Talia's POV
The morning passed in a blur of grease and gray water.
I was sent to the kitchen before sunrise, scrubbing pots while the pack prepared for the Alpha's arrival. The sun rose. The hours crawled. I stayed invisible, just like always.
But something was wrong.
I noticed it the way you notice a change in weather-not all at once, but in pieces. Servants whispering in corners. Guards exchanging looks they did not think I could see. The air itself feeling heavy, charged, like the moment before a storm breaks.
Then the whispers reached me.
"The bonding stone did not react to Celeste."
"She is not his mate."
"The Alpha is furious. He demanded to see every woman in the household."
I kept scrubbing.
Not because it was not my concern. Because it was not my problem. There is a difference. Concern means you care. Problem means you bleed. And I had learned, fifteen years deep, to only bleed for things I could not avoid.
I thought about the last time I had been this afraid. Two years ago. The night Celeste locked me in the root cellar with the rats. I had screamed for hours. No one came. That was the night I stopped screaming. That was the night I learned that crying never helped, and silence never failed.
So I scrubbed harder.
The pots were endless today-bulk dishes prepared for a ceremony that was supposed to crown Celeste as Luna. I scrubbed until my hands were raw and my arms ached. The water in the basin turned gray from grime, and I dumped it out and filled it again. The same cycle. Every day. Every year. Fifteen years of gray water and raw knuckles and no one ever saying thank you or even enough.
I added that to the list behind my teeth.
Entry four thousand, two hundred and eleven. The day the pots never ended.
Piper's warning echoed in my mind. Vivienne is planning something. But what? And why would it involve me? I was nobody. I was invisible. I had nothing anyone would want.
Unless they wanted to hurt me.
Which was always a possibility. But Vivienne had been hurting me for fifteen years. Why would today be any different?
A younger servant named Mira brushed past me, eyes wide, barely slowing. "They say the Alpha threw a chair," she whispered. "Through a wall, Talia. Through a wall."
Then she was gone before I could ask more.
I held my breath. The world tilted, just slightly, like the floor had shifted half an inch beneath my feet. I knew, in the way you know a bone is broken before the pain arrives, that nothing would ever be the same after this moment.
I scrubbed harder, because thinking about it would not change anything, and surviving was the only thing that mattered.
Then Marta grabbed my arm.
"You," she said. "Come with me."
She did not wait for me to set down the pot. She did not wait for me to dry my hands. She dragged me out of the kitchen, through a hallway I had never seen, past doors I had never opened.
The walls were lined with portraits of wolves I did not recognize. Dead Alphas. Dead Lunas. Their painted eyes followed me as Marta pulled me along, and I felt like a prisoner being led to her execution.
My heart hammered. My palms went slick. I did not know what was waiting for me in the main hall. I did not know why the Alpha wanted to see every woman in the household. But I knew one thing.
Whatever was happening, I was not prepared for it.
Marta pulled me into a small room with a rack of dresses and shoved a plain gray one into my hands.
"Change. Now. Hurry. The Alpha wants to see you."
The words came out in a rush, clipped and breathless, like she was afraid of being overheard.
I did not argue, even though I had a hundred questions stacking up behind my throat. Because arguing only made things worse, and because the look in Marta's eyes told me this was not a request.
I changed as fast as I could. The dress was too big-just like all my dresses-but it was cleaner than what I had been wearing. I pulled it over my head, tucked my necklace safely beneath the collar, and let Marta grab my arm again.
She pulled me toward the main hall.
"The ceremony was interrupted," she muttered, half to me, half to herself. "Celeste is not his mate. Now he wants to see everyone. I mean everyone. Every single woman in this pack."
I did not ask questions. I just followed.
The main hall was packed with wolves.
The ceiling soared high above, lost in shadow. Chandeliers of crystal hung from the rafters, catching the torchlight and throwing fractured rainbows across the walls. I had never been in this room before. Servants were not allowed here. Only the family. Only the important wolves.
But today, I was here.
And every wolf in the room was staring at me.
The heat of their bodies pressed against me from every direction. Perfume and fear-sweat mixed into a smell that turned my stomach. Someone coughed directly into my ear. Another wolf laughed-a sharp, mean sound, like a blade dragged across stone.
I felt their eyes on my skin, on my ugly face, on my too-big dress. I heard their whispers.
"Who is she?"
"Look at her."
"She does not belong here."
They were right. I did not belong here.
But here I was.
I had never seen so many wolves in one place. They filled every corner, bodies pressed together, voices buzzing like flies over something dead. Some looked afraid. Others looked curious. And some looked like they wanted to run.
Marta pushed me through the crowd, and wolves stared as I passed. But I kept my head down. Shoulders hunched. The same posture I had worn for fifteen years like armor made of smallness.
And then-
I looked up.
And I saw him.
