Elara Blackwood POV:
*This is a farce!* Nyx, my inner wolf, snarled in my mind, her paws pacing a frantic, furious rhythm across our shared consciousness. *We are the Luna! We do not feign weakness!*
*This is not weakness,* I sent back to her, my own thoughts a steady, calming pressure against her rage. *This is war. And the first rule of war is to choose your own battlefield.*
As a Luna, I possessed a faint, residual connection to the pack's official mind-link network, a whisper of the conversations that concerned its leadership. Ryker and his council believed that the severing of our bond had deafened me to it, another symptom of my decline. They were wrong.
I focused, pushing past the static of pack life, and snagged the thread of energy I was looking for. Calyx's link. It was encrypted, powerful, but I didn't need to break it. I only needed to know where it was pointed.
Just as before, the link was aimed at Miles Grant—Ryker's Beta. Not at Ryker himself.
A cold, grim satisfaction settled over me. The pattern held. Ryker had delegated even this, the monitoring of his supposedly broken mate, to a subordinate. It was exactly the indifference I had counted on. The board was still set. The pieces were moving exactly as I had predicted.
I let the link slip from my focus, having confirmed what I already knew. There was no shock this time—only the quiet, bitter validation of a woman who had learned to expect nothing from the man who had discarded her.
I couldn't hear the full conversation, only fragmented concepts that bled through the encryption. "...mental collapse... claims of 'whispers'... Briar stable... high-level surveillance..."
*Surveillance.* A slow, cold smile spread across my face. They took the bait.
I walked back to my suite at the top of the Packhouse, the opulent prison that had once been the symbol of our love. The air still held the faint, lingering scent of him—pine and winter frost. It no longer made my heart ache. It made my stomach turn.
Nyx, however, let out a low, mournful whine. Her primal wolf-spirit still yearned for its mate, an instinct I had to brutally suppress with my own human will.
I moved to the sweeping floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the central courtyard. I pretended to gaze at the manicured gardens, but my eyes were scanning the perimeter. There. Two warriors, dressed in the brown tunics of groundskeepers, were trimming a rosebush with far too much military precision. Their stances were all wrong, their eyes constantly flicking towards my windows.
My gaze drifted upwards, along the ornate cornices of my own suite. Tucked into the shadows of a carved wolf's head was a tiny, shimmering rune, almost invisible to the naked eye. A magical scrying stone. An eye in my own home.
I turned my face toward the rune, letting my features crumple into a mask of tragic, bewildered grief. I let a single, perfect tear trace a path down my cheek. *Watch me, Ryker,* I thought, projecting the feeling of pure heartbreak for his spies. *Watch the whole damn show. Watch what you've done to me.*
I immediately scrubbed my mind of any coherent thought, flooding it with a chaotic jumble of sorrow and confusion, a wall of emotional noise to block any potential mind-readers. It was time for the next step. Something that would force a reaction.
My personal omega attendant, a sweet girl named Martha, entered with a tray of chamomile tea. Her eyes were wide with worry. "Luna, they're all talking... Don't listen to them. You're just grieving."
I looked at her kind, honest face, and a genuine pang of regret hit me. I couldn't allow her to be caught in the crossfire of what was to come.
With a sudden, violent motion, I swept my arm out, knocking the tray from her hands. The porcelain cup shattered on the marble floor. Scalding tea splashed across the back of her hand, and she cried out, stumbling backward.
"Get out!" I shrieked, my voice raw and cold. "I don't need your pity! I don't need any of you! Get out!"
Martha stared at me, her hand clutched to her chest, tears of shock and pain welling in her eyes. This was not the Luna she knew.
"Did you not hear me?" I snarled, taking a menacing step forward. "Tell everyone to leave. No one is to enter my rooms again until I summon them. Now go!"
She fled, sobbing, and I could feel the energy of the scrying rune flare as the report of my latest outburst was transmitted. Within minutes, my entire staff of omega servants had cleared out, leaving me in absolute, blessed solitude.
The moment the main door to the suite clicked shut, I sagged against it, the performance draining me more than any physical fight.
*Why did we hurt her?* Nyx asked, her own anger tempered by confusion. *She was kind.*
*To keep her safe,* I replied, my own voice weary in my mind. *Better they hate me and stay away now, than die for me later. The storm is coming, and I need this room to be empty.*
"Good, the stage is cleared, and the audience is in their seats. Now, it's time for act two."
