than I intended. "This isn't—"

"The Luna will take the punishment." He said it like he was discussing supply logistics. Clinical. Detached. The same tone he'd used in his study when he told Eric I was a living decoy. "She accepts responsibility for all pack security failures."

Lies. All lies. But the pack members watching didn't know that. They saw their Alpha making a decision. They saw their Luna stepping forward. They assumed I'd agreed to this.

Celine's hand dropped from her collarbone. Her eyes met mine for just a moment, and there—finally—I saw it. Not gratitude. Not even guilt. Just cold satisfaction.

She'd won again. And Drake had given her the victory.

"Shift," Sylvia commanded.

I wanted to refuse. I wanted to scream, to run, to do anything except obey. But the Alpha tone was still wrapped around my throat, and my wolf—my beautiful, rare, stupid wolf—still reached toward Drake's scent even now. Still trusted the bond that was killing us.

I shifted.

My silver coat caught the morning light as it always did, that luminous aura that had drawn unmated males from miles away when I first awakened. The pack members at the edges of the circle went very still. Some of them looked away.

The first blow landed across my shoulders. I heard the enforcer's apology in the mind-link—quiet, miserable—but his hand didn't hesitate. The second blow came harder. Then the third.

I lost count after that.

Pain became the only thing I knew. It radiated through my wolf form in waves that left me gasping. My legs buckled. I felt my luminous aura flickering, dimming with each strike like a candle guttering in the wind.

Through the haze, I saw Celine. She was still standing beside Sylvia, one hand pressed to her mouth now. Her eyes were wide. Concerned. Perfect.

And Drake—Drake watched with that same neutral expression he wore when reviewing territory maps.

When the enforcers finally stepped back, I couldn't stand. My silver coat was matted with blood, and the aura that had once made me extraordinary was barely visible. Just a faint shimmer beneath damaged fur.

Someone—a young Delta whose name I couldn't remember—helped me shift back to human form. They draped a blanket over my shoulders. I heard footsteps retreating, the crowd dispersing now that the spectacle was over.

I stayed on my knees in the center of the courtyard, staring at the ground.

My wolf had gone silent. Not howling anymore. Not reaching toward Drake's scent. Just... silent.

For three days after, I couldn't shift at all. My wolf refused to surface. And when I finally tried to reach for her, to coax her back, I felt only emptiness where her presence used to be.

Something inside me had broken. Something that might never heal.

But in that brokenness, a strange clarity emerged.

I didn't love Drake anymore.

I couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it died—maybe when the first blow landed, maybe when I saw his face watching without flinching, maybe it had been dying slowly since that night in the corridor.

But it was gone now. Completely. And in its place was something colder, sharper, and infinitely more dangerous.

I began to plan in earnest.

The infirmary smelled like antiseptic and shame.

I'd been confined here for three days. The pack healer—a middle-aged she-wolf named Ruth who'd served the Obsidian Fang for decades—changed my bandages twice daily with efficient, impersonal hands. She never met my eyes. None of them did.

My wolf still hadn't surfaced. I'd tried reaching for her that first night, desperate for the comfort of her presence, but found only silence. The emptiness where she used to be felt like a missing limb.

The physical wounds would heal. Ruth had assured me of that with the same clinical detachment Drake used when discussing territory disputes. Broken ribs mended. Lacerations closed. Silver wolves were resilient, she'd said, as if resilience was a compliment rather than a curse.

But my wolf's absence terrified me in ways the beating hadn't.

I was staring at the ceiling—counting the cracks in the plaster because it gave me something to focus on besides the pain—when I heard the door crack open. It was well past midnight. The infirmary should have been locked.

A small figure slipped inside, moving with the particular caution of someone who'd spent their life avoiding notice.

Lena.

I recognized her from pack gatherings, though we'd never spoken directly. She was an Omega. Young, maybe nineteen. The kind of wolf who performed kitchen labor and laundry duty and existed at the absolute bottom of our hierarchy. Her wolf had never been strong enough to attract a mate, and in Sylvia's pack structure, that made her disposable.

She carried a bundle wrapped in clean cloth. When she saw I was awake, she froze.

"Luna," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"It's fine." My voice came out rougher than I intended. "What are you doing here?"

She hesitated, then moved closer. Her hands shook slightly as she unwrapped the bundle. Clean bandages. A bottle of water. A small container of salve that smelled like herbs and something else—something Ruth hadn't been using.

