The moment those words left my mouth, Kieran's expression changed abruptly.
Emotions surged in his eyes, and the Alpha aura in the air grew unstable.
I stared at him and spoke, word by word. "I, Audra Frost, reject the Alpha of the Silvermoon Pack—"
"Shut up!" Kieran roared, cutting me off.
He stepped closer, unleashing his Alpha pressure without restraint, crushing down on me.
My chest tightened, and my knees nearly buckled beneath the weight.
The child in my arms let out a faint cry.
Kieran stood before me, looking down from above, his eyes burning with barely restrained fury.
"Sever the bond?" he let out a cold laugh. "Audra, do you really think you have the right to decide something like that?"
I said nothing.
Kieran stared at me for a long moment, as if suppressing something within himself.
At last, he slowly turned away.
"From this day forward," his voice echoed through the hall. "Audra is no longer the Luna of the Silvermoon Pack."
Every werewolf present held their breath.
Kieran continued coldly, "She will be reduced to a slave of the pack until her sins are repaid."
Kieran cast me one final glance, his gaze as cold as if he were looking at a stranger.
Then he turned and left the hall, his footsteps fading into the distance.
But the atmosphere in the hall didn't ease—it grew even more unsettling.
All of them were watching me.
The shock in their eyes was gone, replaced by undisguised contempt and malice.
Just then, Elara walked slowly up to me.
She looked down at me, the corner of her lips curling upward.
"Did you hear that?" Her voice was soft, yet chilling. "From now on, you're nothing but a slave."
She turned to the others in the hall. "Since she's a slave, she should start doing what slaves do, shouldn't she?"
Voices of agreement immediately rose from the crowd.
"That's right."
"If she's a slave, she should work."
Elara smiled in satisfaction.
She pointed at me. "Start by washing the entire pack's clothes."
I held my child and didn't move.
The smile on Elara's face slowly faded.
The next second—a whip lashed brutally across my back.
The wound tore open instantly, the pain so intense it nearly stole my breath.
The child in my arms burst into frightened cries.
Laughter erupted around me.
Someone dumped a pile of filthy clothes in front of me, while another deliberately kicked over a bucket of water.
"Slave, make sure they're clean."
"If they're not clean enough, you'll be whipped again."
I lowered my head and said nothing, slowly bending down to pick up the clothes one by one.
Cold water seeped into my wounds, the pain nearly numbing me senseless.
But I didn't stop.
Because I had to live—for my child.
Time passed, little by little.
The sun set, then rose again.
I washed clothes, cooked meals, and cleaned up the pack's filth.
Every day, someone found a reason to make things harder for me.
Someone dumped an entire bucket of dirty clothes at my feet.
"Slave, clean them properly."
Just as I finished washing them, he laughed and threw them back into the muddy water.
"Not clean enough. Wash them again."
Laughter broke out around me.
And almost every day, Elara would come, standing off to the side, watching me work—watching me get humiliated.
Sometimes, when she was in a bad mood, she would do it herself.
The whip came down again and again, leaving more and more wounds across my body.
My body grew weaker with each passing day.
Once, as the whip came down, I suddenly heard a low wolf's howl in the distance.
I looked up and saw Kieran standing on a distant platform.
He stood there, watching everything.
At the moment the whip struck, his brows seemed to knit ever so slightly.
But he still turned away, as if he had seen nothing at all.
A few days later, I could barely stand.
Even so, I clenched my teeth and held on.
As long as the child in my arms was alive, I couldn't fall.
That night, I dragged my exhausted body back to the shed, cold wind pouring in through the broken window.
Holding my child, I curled up in the hay, my body trembling uncontrollably.
Just then, a faint tremor stirred in my chest.
It felt like something long asleep had shifted slightly in the depths of darkness.
I froze.
A weak yet familiar voice echoed in my mind.
"Audra…"
That voice—it was my wolf.
I shot upright, hardly daring to believe what I had heard.
"Nyra?"
