I had spent the entire day preparing for this moment. Our seventh mating anniversary. Seven years since Matthew had claimed me as his Luna, since I'd given up my career as an art restorer to stand by his side as Alpha of the Black Moon Pack. Seven years of sacrifice that I had believed would eventually be recognized, even cherished.

The grand dining hall looked perfect—candles flickering in every corner, casting a warm glow over the white tablecloth and the fine china I'd polished myself. I'd cooked Matthew's favorite meal, the same one I'd prepared on our first anniversary, when hope still bloomed in my chest like a perennial flower that refused to die.

My hands trembled slightly as I adjusted the silverware. The scars on my palms—evidence of countless small cruelties endured in this very packhouse—caught the candlelight. I tucked them under the table, out of sight. Tonight would be different. Tonight Matthew would see me.

'Luna Penelope?' A young Omega server appeared at the doorway, her eyes downcast. 'Alpha Matthew says he'll be delayed. The Omega quarters needed his immediate attention.'

My heart sank, but I maintained my composure. 'Thank you. I'll wait.'

Of course he was with Loretta. Matthew's foster sister, the pack's precious 'disabled' Omega, always seemed to have emergencies that required his presence exactly when I needed him most.

I sipped my wine, watching the candles slowly melt. The longer I waited, the more the familiar ache in my chest intensified—the hollow space where my wolf once roared with pride, now subdued to a whisper from years of neglect and emotional starvation.

The grand doors swung open. Not Matthew, but Loretta, gliding in her wheelchair with that practiced vulnerability that made my teeth clench. Behind her, a procession of pack Omegas carried tureens and platters.

'Oh, Penelope!' Her voice dripped with false concern. 'I saw all this food going to waste. Matthew mentioned you were waiting, but he's so busy with pack business. I thought I'd save you the trouble of eating alone.'

Before I could respond, she wheeled closer, her eyes gleaming with malice beneath her mask of innocence. 'You've gone to so much trouble. It's almost... pathetic.'

The Omegas behind her snickered, their loyalty to Loretta evident in their brazen disrespect for their Luna.

'This is a private dinner for my mate,' I said, my voice steadier than I felt. 'If you'd kindly—'

Loretta's chair suddenly jerked forward. She 'tripped' on nothing, her hands flailing dramatically as the tureen of hot soup in her lap upended, splashing across my chest and arms in a scalding wave of pain.

I gasped, jumping back, my skin instantly blistering under the assault. The burning sensation spread like wildfire through my blouse, searing into flesh that had already endured too many wounds.

'Oh my goddess!' Loretta cried out, her voice pitched perfectly to carry. 'Help! I'm so sorry, I'm so clumsy! Someone help me!' Her wheelchair tipped sideways, and she collapsed onto the floor in a performance worthy of an award.

Footsteps thundered down the hall. Matthew appeared, his Alpha aura flooding the room with power. My heart leapt—he would see through this, he would finally—

He rushed past me without a glance, dropping to his knees beside Loretta.

'My sweet girl,' he murmured, gathering her into his arms as she sobbed against his chest. 'Don't hurt yourself over this. It's not your fault.'

The Omegas gathered around them, cooing sympathetically while casting contemptuous glances my way. My ruined dress clung to my burned skin, the pain intensifying with each passing second.

'Matthew,' I whispered, my voice breaking. 'I need help.'

He didn't even look at me. 'Penelope, can't you see she's upset? She feels terrible about your... accident.'

The word hung in the air between us. Accident. Not attack. Not sabotage. An accident.

I stood there, burning, as my mate comforted the woman who had just assaulted me, and something inside me—something that had been bending for seven long years—finally began to break.

I needed air.

The burns on my chest and arms had been wrapped in whatever I could find in the bathroom cabinet—gauze, mostly, and a thin layer of salve that did almost nothing against the deep, radiating heat. Matthew hadn't sent the pack healer. He hadn't checked on me at all. The last I'd seen of him, he was carrying Loretta back to her suite like she was made of spun glass, whispering that it wasn't her fault.

