The dead rat appeared on my doorstep on Tuesday morning.
I stood in the narrow hallway of the servant quarters, staring down at the gray, bloated corpse that someone had carefully placed directly in front of my door. A small piece of paper was tucked under its stiff body, the words "BARREN HEN" scrawled in red ink.
Footsteps echoed from the main hallway, followed by muffled laughter. Young voices, probably the teenage wolves who'd been eyeing me with increasing boldness since the announcement. They thought this was hilarious.
I bent down and picked up the rat by its tail, the fur coarse against my fingers. The smell hit me—decay and neglect, fitting metaphors for my current situation. Without ceremony, I walked to the kitchen and dropped it in the trash, then washed my hands thoroughly.
The paper went into a different container—a small metal box I kept hidden in my room. Inside were photographs, recordings, and now this charming little note. Evidence. Documentation. Every slight, every humiliation, every moment of cruelty was being carefully catalogued.
"Calista!" Bella's voice rang out from the main dining room. "Where are you? I need you!"
I dried my hands and walked toward her voice, passing Beta Elias Vance in the hallway. He was deep in conversation with two other pack officials, their heads bent over a tablet displaying what looked like budget reports.
"Excuse me," I said, approaching them. "Those are the quarterly expense projections I prepared last week. There are several errors in the calculations that need to be corrected before—"
"I'm sorry," Elias interrupted, not looking up from the screen. "But we're taking our direction from the future Luna now. If you have concerns, you should discuss them with Bella."
The other officials nodded in agreement, their faces carefully neutral. Marcus Thorne, who'd worked with me for three years on pack security budgets, wouldn't even meet my eyes.
"Those projections affect pack safety protocols," I pressed. "The miscalculations could leave us short on emergency funds if—"
"Calista!" Bella's voice was sharper now, carrying the edge of Alpha authority she was already practicing. "I said I need you!"
Elias finally looked at me, his expression politely dismissive. "As I said, take it up with Bella. We have our orders."
They walked away, leaving me standing alone in the hallway. Three years of building financial systems, of late nights ensuring every pack member had what they needed, dismissed like I was an intern who'd overstepped her bounds.
I found Bella in the main dining room, seated at the head of the long mahogany table I'd commissioned two years ago. She wore a flowing pink dress that did nothing to hide the slight curve of her belly, one hand resting protectively over the bump while the other gestured dramatically at the room around her.
"This whole space needs to be redone," she was saying to Elena Morrison, the pack's interior decorator. "The colors are so... cold. So masculine. A child needs warmth, don't you think?"
Elena nodded enthusiastically, her tablet out and ready to take notes. "Absolutely. Perhaps something in soft yellows and greens? Very nurturing."
"Oh, I love that!" Bella clapped her hands together. "And we'll need to child-proof everything. New furniture, softer edges. Maybe we should just start from scratch."
I cleared my throat. "You called for me?"
Bella turned to me with a bright smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Yes! I need you to help Elena with measurements. You know this house so well, after all."
The dismissal in her tone was clear. I knew this house because I'd lived in it, because I'd chosen every piece of furniture and every paint color. Now I was being reduced to a measuring tape holder.
"Of course," I said.
For the next hour, I followed Elena around the dining room, holding one end of her measuring tape while she and Bella discussed their grand renovation plans. Every suggestion was another nail in the coffin of the home I'd created.
"The chandelier has to go," Bella declared, pointing up at the crystal fixture I'd found at an estate sale in Vienna. "Too formal. Too... previous Luna."
Elena laughed. "I know exactly what you mean. We want this space to reflect your personality, your vision for the pack's future."
"Exactly!" Bella's eyes lit up. "I want pack members to feel like they're coming home when they eat here. Not like they're dining in some stuffy museum."
The insult landed like a physical blow. Every dinner party I'd hosted, every pack celebration I'd organized in this room, reduced to a "stuffy museum." But I kept my expression neutral, continued holding the measuring tape, continued playing my role.
When the dinner bell rang that evening, I learned about another new tradition.
The main dining table stretched nearly twenty feet, with ornate chairs positioned along both sides and the head. For five years, I'd sat at Draven's right hand, the traditional Luna position. Tonight, a small folding chair had been placed at the very foot of the table, so far from the main seating that I might as well have been in another room.
"Oh good, you're here," Bella said as I entered. She sat in my former chair, radiant in a blue maternity dress that probably cost more than most pack members made in a week. "I wasn't sure you'd join us tonight."
Draven didn't even look up from his plate as I took my assigned seat. The message was clear—I was here on sufferance, a charity case being allowed to eat at the same table as my betters.
The pack members filled the other chairs, their conversations flowing around me as if I were invisible. I recognized the dynamic immediately—court politics in action. Everyone was positioning themselves, figuring out how to curry favor with the new regime.
"The lumber mill's having some issues," I heard Beta Elias mention to Draven. "Production delays, something about funding problems."
I kept my expression carefully neutral, cutting into the cold chicken that had been placed in front of me. While everyone else enjoyed hot meals served on the good china, I'd been given leftovers on a chipped plate. The meat was dry, the vegetables congealed, like something that had been sitting under heat lamps for hours.
"I'm sure it's just a temporary setback," Draven replied dismissively. "These things work themselves out."
Bella leaned closer to him, her voice carrying clearly down the long table. "Speaking of working things out, I had the most wonderful meeting with Elena today. We're going to completely transform this space. Make it somewhere our child will actually want to spend time."
She launched into a detailed description of her renovation plans, each word designed to erase any trace of my influence on the house. New paint, new furniture, new everything. The pack members listened with rapt attention, offering enthusiastic support for every suggestion.
"It sounds perfect," said Gamma Patricia Wells. "This place has needed a woman's touch for so long."
The implication hung in the air. I'd lived here for five years, had personally selected every piece of furniture, every decoration, every detail that made this house a home. But apparently, that didn't count as a woman's touch.
I took another bite of cold chicken and opened the encrypted file on my phone under the table. Another entry for my growing documentation: *Tuesday evening - deliberately served cold food while pack enjoys hot meal. Seated at foot of table in folding chair. Public discussion of erasing all traces of my contributions to pack house.*
The evidence was mounting. Every slight, every humiliation, every calculated cruelty was being recorded with timestamps and witnesses. They thought they were breaking me down, reducing me to nothing.
They had no idea they were building the foundation of their own destruction.
