The Pack Banquet was held in the great hall on a Saturday evening, and I knew before I walked in that it would be worse than the dinner with my parents.
Three allied Alphas had been invited. Formal dress. Long tables arranged in a U-shape with Griffin at the head and the imposter on his right, wearing a gown that had been tailored for someone with my measurements and adjusted at the last minute for hers. The fabric pulled slightly at the shoulders. I noticed. I did not say anything.
I took the seat near the kitchen door again. No one questioned it. An Omega poured my water and avoided my eyes.
The meal began with speeches. Edmund stood first, his Alpha voice warm and proud, welcoming the allied packs and celebrating the "restoration of family bonds." The imposter smiled with perfect timing. Griffin's hand rested on the back of her chair.
I ate my salad. The greens were bitter. I finished them anyway.
Halfway through the second course, Griffin stood. He did not raise his glass. He simply stood, and the room went quiet the way rooms do when an Alpha decides the conversation is over.
"There has been some confusion," he said, his voice carrying easily across the hall, "about the distribution of pack heirlooms."
My fork paused halfway to my mouth. I set it down slowly.
Griffin's eyes found me across the room. Flat. Decided. The same look he had worn when he spoke the rejection vow.
"The Luna's heirlooms," he continued, "belong to the Luna. Willow Hart is no longer Luna of anything."
He crossed the room in six strides. I did not move. I sat with my hands in my lap and watched him come.
He stopped beside my chair. His hand reached for my throat.
I felt his fingers brush my collarbone. Then the chain went taut. The clasp bit into the back of my neck for half a second before it snapped.
The moonstone pendant — my grandmother's, the only thing she had left me before she died, the small grey stone that caught light like water — came away in his hand.
I did not make a sound.
Griffin turned. Walked back to the imposter. Held the pendant up for a moment so the candlelight caught it, then lowered it over her head and fastened the clasp at the back of her neck with the kind of care you use for something fragile.
She touched it. Let her fingers rest on the stone. Looked up at him with wide, grateful eyes.
"Thank you," she whispered.
The allied Alphas watched in silence. One of them — the grey-haired man from the western territory — shifted in his seat and looked down at his plate. No one spoke.
My hand rose to my throat. I felt the bare skin where the chain had rested for six years. I pressed two fingers to the spot. Then I lowered my hand and folded it in my lap with the other one.
I looked at my plate. I picked up my fork. I finished my meal.
---
It happened during dessert.
The visiting Alpha to my left — younger, nervous, holding his wine glass too loosely — gestured while telling a story and the glass tipped.
Toward my face.
I saw it start to fall. I did not flinch. I had stopped flinching in the warehouse.
But Griffin moved.
His hand shot out across the table — fast, automatic, his whole body leaning forward — and caught the glass before a single drop touched me.
He froze.
Stared at his own hand like it had acted without permission. Like it belonged to someone else.
The room went still.
I looked at him. He looked at his hand. The wine trembled slightly in the glass.
Then he set it down. Pulled his hand back. Turned and walked to the imposter's side without a word.
She touched his arm. He did not look at me again.
But Marcus did.
Griffin's Beta stood three paces behind the head table, his face carefully blank, his eyes tracking the whole sequence from the tipping glass to Griffin's retreat. He did not move. He did not speak. But something in his expression shifted — a decision made, a line crossed.
I went back to my dessert. It was some kind of tart. Too sweet. I ate half of it and left the rest.
---
The order came the next morning.
A Delta knocked on my door at dawn. Young. Uncomfortable. He would not meet my eyes.
"Alpha's orders," he said to the doorframe. "You're to relocate to the border cabin for one week. No mind-link access. Supplies will be delivered every three days."
I looked at him. "Why?"
He swallowed. "Alpha says you need to learn your place."
I nodded once. "When?"
"Now."
I packed nothing. I owned nothing worth packing except the clothes I was wearing and the belt knife my grandmother had given me when I was sixteen. I slid the knife into my boot and followed the Delta out.
The cabin sat at the outermost edge of pack territory, a fifteen-minute walk through scrub pine and frozen ground. One room. A cot. A wood stove with a half-cord of damp firewood stacked beside it. No running water. A bucket by the door.
The Delta left without looking back.
I stood in the center of the room for a long moment. Then I crouched beside the cot and pulled the knife from my boot.
I scratched a single line into the wooden wall. A tally. Thin and precise.
Beneath it, I carved one word: *still.*
Then I sat on the cot and opened the space in my mind where the Luna Accord lived.
Article Seven. Territorial Reparations in Cases of Gross Negligence Resulting in Bodily Harm to an Unmarked, Rejected Luna.
I read it from the beginning. I did not stop until the light outside the window went dark.
---
Seven days.
I scratched a tally each morning when the light came through the single window. One word each night before I lay down on the cot.
*Still. Fading. Fading. Gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.*
They were not a record of captivity. They were an autopsy. A clinical documentation of the precise moment love stopped being a living thing and became a scar.
By the fourth day, I had memorized every article of the Luna Accord relevant to my case. By the sixth, I had constructed the full legal argument I would deliver to the pack elders — every precedent, every counterargument, every rebuttal.
I did not write it down. I did not need to.
On the seventh morning, I heard footsteps outside. I stood. Pulled on my jacket. Walked to the door.
The Delta escort was already there, his hand raised to knock.
I opened the door before his knuckles touched the wood.
He blinked at me. Looked at my face. At the burns on my arms, half-healed now, the skin tight and shiny. At my expression, which gave him nothing.
"Alpha says you can return to the main house," he said quietly.
I looked at him for a long moment. Then I stepped past him and started walking.
Behind me, I heard him pause. Glance back at the cabin. At the wall beside the cot where seven tallies and seven words were carved into the wood.
Then he followed me down the path.
I did not look back.