So I walked into the woods.

The Black Moon Pack's forest stretched wide and dark behind the packhouse, the kind of quiet that swallowed sound whole. I didn't shift—my wolf had grown so dim over the past two years that the effort felt like trying to start a car with a dead battery. I just walked, letting the cold air pull some of the burning out of my skin, letting the distance from the packhouse let me breathe.

I heard her before I saw her.

Laughter. Light, free, completely unguarded.

I stopped.

Through the tree line, maybe thirty yards ahead, a clearing opened up in a pool of moonlight. And in that clearing, moving with a speed and grace that made my stomach drop straight through the forest floor, was a wolf.

Silver-gray. Powerful. Running laps around the clearing like she owned it, like her body had been built for exactly this.

I knew that wolf.

I had seen Loretta Harvey's wolf form exactly once, years ago, before she'd claimed the 'accident' that supposedly took her ability to shift. I knew the color of her coat. I knew the particular way she held her tail.

She shifted back at the edge of the clearing, smooth and practiced, landing on two feet without even stumbling. She threw her head back and laughed again—that same laugh I'd heard from her wheelchair a hundred times, but stripped of the tremor she always performed for Matthew's benefit. This was her real laugh. Bright and careless and entirely without pain.

I stood very still behind the oak tree.

Two years. Two years of watching Matthew carry her groceries, cut her food, miss our dinners because she needed him. Two years of being told I was jealous, paranoid, cruel for questioning her condition. Two years of a lie so complete and so sustained that I had started to wonder, in my lowest moments, if maybe I was the problem.

She wasn't disabled.

She had never been disabled.

I turned and ran back toward the packhouse.

I found Matthew in his study. He looked up when I came in, his expression shifting to that particular brand of tired irritation he'd developed specifically for me over the past year.

'Penelope—'

'She can shift,' I said. My voice came out steadier than I expected. 'I just watched her. In the clearing past the east tree line. She shifted and ran the full perimeter, Matthew. She's been lying to you. The disability is fake.'

He stared at me.

For one heartbeat—one single, fragile second—I thought I saw something move behind his eyes.

Then his jaw tightened.

'Loretta came to me twenty minutes ago,' he said. 'She was in tears. She said you'd gone to her room and screamed at her. That you'd grabbed her arms.'

The floor felt like it tilted.

'I haven't been near her room,' I said. 'I went straight to the woods. Matthew, listen to what I'm telling you—'

'She has bruises, Penelope.'

'She put them there herself.'

The words fell into a silence so complete I could hear the candles guttering down the hall. Matthew stood up slowly, and when he looked at me, there was nothing in his face that resembled the man I had once believed he was.

'I'm not doing this tonight,' he said. 'I'm not going to stand here and listen to you invent reasons to torment a woman who cannot defend herself.'

'She was running,' I said. 'I watched her with my own eyes.'

'You're not well.' He said it like a diagnosis. Like a door closing. 'And I think the stress has made you—'

'Don't.' My voice cracked on the word. Just that one word. 'Don't tell me what I saw.'

He walked past me to the door and called for Victor, his Beta, who materialized in the hallway with the particular efficiency of a man who had been listening nearby.

'The restoration supplies in the Luna suite,' Matthew said, not looking at me. 'Lock them in the basement storage. All of them.'

Victor didn't hesitate. 'Yes, Alpha.'

'Matthew.' I couldn't keep the disbelief out of my voice. 'Those are my tools. They're worth—'

'They're pack property.' He finally turned to look at me, and his eyes were flat. 'You don't need hobbies right now. You need to get yourself under control.'

I heard them moving down the hall toward my suite. I heard the door open. I heard the sound of my brushes, my chemicals, my entire remaining connection to the person I used to be, being carried away in boxes.

I didn't follow.

I stood in the empty hallway and pressed my fingertips together until the trembling stopped.

Somewhere in the packhouse, Loretta was probably already asleep.

