By sunrise, Camille was in the Luna quarters.
I heard it before I saw it. Two Omegas passed the guest wing where I had slept — where I had not slept — carrying armloads of Camille's things: silk robes, a jewelry box, that ridiculous crown of imported flowers already wilting at the edges. Their voices were low but not careful. "She said the west window," one of them murmured. "She said move the vanity."
She said.
No pack vote. No elder ratification. No formal Luna investiture ceremony. Graham had simply installed her, the way a man moves furniture into a room he owns.
I stood at the guest-wing door with a cup of tea I had not drunk and watched them pass. Neither of them met my eyes.
By mid-morning she was walking the common areas like she had always lived there. I saw her stop a young Delta in the corridor and correct the way he was carrying a supply crate. I saw her tell an Omega to redo the floral arrangement in the front hall because the colors were wrong. Her voice was soft and reasonable. The Omega bowed and started over.
The elders were in the reading room off the great hall. I passed the open door and saw Elder Maren Cross look up. Her eyes met mine for one full second. Then she looked back at her tea.
That was her contribution. That would always be her contribution.
Around noon, Camille told Delta Cade Thorn to move the training equipment out of the east yard because she wanted the space for a garden. Cade was one of the older Deltas — quiet, competent, the kind of wolf who had been running drills in that yard for a decade. I was crossing the courtyard when I heard him say, evenly, "That's not your call to make."
The corridor went still.
Camille smiled at him. "I'll ask Graham to clarify, then."
She did. Within the hour, Graham himself came down and put Cade on punishment detail — night patrols, double shifts, the kind of assignment that grinds a wolf's health down over weeks. Cade took it without a word. He walked past me on his way to the barracks and gave me the smallest nod.
I went back to my room and opened the document file. I wrote his name. I wrote the date. I wrote *retaliation against Delta-tier refusal of unauthorized directive from unratified consort.* I underlined *unratified.*
My hands were steady.
The decree appeared on the pack-house board the next morning.
I read it last. I made sure of that. I waited until the corridors were empty, until the first gray light was just touching the windows, and I walked to the board alone. The paper was crisp. Graham's seal at the bottom. Camille's name listed beside his as *co-signatory,* which was not a thing that existed in pack law.
*Selene Holmes is hereby downgraded to Omega status within Ironclaw Pack until such time as a written apology is submitted to Alpha Graham Duncan and to his chosen, Camille Reed, for the disruption of the Mate Ceremony.*
I read it twice. I felt nothing move in my chest — not shock, not shame, not even the small hot spark of anger I had expected. What I felt was the click of another piece dropping into place.
I reached up and took the decree off the board. I folded it into precise quarters. I walked back to my room and slid it into the file, between the wolfsbane shipment discrepancy and Cade Thorn's punishment notice.
Retaliatory demotion. Documented. Signed by the offender himself.
Before the Council, that page would matter.
She cornered me at the water pump that afternoon.
Camille had learned, in the two days she had been playing Luna, exactly how to stage a scene. She waited until the pump area was busy — mid-afternoon, when the kitchen Omegas were filling jugs and half a dozen lower Deltas were rotating through on break. She came around the corner flanked by two Omegas I recognized as her recent cultivations, girls she had been feeding compliments to for weeks.
A dozen pack members turned to watch.
"Omega Selene," she said, warmly. "I've been looking for you."
The register was perfect. Sweet, patient, faintly concerned — the tone of a Luna addressing a fallen sister with more grace than the sister deserved. Her flower crown had been replaced with a fresh one. The wilted blooms had lasted less than a day.
"The east laundry needs turning," she went on. "I've assigned you to the rotation. It'll be good for you. Purposeful work."
The two Omegas beside her did not smile. They were watching the pack members watching us.
I did not answer.
I let the silence stretch until it was uncomfortable, and then a little longer. I looked at her — one long, level look. I let her see whatever was behind my eyes. I don't know what she saw. I only know that her smile flickered. A small, involuntary tightening at the corners of her mouth. She recovered almost instantly. But almost is not the same as immediately, and every wolf in that courtyard saw it.
I turned and walked away.
Behind me, I heard one of the kitchen Omegas set her jug down slowly on the stone.
That night, I added a new entry to the file. Not evidence. Just a line, dated, in my own hand.
*Her smile faltered first.*
