HAYLEY POV:
Preston's roar of fury echoed in the sudden, tomb-like silence of the garden. His eyes burned with a hatred so pure it was almost beautiful. He looked like a cornered animal, all bared teeth and impotent rage.
Amber, ever the performer, burst into flawless, crystalline tears. She clutched Preston's arm, her body trembling delicately.
"Oh, sister," she sobbed, her voice just loud enough for the front rows to hear. "I know you still love Preston, but please... please don't do this to us..."
A ripple of sympathy went through the crowd. I saw a few of the older Lunas shaking their heads, their gazes on me filled with pity and disapproval. The "scorned woman" narrative was so easy for them to swallow.
I paid Amber no mind. Her theatrics were as predictable as the sunrise. My focus was elsewhere.
"Father," I said, my voice cutting cleanly through her manufactured sobs. My eyes found Howard's. He flinched as if I'd struck him. "Before I state my objections, I have a question I'd like to clarify."
My movements were fluid, unhurried. I reached into my small black clutch and retrieved a slim, elegant folder. The click of the magnetic clasp was unnaturally loud in the silence.
I opened it and drew out a single document. It was old, the paper yellowed with age, but it had been preserved with meticulous care.
"It's about my sister's dowry," I announced, my voice ringing with clarity. I held up the paper. "I would like to know what, exactly, is included. Because from what I can see, the entire dowry appears to be composed of assets that once belonged to my mother."
The effect was instantaneous. Howard's face, already pale, turned a ghastly shade of white. His eyes darted around like a trapped rat looking for an escape.
Brenda, however, had no such subtlety. "It's a family asset!" she shrieked, her voice sharp and defensive. "It's only right that it goes to her sister as a dowry! Your mother would have wanted Amber to have something beautiful!"
"My mother," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous chill, "left a will. A very specific will. And in it, she bequeathed her entire estate—Elysian Scents, the summer villa, the jewelry collection, the art, the ancestral lands—to me. Not to the Brown family. Not to Amber. To me."
I let my gaze sweep over the assembled guests. "So I am curious, Father. How did my mother's personal assets become a 'family asset'? And how did they find their way into Amber's dowry contract without my knowledge or consent?"
A collective murmur rippled through the garden. The older pack members, those who remembered my mother, exchanged dark looks. They knew the truth.
Amber's face flickered—a crack in her porcelain mask. But she recovered quickly, her hand pressing against her chest in a gesture of wounded innocence. "Sister, how can you say such things?" she whispered, her voice trembling with practiced hurt. "I only want what's best for this family. If you're so bitter about losing Preston to me, at least have the decency not to drag our mother's memory into your jealousy."
The words were expertly aimed. A few guests nodded sympathetically. The "jealous sister" narrative was taking hold. I could feel the tide threatening to turn against me.
I didn't let it.
"Bitter about losing Preston?" I repeated, my voice carrying a note of genuine amusement that made several people start. "Amber, dear, I didn't lose Preston. I threw him away. Just as I am about to throw away every lie you and your mother have built your pathetic lives upon."
I turned my attention back to the document. "This is a copy of my mother's original will, filed with the Council of Elders and witnessed by Alpha Eldred Payne himself. It stipulates that her entire estate is to be held in trust. The ownership transfers to me upon the completion of my own Mating Ceremony, or on my twenty-fifth birthday."
I paused, letting the weight of my words sink in. I swept my gaze over Howard, then Preston.
"I am twenty-four years old. My mother's assets have been generating revenue for over a decade—revenue that should have been accumulating in my trust. Instead, I find those very same assets listed as a dowry for another woman. What I want to know is: where is my money? Where are my mother's jewels? And by what right," I said, turning to face Preston directly, "does the Payne family accept stolen property as a bride price?"
A collective gasp swept through the garden. This was a scandal of the highest order. To steal from one's own daughter—the inheritance of a deceased mate—was a grievous sin in the eyes of the pack and the Moon Goddess.
Howard's lips moved, but no sound came out. He looked like a fish gasping for air.
Preston, his face a thundercloud of fury, stormed forward and snatched the document from my hand. He scanned it, his expression shifting from rage to disbelief, and finally, to a dawning, horrified comprehension.
He recognized the seals. The signature of his own father, Alpha Eldred Payne, was there in stark black ink, acting as a witness from all those years ago. His own father had unknowingly legitimized a stolen inheritance.
The document was real. The dowry was built on a foundation of theft. He, the future Alpha of the Payne pack, was about to bind himself to a woman whose family had tried to pay their way in with goods stolen from his own former fiancée.
Brenda was still sputtering. "It's a fake! She forged it! The girl is a liar—she's always been a liar!"
I ignored her and locked my eyes on Preston. "Future Alpha Payne," I said, my tone laced with mocking respect. "With your education and standing, surely you can discern the authenticity of a legal document bearing your own pack's seal—and your own father's signature."
It was a checkmate.
If he admitted it was real, he would be publicly acknowledging that his bride's family were thieves who had stolen from his former betrothed. If he denied it, he would be questioning his own father's signature and the integrity of his pack's legal process.
His face cycled through a dozen shades of red and purple. I could feel the weight of a hundred pairs of eyes on him, a physical pressure that made him squirm.
A figure detached himself from the crowd. Alpha Eldred Payne, his face a grim, unreadable mask. He walked to his son, took the document, and read it in a single, sweeping glance.
He was silent for a long moment. Then he looked at Preston, and his eyes were cold stones of disappointment and command.
Preston took a shaky breath. When he spoke, the words were ground out from between his clenched teeth.
"... The document is legal."
The admission fell like a guillotine.
Amber and Brenda swayed as if struck. "Preston, you..." Amber whispered, her face a mask of disbelief. "How can you say that? You're supposed to be on my side!"
"I am on the side of the truth," he said, but his voice was hollow. He was not looking at her. He was looking at me. And in his eyes, for the first time, I saw something other than contempt. I saw fear. The future Alpha King, who had never been challenged in his life, was afraid—of a wolfless Omega he had discarded like trash.
I held out my hand. Preston slapped the document back into it.
"Well then," I said, a cold, triumphant smile finally gracing my lips. I folded the paper neatly and tucked it back into its folder. "Since the bride's dowry is built on a foundation of theft and lies, and since the groom's own father has confirmed the legal truth of my claim, I ask this gathering: should this union proceed? Or shall we adjourn until the matter of my stolen inheritance has been properly resolved?"
I directed my question not to Preston, but to the highest authority present: Alpha Eldred.
The combined weight of the scandal, the public humiliation, and the loss of her prize was too much for Amber.
Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she crumpled, a boneless heap of white lace and deceit.
Preston caught her out of pure reflex, but his movements were clumsy, annoyed. There was no tenderness in the way he held her. Just irritation. He was already pulling away before she had fully collapsed.
Before she fainted completely, her eyes fluttered open for a second, and they locked on me, filled with a venomous, undiluted hatred.
The show was just getting started.
