The Silverfang pack house was built for ceremonies like this. High ceilings. Polished wood floors. A main hall large enough to hold two hundred wolves without feeling crowded. Tonight it held at least that many—Silverfang wolves, Stormridge wolves, visiting Alphas and Betas from allied packs who'd come to witness what they thought was a simple Come of Age Ceremony.
They had no idea what they were actually walking into.
I stood at the center of the hall in a dress Mitchell had chosen—deep blue, simple, elegant. Nothing borrowed from William's world. Nothing that carried his scent or his claim. My hair was pulled back. My hands were steady at my sides. I looked like exactly what I was: a she-wolf who had walked away and had no intention of looking back.
The hall filled slowly. Wolves in formal dress. Conversations in low voices. I could feel their eyes on me. Some curious. Some sympathetic. A few openly judgmental—those would be the Silverfang wolves who'd believed William's narrative, who thought I'd been dismissed for good reason.
I didn't care what any of them thought.
Mitchell stood near the entrance with three Stormridge wolves, his posture relaxed but his eyes sharp. Watching. Calculating. Ready.
Then the murmurs shifted.
William entered.
Victoria was on his arm.
She wore white. Of course she did. A dress that was almost bridal in its cut, all lace and silk and deliberate symbolism. Her hand rested possessively on William's forearm. Her smile was bright. Confident. Territorial.
William wore his formal Alpha attire—black suit, the Silverfang crest pinned to his lapel. His expression was carefully neutral, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. The way his jaw was set. He was expecting something tonight. He just didn't know what.
They crossed the hall together. Wolves parted to let them through. Victoria's gaze found mine across the room, and her smile widened. Sharpened.
She thought she'd already won.
I pressed my thumb against my wrist once. Then released it.
The ceremony began.
It was supposed to be simple. Traditional. The elder would speak. I would be formally recognized as an adult she-wolf of the Stormridge Pack. There would be a blessing. A toast. Then everyone would eat and drink and pretend they hadn't come just to see what Camille Wagner would do now that Alpha William Gray had discarded her.
The elder stepped forward. Began the traditional words.
I stood at the center of the hall and listened. Felt the weight of two hundred wolves watching me. Felt William's gaze from across the room. Felt Victoria's smug satisfaction radiating like heat.
Then, midway through the elder's blessing, the main display screen flickered.
I saw it happen in my peripheral vision. The large screen mounted on the far wall—usually used to project pack history or honor fallen wolves—suddenly lit up with an image that was very much not part of the ceremony.
Victoria and William. In what looked like his bedroom. Her arms around his neck. His hands on her waist. The angle was intimate. Explicit. Staged to look candid but too perfectly framed to be anything but deliberate.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
The image changed. Another photo. This one showed them at what looked like a formal dinner. Her hand on his chest. His head tilted toward hers.
Another image. Another. Six in total, cycling through on the screen in slow, deliberate rotation.
The elder stopped speaking. The hall erupted in murmurs. Wolves turned to look at the screen. Then at me. Then at William and Victoria.
I didn't move.
I stood at the center of the hall and watched the images cycle. Studied them with the same detached clarity I'd used when they'd first arrived on my phone. Noted the lighting. The angles. The careful staging.
Then I turned my head and looked directly at Victoria.
She was standing beside William, her hand still on his arm, and she was smiling. Not hiding it. Not pretending to be embarrassed or surprised. She was smiling like this was exactly what she'd planned. Like she'd just delivered the killing blow and was waiting for me to collapse.
The murmurs in the hall grew louder. Wolves were looking at me now. Waiting to see what I would do. Waiting to see if I would cry. If I would run. If I would break.
I crossed the floor in three strides.
My hand connected with Victoria's face before anyone could react.
The slap cracked through the hall like a gunshot. Sharp. Clean. Final.
Victoria staggered sideways. Her hand flew to her cheek. The smile vanished.
Every voice in the room went silent.
I stood there, my hand still raised slightly, and looked at her. Really looked at her. At the shock in her eyes. At the way her mouth had fallen open. At the red mark already blooming across her cheek.
"You wanted my attention," I said quietly. My voice carried in the sudden silence. "You have it."
Behind us, the images continued to cycle on the screen. Victoria and William. William and Victoria. The fabricated intimacy playing on loop for two hundred witnesses.
Nobody moved.
Then William did.
He stepped forward. His hand rose toward me. His Alpha aura flared—hot and sharp and unmistakably threatening. The kind of aura that said retaliation was coming. That said no one struck his chosen she-wolf without consequence.
I didn't flinch.
I stood there and met his eyes and felt absolutely nothing.
His hand kept rising.
And then the hall doors opened.
