The questions started on the seventh night.
I was restocking supplies in the pack house kitchen when Castiel appeared in the doorway. No warning. No sound. Just suddenly there, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed.
"Where did you grow up?" he asked.
I set down the box of dried herbs I'd been organizing. Turned to face him. "Brooklyn area, Your Highness. Small pack territory."
"Pack name?"
"Moonveil." The truth. Wrapped carefully. "It dissolved years ago."
He studied me. "Family?"
"My mother died when I was young." Also true. I didn't mention the silver-laced wolfsbane or the Luna title she'd carried. "My father remarried. I left after that."
Castiel's expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted. "Your wolf's name?"
My throat tightened. I pressed my fingers briefly against the cold scar on my neck. "I don't have a wolf, Your Highness."
"That's not what I asked."
The silence stretched. I counted three heartbeats before I answered. "She never woke. So she never had a name."
He held my gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded once and left.
I stood there in the empty kitchen, hands shaking, and wondered why an Alpha—a Lycan Prince—was asking questions he had no reason to care about.
The common room incident happened three nights later.
I'd been avoiding the main gathering spaces. Easier that way. Less risk of Mara's hostility or the other unmated she-wolves' cold stares. But Dorian found me in the library and insisted I join the evening pack gathering. "Prince's orders," he said. "All pack members attend."
So I went.
The common room was warm. Crowded. Wolves sprawled on couches and floor cushions, talking and laughing. I took a seat near the back, close to the door. Waffles curled at my feet immediately.
Castiel sat in an armchair near the fireplace. He wasn't participating in the conversation, just listening with that characteristic stillness. But his eyes tracked the room constantly.
Dorian was telling a story about a rogue encounter gone wrong—something involving a tree, a miscalculation, and his Beta dignity landing face-first in a creek. The delivery was deadpan. The punchline landed perfectly.
I laughed.
Not a polite chuckle. A real laugh—surprised, unguarded, the kind that escaped before I could catch it. The sound felt foreign in my own throat.
The suppressant thinned.
I felt it happen. The chemical burn at my pulse points fading for just a breath. Just long enough for my real scent—honeysuckle and smoke—to slip through the mask.
Castiel went completely still.
His head turned toward me with predator precision. His nostrils flared. Every line of his body went rigid, like he'd been struck. His eyes locked on mine across the room.
I stopped breathing.
The tincture's heat surged back. The scent vanished. But Castiel didn't move. Didn't blink. Just stared at me with an expression I couldn't read—something between recognition and fury and desperate confusion.
Then he stood abruptly. "Excuse me," he said. His voice was rough.
He walked out.
The room went quiet for a beat. Then the conversation resumed. But Dorian's eyes followed his Prince's exit, and when he looked back at me, his expression was entirely new. Assessing. Careful.
I pressed my hand against my neck and felt the cold scar burning.
Castiel didn't return for an hour.
The message arrived the next morning.
I found it in our dead-drop location—a hollow in the oak tree at the eastern boundary. The encoded note was brief. Sebastian's handwriting.
*Progress noted. Continue current trajectory. Remember your obligations. The runt looks healthy. Let's keep it that way.*
I read it twice. Then I burned it.
Back in my quarters, I sat on the floor with Waffles in my lap. He whined softly and pressed his nose against my hand. I stared at the ceiling and counted the cracks in the plaster.
Sebastian thought I was doing this for him. Thought every moment I spent near Castiel was a sacrifice I made out of lingering devotion. The delusion was almost funny.
Except it wasn't.
Because I was running out of time to decide how much longer I could keep lying. To Castiel. To Dorian. To myself.
Waffles licked my wrist. I buried my fingers in his fur and didn't let myself cry.
The Pack Banquet was announced three days later.
A formal event honoring Silverfang's new territorial alliance with the Northridge Pack. Alphas from six neighboring territories would attend. Protocol required every pack member's presence—even the low-ranking transfers who would serve rather than sit.
I was assigned to beverage service. Fine. I could handle that.
What I couldn't handle was Sebastian walking through the door.
He arrived late. Fashionably so. Emilia on his arm in a silver dress that caught every light in the hall. He smiled. Nodded to the Alphas he recognized. Played the gracious guest.
No one had invited him.
But refusing entry to a neighboring Alpha—even an unwelcome one—would have been a political insult Castiel couldn't afford. So Sebastian was allowed in.
I was refilling a Luna's wine glass when I saw him.
The rejection mark went ice-cold.
Then it started throbbing. Not the dull ache I'd learned to ignore. Sharp. Vicious. Like someone pressing a blade against my throat from the inside.
I set the wine bottle down carefully. Forced my hands steady.
Sebastian was introducing Emilia to a cluster of Alphas near the center of the hall. "My chosen Luna," he said. Loud enough to carry. "The Moon Goddess's gift."
Emilia smiled. Leaned into him.
The mark throbbed harder.
I couldn't breathe.
The hall was too warm. Too crowded. Sebastian's scent—pine and dominance and three years of my life wasted—filled my lungs. Emilia's laugh echoed. The mark pulsed in rhythm with my heartbeat, each throb stealing more air.
I turned and walked toward the door. Controlled. Steady. I made it to the courtyard before my vision tunneled.
The stone bench caught me before my knees gave out. I sat down hard. Pressed both hands against the mark. It was cold and burning at the same time, the contradictory sensations making my stomach lurch.
I couldn't get air. My chest was too tight. The world was narrowing to a pinpoint.
Panic attack. I knew what it was. That didn't make it stop.
I forced myself to count. One. Two. Three. Tried to match my breathing to the numbers. Failed.
Footsteps.
I looked up.
Castiel stood three feet away, his expression unreadable in the moonlight.
"Breathe," he said quietly.
I shook my head. Couldn't.
He moved closer. Knelt in front of me. "Lilith. Look at me."
I met his eyes.
"Match my breathing," he said. He inhaled slowly. Held it. Exhaled.
I tried. Failed. Tried again.
He kept breathing. Steady. Patient. Not touching me. Not fixing me. Just... there.
Slowly, my lungs remembered how to work.
The panic receded. Not gone. Just far enough back that I could think.
Castiel stayed kneeling. "What happened?"
I couldn't tell him. Couldn't explain that the man inside had formally rejected me in front of his entire pack and then sent me here to destroy the one person I'd wanted for a decade. Couldn't say any of it.
"I'm fine," I whispered.
His jaw tightened. "You're not."
"I will be."
He studied me for a long moment. Then he stood and offered his hand.
I looked at it. At him.
"Come on," he said. "You're not going back in there tonight."
I took his hand.
He pulled me to my feet and led me away from the banquet hall, away from Sebastian's scent and Emilia's smile and the cold, throbbing scar that wouldn't let me forget.
And I followed him, because I didn't know what else to do.
