The common room was full this time.
Not just senior wolves. The entire pack leadership. Beta Jase stood to the left of the platform, his face carved from stone. Gamma Rhett was on the right, arms crossed. A dozen other high-ranking wolves lined the walls—witnesses, judges, executioners depending on how this went.
Maddox sat in the Alpha's chair. Leanna stood beside him, her hand resting on the chair's arm. Possessive. Casual. Like she had always been there.
I stood in the center of the room. Alone.
The air smelled like tension and old wood and Leanna's jasmine perfume layered too thick. My hands hung at my sides. I did not cross my arms. I did not shift my weight. I just stood there and waited for him to speak.
Maddox leaned forward. "The Council review is in three days. Thornridge has formally suspended our treaty. The documents in question—original, scent-sealed documents—are missing from the vault."
I said nothing.
"You managed those files for two years," he continued. "You knew the vault codes. You had motive after the rejection."
"I had archive access revoked," I said evenly. "The timestamps prove I couldn't have altered anything after my demotion."
"Timestamps can be manipulated."
"Not in the secondary archive. Not with scent-seal verification."
His jaw tightened. "Then explain why the originals are gone."
"I can't. I don't have vault access. I haven't had it in weeks."
"You're saying someone else destroyed them."
"I'm saying I didn't."
Maddox stood. His aura pulsed outward—a wave of dominance that made every wolf in the room go still. "I need resolution, Vienna. The Council needs answers. This pack needs to move forward."
I met his eyes. "Then investigate properly."
"I have."
"You've listened to her." I did not look at Leanna. I did not need to. "You haven't read Jase's report. You haven't cross-referenced the secondary logs. You've decided I'm guilty because it's easier than asking questions."
Something flickered behind his eyes. Anger, maybe. Or the first edge of doubt he refused to let himself feel.
"Show me the version-history timestamps," I said quietly. "Pull the secondary archive logs. Let Jase present his findings in front of the pack. If I'm guilty, the evidence will show it."
Maddox's voice was flat. "No."
The word landed like a door slamming shut.
"You will confess," he said. "Or you will be formally exiled as a rogue. Those are your options."
I stared at him. At the man who had marked me and unmade me. At the Alpha who had chosen convenience over truth every single time it mattered.
"I have nothing to confess," I said.
His eyes went hard. His aura thickened, pressing against the walls, filling the room with the weight of his authority. Every wolf in the room felt it. Some lowered their eyes. Some shifted on their feet.
I did not move.
Maddox's voice dropped. Deepened. The Alpha tone rolled out like thunder.
"Confess."
It hit me like a fist to the chest. My knees buckled. I went down hard, palms slamming into the floor, my spine bowing under the command. My jaw locked. My lungs seized. I could not speak. Could not move. Could not do anything but kneel there with my head forced down and the weight of his voice crushing me into the ground.
The room was silent.
No one spoke. No one moved. They just watched.
Leanna's voice, soft and careful: "Maddox, maybe we should—"
"Not now," he said.
The tone pressed harder. My vision blurred. My bones creaked. I felt my elbows start to give, my body collapsing inch by inch under the sustained command.
This was how it ended, then. On my knees. Voiceless. Broken in front of the pack that had never wanted me.
And inside my chest, where my wolf had been silent for so long, something cracked.
Not breaking.
Opening.
I felt it like a door swinging wide in a room I had never known existed. A presence—ancient, enormous, furious—stirred in the silence. It was not gentle. It was not asking permission.
It was waking up.
My vision sharpened. The blur cleared. I felt my spine straighten against the Alpha tone, felt my lungs pull in air when they should have been empty.
Maddox's eyes narrowed. "I said confess."
The tone slammed down again, harder this time, the full sustained weight of his command pouring into the room.
And the thing inside me pushed back.
A pulse of silver light exploded along my spine. I felt it like electricity, like fire, like something that had been buried so deep it had fossilized and was now tearing free. My eyes flashed silver. I knew because I saw Leanna's face go white.
The Alpha tone shoved backward.
Maddox stumbled. Actually stumbled, one step back, his aura flickering like a candle in wind.
Every wolf in the room felt it. The shift in pressure. The pulse of an aura that should not exist in a wolfless omega.
Jase's head snapped toward me. His eyes went wide.
Leanna's smirk died on her face.
Maddox stared at me, his expression caught somewhere between shock and fury.
And I felt the shift beginning—the crack widening, the presence inside me no longer content to watch.
My hands pressed flat against the floor. My nails lengthened. Silver fur rippled along my forearms.
I tried to speak. Tried to say something—anything—but my jaw was already changing, my teeth sharpening, and the only sound that came out was a low, rumbling growl that did not sound like me at all.
It sounded like something that had been waiting a very long time to be heard.
The common room went absolutely silent.
And the wolf inside me opened her eyes.
