POV: Wren
The doors crashed inward.
Wood split across the floor. Iron bolts struck the walls. Torchlight flooded Alaric’s chamber, followed by guards, Elders, and pack members packed shoulder to shoulder in the corridor.
Marrok stood at the front with the law codex held against his chest.
“There,” he shouted. “The Devourer has awakened. Seize her before she feeds.”
Black smoke still curled from my arms. The shadow wolf moved beneath my skin, restless after breaking Alaric’s seal. Every face in the doorway tightened with the same fear.
I stepped between them and the bed.
Alaric’s hand caught my waist.
He pulled me behind him and forced himself upright.
His legs shook. Wolfsbane still stained the veins near his heart, and the sacred relics lay cracked across the blankets. He could barely stand, yet his body covered mine from every weapon in the room.
His Alpha scent exploded outward.
The first line of guards dropped to their knees. Swords struck stone. Even Marrok took one step back.
“You will not touch her,” Alaric said.
Four quiet words silenced the chamber.
Hope hit me so hard it hurt.
He had chosen me.
Marrok recovered first. He opened the codex and raised his voice.
“She stole the seven relics. She destroyed the vault. She released an extinction-born wolf within our borders. If you protect her, the Council will invoke the Right of Deposition.”
“Try.”
A murmur moved through the crowd.
Marrok’s eyes narrowed. “You would sacrifice your title for the creature that nearly drained the Moon Vault?”
“She used those relics to save my life after you poisoned me.”
The accusation struck the Elders like a thrown blade.
Marrok did not flinch. “You submitted to a lawful test.”
“You invented a public execution and called it a test.”
Alaric’s voice remained cold, but I felt the tremor in his back. His strength was failing. The pack could smell it too.
Then a pup cried somewhere in the hall.
The sound was small and frightened.
The Devourer turned toward it.
Hunger flashed through me, quick and terrible. I locked my jaw and forced the creature down, but the black smoke around my hands thickened.
The mother screamed and pulled her child away.
Marrok pointed at me. “You see? It hunts the weak by instinct.”
“No.” I lifted my empty hands. “I have hurt no one.”
“You felled six guards.”
“They are alive.”
“For now.”
Voices rose behind him.
“Kill her before the moon sets.”
“Burn the body.”
“Protect the pups.”
The fear spread faster than any command Alaric could give. Wolves pushed into the chamber. Others blocked the stair. If he fought, the castle would become a slaughterhouse.
His fists closed.
Blood opened across his knuckles.
He looked at me over his shoulder.
For one moment, his face held everything he refused to say. Love. Terror. An apology already too late.
“No,” I whispered.
He turned away.
“She is no longer under my protection.”
The room went still.
My hope died without a sound.
“You’re lying,” I said. “You stood in front of me.”
Alaric drew the ceremonial silver dagger from his belt.
The crowd parted as he walked toward me.
His face had become the High Alpha’s mask again. Hard. Distant. Merciless.
I backed into the bedpost.
“Do not do this.”
His hand closed around my injured arm.
Gentle.
That gentleness frightened me more than the blade.
The pack crest had been burned into my shoulder on my eighteenth birthday, a black sigil declaring me a protected member of the Eastern Bloodline. It lay beside the red crescent left by the Blood Pool.
Alaric placed the dagger beneath the edge of the crest.
“Wren of the Eastern Bloodline,” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “you violated Pack Law, stole sacred property, and released a forbidden wolf.”
His thumb pressed once against my pulse.
A warning.
Or a goodbye.
The silver cut.
Pain tore through my shoulder. He carved through the outer lines of the crest, destroying the magic that tied me to the pack. Blood ran down my arm. The sigil broke apart in black sparks.
I screamed.
Alaric did not stop until the final bond snapped.
The castle vanished from my senses.
Two hundred heartbeats I had always felt as part of the pack went silent at once. The loss hollowed me out more completely than the blade.
I fell to my knees.
Alaric stood over me with my blood on his hand.
“By my authority as High Alpha, I strip you of pack status, shelter, and claim.” His voice carried through the chamber. “You are exiled to the Moonless Wasteland. You will receive no aid from the Eastern Bloodline.”
Marrok’s mouth tightened. “The sentence is death.”
“Exile is permitted for a first violation when no pack life has been taken.” Alaric looked at the open codex. “Page three hundred twelve. Read your own law.”
The Elder’s silence confirmed it.
Alaric had found the only sentence that kept me alive.
It did not feel like mercy.
Guards seized my arms. I could have dropped them with the Devourer, but Alaric’s gaze held mine for one brief second.
Go.
He did not say it. He did not need to.
They dragged me through the castle. Familiar faces lined the halls. Matthew’s sister watched with tears in her eyes. Jacob stared at the floor. Sarah stood near the stairs in her stained white dress, pale and silent.
No one intervened.
The outer gates opened onto a blizzard.
The guards shoved me beyond the boundary stones. Snow swallowed my bare feet. Wind cut through my silk shirt and froze the blood along my arm.
I turned back.
Alaric stood inside the gate, framed by torchlight. The bloody dagger hung at his side.
He did not come after me.
The gates closed between us.
Ahead, the Moonless Wasteland stretched beneath a blind sky. Dead trees twisted from frozen ground. Shadows moved where no living creature should have survived.
The wound on my shoulder throbbed. One mark proved Alaric had wanted me. The other proved he had cast me out.
I pressed my hand over both.
“Fine,” I said into the dark.
The Devourer answered with a low growl.
I took my first step into exile.
“You chose your pack, Alaric. When I return, you will learn what your mercy made of me.”
