The scent was faint, but it sent my stomach churning all over again.
I shoved Erick away and spun around, gripping the edge of the stone table and beginning to dry heave.
"Lillian?" He rushed over, putting his hand on my back, his voice strained with worry. "Is it because of your old injury again? I'll have Misha come take a look at you."
At the mention of Misha, my stomach churned even harder.
"No need." I wiped my mouth and sidestepped his hand. "The celebration is tomorrow. I don't want to alarm anyone."
Erick still looked worried, but in the end he said nothing more. "Don't overthink it. Get some sleep. There are still a few things left for me to handle at Priests' Temple. I'll come back to keep you company later."
I watched the soft smile tugging at his lips and instinctively clenched my fists.
"All right." I forced down the revulsion and stepped forward to kiss his cheek. "Come back soon. I'll miss you."
The moment Erick left, I shut the door and scrubbed at every spot of my body he had touched.
I didn't stop until my skin was raw and red.
Just then, the faintest sound of footsteps came from outside the door.
Noah stood in the doorway, clutching his pillow, his head with messy hair peeking out.
"Mother." He called out softly, his eyes red-rimmed.
I looked at him and felt my heart lurch.
"Why aren't you asleep yet?" I bit back the bitter feelings that rose within me and held out my hand to him.
Noah ran straight over and burrowed into my embrace.
"Mother, after the celebration tomorrow, will I not be allowed to call you Mother anymore?"
My body froze. "Who told you that?"
Noah pressed his lips together and whispered, "Ms. Acosta."
He looked at me uneasily and went on. "She said that after the celebration, I'll have a new mother. She also said you don't need me anymore and that you're going to send me to Priests' Temple."
I hadn't expected Misha to have already said all of this to Noah. She couldn't even wait one last night.
I held Noah tighter, pressing his face against my shoulder. "No. No matter what happens tomorrow, I will never give you up."
Noah sniffled and finally went quiet.
I carried him back to bed. As I was about to tuck him in, his sleeve slid up, revealing a few bruises on his arm.
Noah yanked his arm back at once, frantically tugging his sleeve down.
"Noah, tell me. Who did this?" I took his wrist gently, softening my voice.
Noah's tears fell at once. "It was Ms. Acosta. She made me memorize some things. I kept getting them wrong, and she pinched me."
My fingers hovered over the bruises. I didn't touch them.
I asked, "What did she make you memorize?"
Noah glanced nervously at the door, making sure no one was outside, and then leaned close to my ear. "She wants me to tell the elders tomorrow that you hit me all the time and force bitter medicine down my throat. Father told me to listen to her, too."
After that last sentence, he buried his face against my chest. "But you've never hit me. I don't want to lie."
I hadn't realized just how vicious Erick and Misha could be.
Not only did they plan to expose tomorrow that I wasn't Noah's biological mother, but they also wanted Noah to publicly accuse me of abusing him.
They wanted to paint me as a madwoman with no wolf, unable to bear children, who abused a child.
"Noah, don't tell anyone about tonight." I took a deep breath and wiped his tears away. "Tomorrow, no matter what Misha tells you to say, just agree with her. Don't fight back, and don't let her know you told me about that."
Noah shook his head at once. "I can't slander you, Mother."
I cupped his face in my hands and made him look at me. "You're doing that to protect yourself."
Noah nodded, not quite understanding why but choosing to trust me.
I lay down beside him and waited until his breathing evened out before slipping quietly out of the room.
Before my father passed away, he had been secretly investigating a group of rogue werewolves of unknown origin.
Erick and Misha had joined Silverbeam Pack during that very period.
Later, my father died on a hunt. None of the guards who accompanied him survived. Everyone said he had encountered a stampede of wild animals.
Now it seemed to me that the hunt might not have been an accident at all.
I changed into a short tunic that allowed free movement, strapped a dagger to the side of my leg, slipped past the guards outside the door, and climbed out through the back window.
After my father's death, the place where he had lived was sealed shut. In all these years, I had never once stepped inside.
It was the dead of night. I made my way along the trail behind the mountain and pushed open the dust-caked wooden door.
Everything inside was exactly as it had been when my father was alive.
I didn't linger. I walked straight to his bedchamber.
My father had a habit of hiding important things in a secret compartment behind the bed.
I fumbled around for what felt like forever before I finally heard a click.
The compartment sprang open, but all that remained inside was a pile of ash, which meant someone had been here before me and burned everything.
I reached in and sifted through the ash, finding a few scraps of hide that hadn't been completely consumed.
I could faintly make out from the remaining letters on them that they were hunting records, but the rest was beyond recognition.
The record from the day my father died should have been kept here.
Whoever destroyed it clearly didn't want me to know what had happened that day.
Beneath the ash, a bloodstained wolf fang lay.
Before I could examine it more closely, a row of torches flared to life outside the courtyard.
Heavy footsteps closed in fast.
I shoved the fang into my sleeve. I had barely shut the compartment when the door was pushed open from outside.
Erick stood in the doorway, a dozen fully armed guards behind him.
"Lillian," he said, his gaze sweeping past me and landing on the disturbed compartment. "What are you doing in your father's house at this hour?"
