Marcus and I met twice more in the border woods over the next week.
The first time, he brought a communication crystal wrapped in oilcloth. His hands shook when he handed it to me. Not from fear. From relief.
"Encrypted shipment logs," he said quietly. "Three years' worth. Every wolfsbane delivery to Shadowmaw, every territory promise Kian made in exchange."
I unwrapped the crystal and held it up to the moonlight. The surface shimmered faintly—active encryption, the kind that required Beta-level access to extract. I couldn't read it here. But I didn't need to. I just needed to know it existed.
"How did you get this?" I asked.
Marcus looked at the ground. "I've had access the whole time. I just... couldn't do anything with it."
I nodded. I understood. Fear has its own logic.
"There's something else," he said. He pulled a folded piece of parchment from his jacket. "Cali has a second crystal. Personal contact line to Shadowmaw. She keeps it in her quarters, under a false floor panel near the west wall. I saw her access it during a logistics meeting last month. The panel edge doesn't sit flush."
I memorized the location. West wall. False panel. Irregular edge.
"Thank you," I said.
Marcus met my eyes. "When this is over—when you take the pack—I want to serve you. Not out of obligation. Because I believe in what you're doing."
I didn't answer right away. I just looked at him. A man who had made a terrible choice and was trying to unmake it.
"Then help me finish this," I said.
He nodded. We separated into the dark.
The second meeting, three days later, was shorter. Marcus brought coordinates—delivery routes, drop points, the exact locations where Kian's wolves handed off refined wolfsbane to Shadowmaw rogues. I committed every number to memory. My mind built the map in layers, the way I used to build supply chains.
The blood moon deadline was eighteen days away.
Eighteen days to gather everything. Eighteen days to stay invisible.
But Cali was watching.
She started assigning me labor tasks the day after the second meeting. Public tasks. Degrading ones.
"The Omega kitchens need scrubbing," she announced at breakfast, loud enough for the hall to hear. "Residents without rank contribute to the pack. It's only fair."
I kept my head down. "Yes, Luna."
The title tasted like ash in my mouth. But I said it.
I spent four hours on my knees that day, scrubbing grease off stone floors while Omegas worked around me in silence. A few of them looked uncomfortable. Most didn't look at all.
Cali walked through twice. The first time, she smiled. The second time, she stepped over my bucket without breaking stride.
I kept scrubbing.
The next day, she had me haul supply crates to the training ground. Heavy ones. The kind usually handled by Deltas in pairs. I dragged them one at a time across the courtyard while warriors watched and a few of them laughed.
My arms burned. My back ached. I didn't stop.
And while I worked, I paid attention.
One of the crates I hauled was sealed with a northern perimeter maintenance stamp. I recognized it from the archive ledgers. The wood smelled faintly of chemicals. I set it down near the training ground storage shed and crouched beside it, pretending to catch my breath.
I pressed my nose close to the seal.
Refined wolfsbane concentrate. Fresh. Delivered within the last forty-eight hours.
I memorized the seal markings. Then I stood and kept working.
That night, my knuckles cracked.
I was walking past a group of Deltas near the main staircase when one of them—Garrett, the same wolf who'd called me pathetic—stepped into my path.
"Still pretending you belong here?" he said.
I looked at the floor. "Excuse me."
He didn't move. "I asked you a question."
My wolf stirred. Not gently. She surged forward against the wall I kept her behind, and my knuckles cracked audibly. The sound was sharp. Wrong. My fingers curled involuntarily, and for half a second, I felt my nails sharpen.
Garrett's eyes widened. Just slightly.
I forced my hand flat. I forced my wolf back. I recited supply numbers under my breath—shipment weights, delivery dates, coordinates—until the surge passed.
When I looked up, Garrett had stepped back.
I walked past him without another word.
It happened again two days later. At the communal meal. A warrior shoved my tray off the table, and the crash made the hall go quiet. I bent to pick up the pieces, and my eyes flashed silver. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough for the wolf across from me to freeze mid-bite.
I kept my head down and cleaned up the mess. My hands were steady. But inside, my wolf was howling.
*Not much longer,* she said. *I cannot stay contained much longer.*
*Fourteen more days,* I told her. *Just fourteen more days.*
She didn't answer. But the pressure didn't ease.
Then the clock shortened.
Kian and Cali hosted a formal alliance meeting in the main hall. Representatives from two neighboring packs. High-ranking wolves I recognized from council assemblies three years ago, back when I still sat at the head table.
I wasn't invited. Obviously.
But I knew the guest chambers. I knew which walls were thin.
I requested permission from the Omega supervisor to clean the east corridor. She barely looked at me when she nodded.
I spent forty minutes polishing door handles and wiping baseboards in the hallway adjacent to the main meeting room. The partition wall was old stone, thick but not soundproof. Voices carried if you knew where to stand.
I stood in exactly the right place.
"—accelerating the timeline," Kian's voice said. "The territory transfer closes ten days earlier than planned. Before the blood moon."
A pause. Then another voice, older, cautious. "That's aggressive. What's the urgency?"
Cali answered. Her tone was smooth. Confident. "We're finalizing internal transitions. The sooner we close with Shadowmaw, the cleaner the handoff."
"And the Luna situation?" the older voice asked.
"Resolved," Kian said flatly. "She'll be gone before the transaction is traceable."
My hand stilled on the door handle.
Ten days earlier.
That meant eight days from now. Not eighteen.
Eight days to contact the Lycan Council. Eight days to prepare a case that would hold under tribunal scrutiny. Eight days before Kian and Cali completed a deal that would make every piece of evidence I'd gathered irrelevant.
I finished polishing the handle. I moved to the next door. My face was blank. My breathing was even.
But inside my chest, my wolf was clawing.
*Now,* she said. *We move now.*
*Soon,* I told her. *Very soon.*
That night, I sat on my bed and stared at the cracked mark on my neck in the small mirror I kept in my drawer. It was still cold. Still empty. But the silver at the edges had started to glow faintly in the dark.
My wolf was coming. Whether I was ready or not.
I had eight days.
I pulled out a blank piece of parchment and began writing the formal tribunal petition to the Lycan Council. My handwriting was steady. My words were precise.
And for the first time since the rejection, I let myself imagine what would happen when I finally stopped pretending to be broken.
