A silver-heeled boot stomps onto my bleeding fingers.
The needle I am holding snaps in half.
Muddy mop water sloshes over the patched dress I sewed for tonight's banquet.
I bite my tongue and wring the dirty fabric.
The heavy oak doors crash open and the pack erupts in howls.
Alpha Kaelen strides in.
His milky, scarred eyes are now glowing gold and perfectly healed.
The man I hid in my cabin, the man who shared my bed in the dark, is the King.
He raises a hand to silence the crowd and pulls Princess Selene to his side.
"Meet your future Queen," he announces. "The healer who pulled me from the dark."
I press my hand over my stomach.
A sharp kick from the twin pups growing inside me ripples against my palm.
Kaelen stops speaking.
His golden eyes lock onto my dark corner, his nostrils flaring.
***
Filthy water slapped across Lyra's hand-sewn dress the second Cora's boot connected with the mop bucket.
She was already reaching for the dropped scrap of velvet when the heavy leather sole slammed down over her fingers. Bone ground against stone.
"Watch where you crawl, Omega," Cora sneered, twisting her heel.
Pain flared up Lyra's arm in a white-hot streak. She kept her mouth shut.
"Are you deaf?" Cora demanded. "I told you to move."
"The floor needs to dry," Lyra said quietly, her head down. Three more minutes and the marble would be clean enough for Selene's arrival. Three more minutes, and this particular torment would end.
"It wouldn't be wet if you knew how to wring a mop," Cora shot back.
"Leave her, Cora." Selene's voice drifted from across the corridor. The Beta female stood before a tall gilded mirror, adjusting the bodice of an intricate emerald gown. "She's just doing her job. Cleaning up our mess." The amusement in her tone made the word mess into something Lyra was supposed to feel grateful for.
"She ruined the hem of your celebration dress," Cora argued, pressing her weight down until the bones in Lyra's hand popped in protest. "A stray shouldn't even breathe near this fabric."
Lyra yanked her hand back. Skin tore, leaving a smear of red on the pale marble. She wiped her bleeding fingers against her stained apron and kept her face down. Strays did not react. Strays endured.
"Apologize to Lady Selene," Cora ordered.
Lyra stared at the dirty water pooling around her knees. "I am sorry for the mess."
"You're sorry you exist," Cora snapped. She kicked the wooden bucket hard.
Gray water washed over Lyra's lap, soaking through her dress instantly. She shivered, the cold seeping down to the bone.
"That's enough," Selene said, turning from the mirror. "The Alpha is crossing the bridge. I need everything perfect." She adjusted a strand of dark hair, smoothing an expression of practiced devotion onto her face. "His vision is restored. He will see everything clearly now."
"It will be, my lady," Cora said, her tone instantly sweetening. "He will see you as the savior you are."
Selene walked over, her shadow falling across Lyra's kneeling form. "Did you hear that, little Omega? He is returning. His eyes are open again."
Lyra grabbed her scrub brush. "I heard."
"I wonder who he will look at first," Selene whispered, a slow smile stretching her lips. "The noble woman who stood by his side through his darkness, or the pathetic servant scrubbing the dirt at his door."
"I wouldn't know," Lyra replied.
"No." Selene's voice dropped, soft as a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. "Because you are nothing. A nameless Omega with no pack mark and no rank. If you died on this floor tonight, we would mop you up with the rest of the mess."
The main doors shuddered. Then the great oak panels crashed inward.
"They are here!" a pack enforcer bellowed from the entrance.
Cora grabbed Lyra's shoulder and shoved her backward hard. "Get out of sight. Hide in the shadows where you belong."
Lyra scrambled up, clutching her bleeding hand to her chest. She backed away fast, slipping behind the massive stone pillar near the alcove as silence fell over the great hall.
Alpha Kaelen strode inside.
The white film that had clouded his eyes for months was gone. Sharp, piercing gold swept over the bowing crowd, unhurried and absolute. The brutal scars crossing his neck were the only proof he had ever come close to dying.
Lyra shrank deeper into the darkness. Her chest tightened.
He had been nothing but a blind, fevered man shaking in her arms in the dark hunting cabin three months ago. Now he looked untamed, like something that had come back from the dead and liked what the experience had done to it.
