He didn't wait for me to speak.
Thiago lifted his chin, and his voice rang out across the assembled pack with the kind of clarity men practice in mirrors. Every syllable landed clean.
"I, Thiago Webb, Alpha of Silverfang Pack, reject you, Janelle, as my mate and Luna of this pack."
The mark on my neck went cold.
Not slowly. Not with warning. It was like someone had pressed ice directly against the bone. The warmth I had carried there for six years—the constant, humming proof that I was tethered to another living thing—vanished in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
My wolf screamed.
Not my voice. Hers. Inside my skull, behind my ribs, clawing up through my chest in a pitch I had never heard from her before. A howl that had no exit, trapped inside a body that could not shift, could not run, could not do anything but stand there and take it.
The room tilted. My knees buckled. I caught the doorframe with my free hand, the other arm locked tight around Aurelia, who was wailing now, her tiny face red and furious against my collarbone.
My wolf's scream spiraled higher, desperate, reaching for something that was no longer there. Then it cracked—broke into a single, raw syllable of pure rage—and the suppressants I had been taking for years slammed down like a hand over her mouth. She went silent. Not calm. Silent.
I could feel her pacing inside me, frantic and muzzled, slamming against walls I had built to keep her hidden.
I steadied myself. The doorframe was cold under my palm. Blood was seeping through the back of my gown, warm and slow, sticking the fabric to my thighs. I could feel it start again with every breath.
I looked at Thiago.
He stood on the stage in ceremony white, his hand resting lightly on Phoebe's shoulder. His golden eyes were calm. He had practiced this moment. I could see it in the way he held his shoulders, the way his voice had not wavered once.
I made myself speak. My voice came out quieter than I meant it to, but it came out whole.
"Look at her."
He didn't move.
"Thiago." I shifted Aurelia slightly in my arms so he could see her face, her tiny fists curled against the sheet, her eyes squeezed shut as she cried. "Look at your daughter. I delivered her alone four hours ago. She's yours. Look at her."
He glanced down. Not at Aurelia. At the blood on my gown.
Then he looked back up at me, and his expression didn't change at all.
"The child's bloodline is uncertain," he said. His voice was still calm. Still Alpha-steady. "A proper investigation will determine whether she belongs to Silverfang at all."
The pack murmured. A low, approving hum that rolled through the room like agreement.
I heard Marcus Thorne's voice first, louder than the rest. "About time someone said it."
I turned my head slowly and looked at Phoebe.
She stood beside Thiago in a white dress I had never seen before, cut low at the collarbone, her dark hair pinned back with silver. One hand rested on her flat stomach. Her eyes were wide and wet, like she was about to cry.
I had brought her here. I had signed the paperwork myself. I had given her a room in the east wing, close to mine, because she said she felt safer near the Luna's quarters. I had paid for her meals, her clothes, her stipend. I had vouched for her in front of the council when Marcus questioned whether a rogue Omega could be trusted.
She looked at me now like she didn't know me.
Something inside me closed. Not broke. Closed. Like a door shutting from the inside, and the lock turning, and the key thrown away.
I looked back at Thiago.
"Okay," I said.
He blinked. Just once. Like he had expected me to scream, or beg, or collapse, and my stillness confused him.
Then he turned back to the pack and his voice rose, filling the hall the way an Alpha's voice is supposed to fill a hall—commanding, certain, impossible to interrupt.
"Janelle is an unfaithful, rogue-blooded Omega who deceived me into a bond she was never worthy of." He paced across the stage as he spoke, his hands clasped behind his back. "Her wolf is weak. Her aura is muted. She has never fully shifted in front of this pack. These are not the traits of a Luna. These are the traits of a bloodline that does not belong here."
The pack listened. Some nodded. A few whispered to each other behind their hands.
Marcus Thorne stepped forward from the front row, his chest puffed out like a man who had been waiting for permission to speak. He pointed at me with one thick finger.
"The wolfless Luna," he said loudly, and a few people laughed. "She embarrassed Silverfang for years. We all knew it. We just didn't say it."
More laughter. Louder this time.
A woman in the third row—someone whose name I had never learned—leaned over to her neighbor and said, just loud enough for me to hear, "I always thought there was something wrong with her."
Phoebe trembled. Her hand pressed harder against her stomach. Her lip quivered.
The pack looked at her and saw grace under pressure. Strength in the face of chaos. A true Luna.
I looked at her and saw a girl who had studied me like a textbook and copied every page.
Aurelia's cries softened into hiccups against my chest. I could feel her heartbeat through the thin sheet, fast and frightened.
I looked down at her. At the dark, damp curls stuck to her forehead. At her tiny, perfect fingers.
"It's okay," I whispered. "I've got you."
My wolf pressed against the inside of my ribs. Not whining anymore. Listening.
Waiting.
I lifted my head and looked at Thiago one more time.
He was still talking. Still pacing. Still explaining to his pack why I had never deserved to stand beside him.
I didn't hear the words anymore.
I just watched his mouth move, and I thought: *I built this stage. I paid for the stone under your feet. I signed every check that made you an Alpha worth following.*
And you will never know.
