Elara Thorne POV:
The words hung in the air between us, colder and sharper than any blade. *A lost pup.*
My breath caught. My heart, which had been a frantic drum against my ribs for days, simply stopped. Briar’s fingers dug into my arm, a grounding pressure in the sudden, spinning void. Her face was a pale mask in the gloom of the corridor, her eyes wide with the same dawning horror I felt reflected in my own.
Inside the office, the silence stretched, thick with a grief so old it felt like a physical part of the stone walls. My first instinct was to run. To turn and flee back to the sterile safety of my room, to bury myself under the silk sheets and pretend I hadn't heard.
But my wolf, the part of me that had been cowed and silent for so long, held me fast. She needed to know. I needed to know.
I shook off Briar’s hand and leaned closer to the crack in the door, ignoring her hissed whisper. The heavy oak muffled the voices, turning them into a low, indistinct rumble. I pressed my ear to the cool wood, straining.
Briar grabbed my arm again, harder this time. Her nails bit into my skin. “Elara, no. We can’t.”
“...stability, Kaelen,” Drake’s voice rumbled through the wood, heavy with frustration. “The pack is a powder keg of rumors. They need their Luna. A real one, formally announced. Not whispers of some rogue in your wing.”
I flinched. *Some rogue.* That’s all I was. A stray he’d brought in, bleeding on his expensive floors.
Then Lyra’s voice, sharp and laced with a worry that felt like it had been honed over years. “Is she powerful? From a rival pack? A political asset? There has to be a reason for this secrecy, for risking… a repeat of last time.” Her words painted a picture of a calculated alliance, of a woman with a rare, powerful bloodline who could be a fortress for the pack. The exact opposite of the broken, packless creature I was. A girl who officially died in a river three days ago, whose Alpha signed off on the body.
The chasm between who they needed and who I was yawned open at my feet. I felt a wave of nausea, so strong I swayed. They weren't just gossiping. They were strategizing. And I was the unknown, dangerous variable in their equation.
Briar tugged again, her panic a frantic energy against my side. I resisted, rooted to the spot by a morbid need to hear the rest of the verdict.
Then, a sharp, cutting thought sliced through my own chaotic ones. It wasn't my voice. It was Briar’s, a frantic mind-link that felt like a shout in a library.
*'His wolf will smell your distress! The grief, the fear—it’s a beacon to him. We have to go. Now.'*
The thought of Kaelen, sitting in that chair, sensing my terror through the stone and wood—it was enough. The spell broke. I stumbled back from the door, my heart finally kicking back into a wild, panicked rhythm. Briar didn't need to pull me again. We turned and moved as one, melting back into the shadows of the long corridor, the fragmented, terrifying conversation echoing in my mind.
***
The door to my new chambers closed behind us with a soft, definitive click. The sound sealed us in with the secret.
For a long moment, we just stood there, breathing heavily in the opulent silence. The room was beautiful—a suite, really, with a sitting area and a vast bed—but it felt like a cage. A gilded cage where I was being kept until my fate was decided.
I couldn't look at Briar. I couldn't process the pity and shock I knew I'd find in her eyes. Instead, I walked to the far side of the room, to the massive window overlooking the dark expanse of the forest. I wrapped my arms around myself, a futile attempt to hold my splintering self together.
“Elara…” Briar started, her voice low.
“Don’t,” I whispered. My own voice was thin, raw. “Just… don’t.”
I didn’t want to talk about it. To say the words *lost pup* out loud would be to give the horror a shape, a weight I couldn’t bear. Not on top of everything else. Not when I could still feel the ghost of Zane’s rejection carved into my soul.
Briar, to her credit, fell silent. But her presence was a restless storm in the room. I could hear her pacing behind me, the soft tread of her boots on the thick rug a counterpoint to the frantic beating of my heart.
A sharp chime cut through the tension.
Briar stopped pacing. I heard the faint rustle of her jacket as she pulled out her phone. A long pause. I saw her reflection in the dark glass of the window, her jaw tightening as she read whatever was on the screen.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered. She crossed the room in three long strides and held the phone out to me.
My eyes focused on the screen. It was a text from Drake.
*Lyra and I want to meet her. A casual drink in the west lounge. Time to ease the new Luna in. Kaelen can’t keep her hidden forever.*
The words swam before my eyes. *Ease the new Luna in.* The woman they thought was a political powerhouse. The woman they were worried would be a repeat of a past tragedy. They wanted to meet me. To assess me.
I physically recoiled from the phone, shaking my head so hard my neck ached. A strangled sound escaped my throat. I backed away until my legs hit the edge of the bed and I sank onto it.
“No,” I breathed. “No.”
Briar’s expression, which had been tight with frustration, softened instantly. The fierce warrior melted away, replaced by the friend who had held my hand through a dozen heartbreaks. She saw the genuine panic in my eyes, the ragged edge of my control.
She looked from my face back to the phone, her thumb hovering over the screen.
“I can’t, Briar,” I whispered, the words tearing from my throat. “Not them. Not after… that.”
She didn’t need any more explanation. She gave a single, decisive nod. Her fingers flew across the screen, quick and sure. She typed a reply, then hit send without a moment’s hesitation. She was creating a shield. A story. A lie to protect me.
I sat on the edge of the enormous, unfamiliar bed, the silk sheets cold against my skin. Briar stood by the window, phone in hand, a sentinel guarding a secret that was suddenly infinitely more complicated. The silence descended again, but this time it wasn't empty. It was a heavy blanket, woven with unspoken fears and the weight of a ghost I didn't know how to face.