"The healer's supplies are monitored," Lena said quietly. "But I know plants. My mother taught me before she... before." She didn't finish the sentence. "This will help with the internal bleeding."

I stared at her. "You could be punished for this."

"I know." She set the supplies on the small table beside my bed, still not meeting my eyes. "But you took a beating that wasn't yours. Everyone knows it wasn't yours. And no one else is..."

She trailed off, but I understood. No one else was helping. Not the ranked wolves. Not the pack members who'd watched me represent them at diplomatic missions for three years. Not my mate.

Especially not my mate.

"Thank you," I said. The words felt inadequate.

Lena nodded once, quick and nervous, then turned to leave.

"Lena." She paused at the door. "I won't forget this."

Something flickered across her face—surprise, maybe, or disbelief that a Luna would remember an Omega's name. Then she slipped back into the corridor as silently as she'd come.

I used the salve she'd brought. It burned at first, then settled into a deep, cooling relief that Ruth's standard treatment had never provided. I lay back against the thin infirmary pillow and added Lena's name to the very short list of debts I intended to repay.

When I could.

If I survived long enough.

Drake came the next afternoon.

I heard his footsteps in the corridor before I saw him—that confident, unhurried stride that announced his presence before he entered a room. My body tensed instinctively. The mate bond pulsed once, weak and distant, like an echo of something that used to matter.

He didn't come to the infirmary. He went to my quarters instead.

I knew because I felt it through the bond. That faint awareness of his location, his emotional state, the particular frequency of his presence that used to feel like home and now felt like surveillance.

He was in my room. Going through my things.

I tried to sit up, but my ribs screamed in protest. Ruth had said I needed another two days of bed rest minimum. My wolf still refused to surface, which meant my healing was progressing at frustratingly human speeds.

I lay there, helpless, and felt Drake moving through my private space.

He found it quickly. Of course he did. He'd always been efficient.

My mother's journal.

I'd kept it hidden in a false bottom of my closet, wrapped in silk and warded with the kind of minor protection spells my mother had taught me as a child. Not strong enough to stop an Alpha, but enough to keep casual searchers away.

Drake wasn't a casual searcher.

Through the bond, I felt the moment his hands closed around it. Felt his satisfaction. Felt him leave my quarters with my mother's legacy tucked under his arm like borrowed property.

I pressed my palm flat against my mate mark scar and felt nothing.

He came to the infirmary an hour later. This time, he actually entered.

Ruth was changing my bandages. She saw Drake in the doorway and immediately bowed her head, stepping back to give him space. He dismissed her with a slight gesture, and she left without a word.

We were alone.

Drake stood at the foot of my bed, backlit by the afternoon sun streaming through the infirmary's single window. He looked exactly as he always did—composed, authoritative, untouchable.

"You're recovering well," he said. It wasn't a question.

"Yes." I kept my voice neutral.

"Good." He paused, and something shifted in his expression. Not guilt. Not quite. Just a flicker of calculation. "There will be a Pack Banquet in five days. Celine will be demonstrating a healing howl technique. A very rare one, passed down through a distinguished bloodline."

My mother's technique. From my mother's journal. The one he'd just stolen from my quarters.

I said nothing.

"You'll attend," Drake continued. "And you'll validate her claim to the legacy. Publicly."

I stared at him. "That's my mother's—"

"Your mother is dead." His tone was flat. Clinical. "Celine is alive, and she will use this technique to strengthen our pack's standing among allied territories. Your cooperation is not optional."

"And if I refuse?"

Drake's jaw tightened. That tell again. "Your mother's memorial grove in Washington territory. The ashes. The ancestral relics. All of it exists at the current Alpha's discretion. One word from me, and it's gone. Bulldozed. Scattered. Nothing left but empty ground."

The threat landed like a physical blow.

My mother's grove was sacred. The only place her memory still lived in physical form. The only connection I had left to the bloodline she'd tried so hard to preserve.

And Drake knew it.

"You'll validate Celine's claim," he repeated. "Or you'll lose everything that remains of your mother's legacy. Choose."

He left before I could respond.

I lay in the infirmary bed, staring at the ceiling cracks, and pressed my fingers against my mate mark scar. The bond pulsed weakly. Distantly. Like something dying.

But I didn't cry.

Instead, I closed my eyes and began reciting my mother's journal from memory. Every passage. Every technique. Every word she'd written in her careful handwriting about the healing howl and the bloodline that carried it.

Drake had stolen the pages.

But the knowledge lived in my blood.

And blood, I was learning, was harder to steal than paper.