The knock came at dawn, soft enough that I might have missed it if sleep had been an option. I hadn't slept since the funeral—hadn't really slept since the ravine. My body went through motions while my mind catalogued evidence, searching for patterns in Keith's lies.
Mrs. Zhang stood in the hallway holding a tray, steam rising from a ceramic cup. The head Omega's face was carefully neutral, but her eyes held something urgent.
"Herbal tea, Luna," she said, her voice carrying the practiced deference of decades. "For grief. May I?"
I stepped back, letting her enter. She set the tray on my desk with deliberate care, then moved to check the hallway before closing the door. The soft click of the lock was nearly inaudible.
When she turned back, her Omega posture had shifted infinitesimally—spine straighter, shoulders squared. "Luna Rachel, I must speak quickly."
Something in her tone made me focus completely. "What is it?"
"The day before the pack run." Mrs. Zhang's hands twisted together, a rare break in her composure. "I was cleaning the Alpha's office. Miss Skyla came in when she thought the floor was empty. She went straight to the filing cabinet—the locked one where patrol reports are kept."
My pulse quickened. "What was she looking for?"
"Schematics." Mrs. Zhang's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "The rogue trap maps that Beta Marcus's team found three weeks ago. The ones Alpha Keith said he'd destroyed for security reasons." She paused, meeting my eyes. "She photographed them with her phone, Luna. Every page. She was very thorough."
The room tilted slightly. Kaia stirred in the depths of my consciousness, a flicker of awareness after days of silence. Trap maps. Photographed. The day before.
"You're certain?" My voice came out steady despite the rage building in my chest.
"I've served this pack house for forty-three years." Mrs. Zhang's dignity was absolute. "I know what I saw. And I know what it means." Her weathered hands reached for mine, squeezing briefly. "Your pups deserved better than this, Luna. We all failed them, but you can still seek justice."
After she left, I sat with the untouched tea and the enormity of her testimony. Premeditation. That's what this was. Not an affair gone wrong, not passion or impulse—calculated murder.
The mate bond throbbed like an infected wound.
Two days later, the package appeared.
I found it myself during my morning walk to the territory marker where Silverpine land met neutral ground. A plain manila envelope weighted with river stones, marked only with a small sketch of a wolf track—Elias's signature.
I waited until I was back in my locked study before opening it.
The photos spilled across my desk in a damning cascade. Keith and Skyla at a cabin I didn't recognize, her body pressed against his, his mouth on her neck where a claiming mark should never be placed by anyone but a fated mate. Time stamps showed months of meetings—every Thursday when Keith claimed pack business kept him late.
But the transcript was worse.
Elias's note was brief: *Long-range audio device, planted outside the cabin window. Recorded two weeks before the incident.*
I read the words once, twice, three times, each pass driving them deeper into my brain like silver bullets.
**SKYLA**: "Once the little obstacles are gone, the Moonstone money is ours. You'll finally be free of her."
**KEITH**: "Just make sure it looks like an accident. Marcus is getting suspicious about my route choices."
**SKYLA**: "The rogue traps are perfect. Natural causes. A tragic mishap during training."
**KEITH**: "And Rachel?"
**SKYLA**: "She'll grieve, then she'll leave. Lunas always leave when the pups die. Then I'll be there to comfort you."
Laughter. Their laughter, recorded and preserved.
Little obstacles. My babies. Marcus and Maya reduced to obstacles in their path to money and power.
Kaia exploded to full consciousness inside me, her rage so violent that I shifted partially—claws erupting from my fingertips, fangs extending, eyes blazing gold. The study filled with a Luna's fury, raw and primal.
*Kill them,* Kaia snarled. *Both of them. Now.*
"No," I said aloud, forcing my body back to human form through sheer will. "Not yet. They need to face justice, not just death."
But first, I needed irrefutable proof. Audio could be disputed, photos explained away by a clever lawyer. I needed video evidence that no Pack Council could ignore.
That night, I made a call.
The tech-savvy Gamma from my father's pack arrived during the mid-day patrol change, when security was lightest. Damien moved through Silverpine territory like smoke, his specialty in digital forensics making him invaluable for this kind of extraction.
I met him outside the security room, my Luna authority granting access without question from the young Delta on duty. "Checking the backup systems," I said smoothly. "My father's pack uses a similar setup. Gamma Damien is consulting."
The Delta nodded, too respectful of my rank to question further.
Inside, Damien's fingers flew across keyboards while I stood watch. The security room smelled of ozone and old coffee. Monitors displayed current feeds from across pack territory—the training grounds, the pack house entrance, the forest trails.
Including the ridge where my pups died.
"The files are corrupted," Damien murmured, his eyes never leaving the screen. "But not naturally. Someone used a basic wipe program—effective for amateurs, but they left fragments." His smile was predatory. "Idiots never realize that deletion isn't erasure."
Minutes crawled past. I watched the hallway through the door's small window, every footstep making my heart race.
"Got it." Damien's voice held grim satisfaction. He pulled out a flash drive, downloading rapidly. "Three cameras caught portions of the incident. The main one shows Skyla's wolf deliberately herding the pups toward the trap zone. You can see her checking positions, calculating angles. It's textbook pack hunting behavior—except the prey was your children."
The flash drive felt impossibly heavy in my palm.
"Luna Rachel," Damien said quietly, his expression somber. "What you do with this evidence will change everything. For Silverpine, for Moonstone, for werewolf law itself. Are you prepared?"
I thought of Mrs. Zhang's courage despite her Omega status. Of Elias risking rogue hunters to gather proof. Of my father mobilizing resources and calling in decades of alliances.
I thought of Marcus and Maya, who would never shift again, never find mates, never know justice unless I fought for them.
"I'm prepared," I said. "Call an emergency Pack Council meeting. It's time the truth came to light."
