Chapter 4

The healers stopped the bleeding. They re-anchored the enchanted line, stabilized her vitals, and told me she was out of danger — for now.

By the time I stepped into the corridor, Kael and Selene had vanished.

Two unread messages on my phone:

Tonight is Selene's birthday. The pack is hosting a moonfire feast in her honor. I'll check on your mother after.

What happened in the healing ward was your fault. We'll discuss it when you've calmed down.

I didn't reply.

I sat in the stone chair beside my mother's bed and watched her breathe — shallow, mechanical, a body held together by enchantments and borrowed time.

Around moonrise, two things detonated across the pack feeds simultaneously.

The first was the feast.

Every wolf in the region was buzzing about it. The Thornwood moonfire celebration — a sacred rite traditionally reserved for honoring the Luna or marking pack victories — had been entirely repurposed. Silver nightbloom garlands hung from the great hall rafters. An ice sculpture bore Selene's initials.

Kael had turned the pack's most hallowed tradition into a birthday party for his Beta.

And there he was, at the center of it all, with Selene on his arm. Not beside him. On him. Her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, her midnight gown catching the firelight as they moved table to table, greeting allied Alphas. She smiled at the gathered wolves the way a Luna would — possessive, proprietary, certain.

A clip surfaced of one of Kael's Gammas leaning toward Selene with a grin.

"So, Miss Ashford — when's the bonding ceremony? The Alpha's little mate must be packing her bags by now."

Selene glanced at Kael, a beat of theatrical hesitation, then laughed softly.

"Let's just say... Kael knows who the better she-wolf is."

I closed the feed.

The second was the video.

Grainy. Shot in the back of a van. A woman with her mouth covered, curled against the wall, being struck — open-handed, over and over — while a second wolf filmed.

The woman was me.

The comments were flooding in.

Holy shit is that the Thornwood Luna?

The Alpha's pet getting her face rearranged — who'd she piss off?

Check the other feed — he's throwing a moonfire feast for another she-wolf right now. Birthday gift ?

Weak-blooded Luna thought she could run with real wolves.

I stared at the screen. At the version of me in that footage — swollen, bleeding, stripped bare.

Then I looked at the feast stream. At Kael raising a toast to Selene while the entire pack howled in celebration.

My phone buzzed. Kael.

I know about the video. Once Selene's birthday wraps up, I'll have the tech wolves scrub it. The pack forgets fast. Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it.

I typed back for the first time in hours.

The feast is at the great hall? Good. I'm coming to celebrate with Selene.

I didn't go to the great hall.

I called a courier. Paid for rush delivery. One item: an ironwood chest — identical to the one Selene had brought to the healers' ward.

What I put inside, only I knew.

Then I made three calls. The private transport team I'd hired arrived within the hour — two Silverpeak healers and a nurse wolf, equipped for long-range critical care. They began prepping my mother for transfer.

While they worked, I pulled up the beating video and ran it through editing software. Blurred my face, stripped the metadata. Re-uploaded it from an anonymous account with a single caption:

The Alpha's mate. Ninety-nine times. On his orders.

I closed the laptop, shouldered my bag, and walked out beside my mother's stretcher.

At the border crossing, the Silverpeak convoy was waiting. The northern mountains. A healer's sanctuary that didn't answer to Thornwood.

I climbed in beside her and watched pack territory dissolve into darkness through the rear window.

Somewhere behind me, in a great hall blazing with moonfire, a courier was cutting through the crowd with an ironwood chest.

Selene was mid-toast — goblet raised, thanking the pack for their loyalty and the Alpha for his "unwavering devotion" — when an attendant approached.

"Delivery for Miss Ashford. From the Luna."

Selene set down her goblet. Smiled. Unlatched the chest with the casual confidence of a she-wolf who expected tribute.

The lid swung open.

Her face went white. Not pink, not pale — white. The bloodless shock that empties a face before the brain has time to build a reaction.

Kael was already on his feet. He looked into the chest.

And the hand that had signed death warrants, cradled Selene close, and shattered a bottle across his own mate's skull — that hand began to tremble.