"Alpha," Elder Thorne greeted, bowing low. "Welcome home."
Kaelen ignored him. He walked straight toward the dais and stopped directly in front of Selene.
"You waited," he said, his voice a low rumble that reached every corner of the hall.
Selene lowered her gaze in practiced humility. "I promised I would never leave you in the dark, my Alpha."
Lyra's fingernails pressed crescents into her own palms.
Liar.
It was Lyra who had dragged him from the frozen river. Lyra who had hidden him in the abandoned hunting cabin. Lyra who had kept him warm for three days, who had given him her blood to break the nightshade poison ravaging his body. She had held his blind, shaking face in her hands and told him he was safe. She had whispered the old pack healing prayers against his temple until the fever broke.
"I will find you," he had murmured when the fever finally cracked, his hands mapping her face in the pitch-black cabin. "I will know your scent anywhere."
"You saved my life," Kaelen told Selene. He reached out and took her manicured hand in his massive grip.
"I only did what my heart demanded," Selene answered smoothly.
"The healers said the poison was fatal," Thorne said, stepping toward the dais. "How did you draw it out, Selene?"
"With the ancient rites," Selene said, her voice settling into the cadence of a sacred confession. "I offered my own vitality. My own purity."
Lyra bit the inside of her cheek until metallic warmth flooded her mouth. She swallowed the blood.
"She did not leave my side for three days," Kaelen announced to the hall. "She brought me back from the edge. She endured my fever, my madness, the beast trying to claw its way out."
He raised Selene's hand high. "She tamed the monster inside me."
"Hear me, pack," Kaelen commanded.
The murmurs ceased instantly.
"For her sacrifice and her unwavering loyalty, Selene will not just be honored." He turned to look at her, golden eyes softening. "She will be my Luna."
The roar of the crowd hit the ceiling.
"Hail the new Luna!" Cora screamed from the front row.
"Hail!" the enforcers bellowed.
Lyra pressed her spine against the cold stone pillar. She could not speak. An Omega accusing a high-ranking Beta of treason? They would have her hanging in the courtyard before she finished the sentence.
Thorne hesitated. "Alpha, the council expected you to choose an Alpha-born female. Selene's bloodline—"
"Her bloodline is stronger than any coward on your council." Kaelen's voice dropped an octave. A dangerous growl vibrated through the hall.
"No, Alpha. But tradition dictates the Luna must be able to bear strong heirs."
"Tradition did not save me from the nightshade," Kaelen interrupted. "Selene did. The council will accept her, or they will answer to my claws."
"Understood, Alpha."
"We hold the mating ceremony at the next full moon," Kaelen declared.
"The council has prepared a list of candidates for your guard," Thorne said quickly. "We must ensure your safety. And—the rogue who poisoned you. We found no tracks. The snow covered their escape."
"They had inside help," Kaelen said.
"The poison was slipped into my chalice during the winter solstice feast," Kaelen continued. "Only someone within these walls could have done it."
"Someone from our own pack?" Selene gasped. "But they are all so loyal."
"Not all of them," Cora chimed in, casting a fleeting glare toward the shadows. "Some hold grudges. The lower ranks often complain."
"We interrogate every Omega and servant," Kaelen ordered. "No one leaves the grounds. Lock down the gates. Start with the hall staff." He turned to Thorne. "Drag them into the courtyard if you have to. I want a name by sunrise."
Lyra closed her eyes. The blood-stained tunic. The one Kaelen had worn the night she pulled him from the river, soaked in both his blood and her own. She had hidden it under her cot and had not been able to burn it yet. If the guards tore apart the servants' quarters tonight—
She took one silent step backward.
Her shoe scraped against a loose stone.
Barely a whisper. Swallowed entirely by the cheering crowd.
But Kaelen's voice abruptly stopped mid-sentence.
A suffocating silence.
"Alpha?" Selene asked, reaching for his arm.
Kaelen did not answer. He did not look at her.
His head tilted a fraction.
His golden slit-pupils snapped directly toward the dark corner behind the pillar.
Lyra froze.
His nostrils flared hard. Once. Then again. His jaw clenched like a trap springing shut.
