For three seconds nobody in the ballroom breathed. It was like time had stopped.

Then Priya laughed. It was a fake sound that did not even reach her eyes. "She is not okay. Look at her, look at her eyes. She just tried to attack a guest on the terrace. Now she is making up stories to save face in front of the man who rejected her. This is the kind of crazy behavior the council warned Kade about."

"Check." Her voice was very calm. The black was still swallowing the whites of her eyes. "I am not asking anyone to take my word for it. I am asking Kade to check. He is an Alpha. He can smell a lie as well as I can now. Better probably, since he has had the ability his whole life instead of eleven months." Luna said

Every eye in the room turned to Kade. He did not move for a moment. Then slowly he turned to Priya. Something in his face had gone very still and very careful. It was like he was thinking hard about something he did not want to think about.

"Priya," he said quietly. "Look at me."

"Kade, do not do this in front of everyone. Do not let her. " Priya said

"Look at me," Kade said; now his voice was demanding.

Priya's calm face cracked for the first time that night. She looked at him, jaw tight, eyes bright. Kade inhaled slowly through his nose. He was trying to figure out if she was telling the truth.

His face changed. He said, "You are not pregnant. There is no scent of a child on you all."

The ballroom erupted into noise. People were gasping, talking, someones champagne glass shattered on the marble floor. Priyas mouth. Closed twice before she said anything.

"I was going to be. I was going to make sure of it tonight, actually, before your little rejected mate decided to crash my engagement and ruin everything again." She said.

Kade's voice was very cold. He said, "You lied about carrying my child. In front of four hundred witnesses. To trap me into a marriage before I could ask a question."

Priya said, "You needed to be pushed. You have been in love with a ghost for two years, Kade, a woman you threw away yourself. I was tired of waiting for you to move on from a rejection you chose. "

Kade said, "I chose it to save her life."

Priya said, " Look how well that worked out. She is not even a wolf anymore. She is something Draven built in a lab. You are standing here defending her like she is still the woman you rejected. She is not. She is not even close."

Luna felt those words. They hurt her.

Kade said to Priya, "Get out of my territory. The engagement is over."

Priya's eyes went wide, then narrow. She said, "You will regret this. Both of you will. You have no idea what I gave up to be standing here tonight, Kade. You have no idea who is actually paying for the privilege of standing to you."

She. Walked out through the terrace doors into the dark. This time no one stopped her.

The ballroom stayed frozen. Four hundred guests were holding their breath, waiting to see what the Alpha would do next.

Kade turned to Luna. He said, "I need to tell you something. Something I should have told you the second you walked back into this territory tonight."

Luna said, "What?"

Kade said, "Priya did not just show up in my life by accident two years ago. She was introduced to me. By a pack liaison who handled outside alliances. A liaison who came from Draven territory."

Luna felt like the floor was tilting under her feet.

She said, "She is one of them."

Kade said, "I do not know yet. I know she is connected. Which means whatever they did to you, whatever is happening in your body now. Someone has been feeding them information about you from inside my own pack. For two years."

Luna's black eyes finally began to fade. They were replaced by something colder, more focused than sadness.

"Then we find out who." She said.

Behind them, the terrace doors that Priya had walked through banged open again. It was not the wind. The air outside was dead calm. Every wolf in the ballroom turned toward the sound. They saw thirty Draven wolves standing shoulder to shoulder in the moonlight. At the center of them, smiling like she had planned this from the beginning, stood Priya.

Kade let out a roar that shook the chandeliers. It was not a word. Every wolf in the ballroom felt it in their bones. This was the Alpha's call, a call that was ancient and absolute. In a few seconds, four hundred guests ran to get into a defensive position. It looked like they had practiced this before. Tables were turned over. Glass was broken. A woman. Was pulled to safety just in time as the terrace doors were about to be broken.

Luna did not move. She stood still next to Kade, watching Priya smile as she stood on the lawn with thirty Draven wolves. The moon was shining on their fur, making it look silver.

"You brought them into my territory. This is during a pack gathering. We are under a truce banner." Kade said in an angry voice.

"There is no truce banner tonight. There has not been one in months. You just did not know to look for it." As she spoke, her body started to change. Her bones were shifting under her skin. Priya said.

"Kade, she is not a wolf. Look at her eyes." Luna said, and Kade looked at Priya's eyes. They were not gold like a natural wolf's eyes. They were black, the black that Luna's eyes had turned twice that night.

Luna said, "She is like me.. She is like what they wanted me to be."

"You are a girl. Draven did not just experiment on you, Luna. You were the one they tried it on, and it worked. I am the one. There are others. We all answer to the same person." Priya said

"Who is in charge of this?" Kade asked

Priya. It sounded strange. "You will meet him enough. He is very eager to meet Luna. He says she left before they finished."

These words hit Luna hard. She felt like she had been punched. "What does that mean?" she asked. "What did they finish?"

"The bonding. They did not just change your body, Luna. They tried to break the mate bond so you could never love anyone again. A weapon does not need a weakness like love." Her black eyes looked at Kade. "It did not work fully. That is why you two still feel it. That is what he wants to fix tonight." Priya said

Kade's body became stiff with anger. "You are not touching her," he said, his voice of command.

Priya said, "I do not need to touch her. I just need to keep you two until the others arrive."

One of the Draven wolves ran at them. Kade met it in the air. The two bodies crashed into each other. Then the night became chaotic. The Ridgeback wolves ran out of the ballroom. The Draven wolves scattered to meet them. Priyas laughter cut through the noise like a knife.

Luna felt the change happening in her body again faster than before. The black was taking over her vision without any reason. It was like her body knew what it was doing.

Kade shouted, "Luna, stay back!" as he threw off a wolf that was twice his size.

Luna did not stay back. Something took over her body. She moved faster than any wolf in the yard. She closed the distance to Priya in a few steps and pushed her to the ground with a force that cracked the stones beneath them.

Luna snarled, her voice sounding strange and wrong. "Where is he?" she asked. "Where is your master, Priya? Tell me now."

Priya looked up at her with eyes, and instead of fear, Luna saw something worse. Satisfaction.

"You are doing what he trained you to do, " Priya whispered. "You want to know something? That voice you are using now? That is not your anger, Luna. That is his command, buried in you eleven months ago, finally answering to a threat. You are not fighting me now."

"Then what am I doing?" Luna asked.

Priyas smile was almost pitying. "You are following orders," she said. "You just do not know whose orders yet."

Behind them, over the sound of the battle, someone was clapping slowly and deliberately.