Aurora POV:
It took three days for my skin to knit together enough for me to leave the hospital. The scars on my chest were pink and angry, a map of my husband's betrayal.
I took a taxi back to the Pack House. The massive Victorian mansion stood on a hill overlooking the city, a symbol of the Blood Moon Pack's wealth and power. It used to look like a castle to me. Now, it looked like a prison.
I walked through the front door. The air changed instantly.
The scent of cedar and rain—Ethan's scent, the scent of the pack—was gone. It was buried under a suffocating layer of synthetic roses.
"Welcome back, Mrs. Bruce," a maid mumbled, rushing past me with a basket of laundry.
I walked up the grand staircase, my legs still weak. I headed toward the guest room where I had been sleeping for the past year, ever since Ilene 'needed' the master suite for her 'night terrors.'
But when I opened the door, my room was empty.
My bed was stripped. My clothes were gone. And my nesting corner—the pile of soft blankets and pillows that every she-wolf instinctively builds to feel safe—was dismantled.
"Looking for your trash?"
I spun around. Ilene was standing at the end of the hallway. She looked the picture of health, wearing a silk robe that cost more than my life was worth.
"Where are my things?" I asked, my voice steady.
"I had the servants burn them," she said casually, examining her fingernails. "They smelled like... failure. I'm redecorating. This floor is for high-ranking wolves only. The attic is free, I think."
"You burned my paintings?" My heart stopped. "My drawings of the ancestors? The history of this pack?"
"Oh, those scribbles?" She laughed. "Ethan said I could do whatever I wanted to make the house feel like home. And your creepy drawings didn't fit my aesthetic."
Rage, hot and unfamiliar, boiled in my gut. Those drawings were spiritual. They were channeled from the collective memory of the pack. To destroy them was a crime against our heritage.
"You have no right," I stepped forward. "You are a guest here, Ilene. A parasite."
Her eyes narrowed. "I am the future Luna. Ethan loves me."
"He pities you," I spat. "And he's too stupid to see you're faking."
Ilene's face twisted. She wasn't the fragile victim now. She moved toward me with a predator's grace—too fast for a human, too fast for a wolf-less cripple.
"You think you know everything," she hissed, backing me toward the staircase. "But you know nothing about power."
"Get out of my way," I tried to step around her.
She grabbed my arm. Her grip was iron. "You need to learn your place, Omega."
She shoved me.
It wasn't a little push. She put her full weight, enhanced by a strength she shouldn't have if her wolf was truly gone, into the blow.
I lost my footing.
The world tilted. I reached out for the banister, but my fingers grasped only air.
I fell backward.
My body hit the wooden steps with a sickening crunch. I tumbled, hitting my head, my shoulder, my hip. The world was a blur of spinning ceiling and sharp pain.
Crack.
I landed at the bottom of the stairs, my leg twisted at an unnatural angle. A scream tore from my throat, raw and agonizing.
Darkness edged my vision. Through the haze, I saw the front door open.
Ethan stood there, his keys in his hand. He looked from me, broken at the bottom of the stairs, to Ilene, standing at the top with her hand over her mouth in mock horror.
A sharp pain hit his chest—I saw him clutch his heart. The Mate Bond transferring my physical agony to him.
"Aurora!" he roared, rushing toward me.
"She fell!" Ilene cried out, her voice pitching into a sob. "I tried to catch her, Ethan! She was dizzy! She just fell!"
Ethan fell to his knees beside me, his hands hovering over my broken body. "Aurora, stay with me."
I looked up at him through one swollen eye. I wanted to tell him she pushed me. I wanted to tell him she was strong, that she was lying.
But as I looked into his panicked eyes, I saw it. He was already looking up at her, reassuring her with his gaze.
It's not your fault, Ilene.
He didn't say it, but I heard it in the way he looked at her.
I closed my eyes, letting the darkness take me. There was no point in speaking. In this house, the truth died long ago.