The summons came three days after the soup incident, delivered by Victor with the same clinical detachment he brought to all of his duties as Beta. 'The Alpha has requested your presence in the main hall for the Pack Heritage photoshoot at noon.' He paused, studying me with eyes that revealed nothing. 'You should wear something... appropriate.'

I knew what 'appropriate' meant. Not the Luna's formal gowns that hung in my wardrobe, gathering dust. Something that would mark me as lesser. I chose a simple gray dress that buttoned to the throat, the kind worn by pack staff during formal functions. The irony wasn't lost on me.

The great hall was a flurry of activity when I arrived. Photographers—humans from the city, oblivious to the true nature of the family they were capturing—adjusted lights and backdrops. Loretta sat in her wheelchair in the center of it all, draped in a gown the color of blood, her dark hair arranged in perfect waves.

And around her neck, catching the light with every movement, hung the Harvey family rubies.

My rubies. The jewels that had been placed around my neck on my mating day, the ones that had adorned every Luna of the Black Moon Pack for generations. The ones Matthew had told me, in softer days, were a symbol of my place in the pack's heart.

'Luna Penelope.' Victor appeared at my elbow, his voice pitched low. 'You'll be standing here.' He gestured to a spot three paces behind Matthew's chair, slightly to the left. 'The photographers need you in the background. For... context.'

Context. As if I were part of the furniture, a prop to complete the picture of pack hierarchy.

Matthew entered, and the room shifted like iron filings to a magnet. He wore his formal Alpha attire—black suit, silver cufflinks, the kind of commanding presence that had once made my heart race. Now it just made my stomach clench.

He didn't look at me. Not once.

'Alpha Matthew,' the head photographer called, his voice bright with professional enthusiasm. 'We're ready to begin. If you could stand behind Miss Loretta, one hand on her shoulder... perfect. Now smile like you're celebrating something beautiful.'

Loretta's smile was radiant. Matthew's was practiced. I stood where I was told, my hands folded in front of me, watching my mate pose with another woman while wearing my jewelry.

'The next shot,' the photographer announced, 'will be the two of you together. Miss Loretta, if you could stand...' He trailed off, clearly confused.

Loretta rose from her wheelchair with fluid grace. My breath caught. The photographers, focused on their equipment, didn't notice. But I saw Matthew's eyes flicker—he'd seen it too. For one heartbeat, I thought—

'The chair was just for comfort,' Loretta said lightly, her hand finding Matthew's arm with practiced ease. 'I can stand for a few photos.'

Matthew's face smoothed over. 'Of course, sweetheart. Whatever makes you comfortable.'

They posed together—his arm around her waist, her head tilted back against his shoulder, the rubies gleaming between them like a promise. The photographers clicked away, calling out directions, completely unaware of the perversion they were documenting.

I stood in my gray dress and watched my life become a photograph I wasn't truly part of.

Hours later, I found her in the garden.

Loretta sat on a stone bench, her wheelchair folded neatly beside her, stroking something small and gray in her lap. My heart stopped when I recognized the runt wolf pup—Shadow, the tiny creature I'd found abandoned at the edge of our territory last winter. The one I'd nursed back to health in secret, hiding him from a packhouse that had no room for gentleness.

'So this is your little friend,' Loretta said, her fingers tangled in Shadow's fur. 'I found him wandering. Poor thing seems lost.'

I took a step forward. 'Shadow, come here.'

The pup whined, struggling to get away from Loretta's grip. She held him tighter, her nails digging into his fur.

'Don't be greedy, Penelope,' she said, her voice dropping to that cold register she used when we were alone. 'Some things are too weak to survive in this world.'

I lunged forward as she stood, the pup squirming in her arms. But I was too late.

The crack of breaking bones echoed through the garden. Shadow's small body went limp, his eyes still open, fixed on me with a trust I had failed to honor.

Loretta let him fall to the ground between us. 'Oops,' she whispered.

She collapsed back into her wheelchair just as footsteps approached. Matthew appeared at the garden entrance, his expression darkening as he took in the scene.

'What happened?' he demanded.

Loretta's face crumpled into perfect grief. 'I was just trying to hold him, and he got so scared... he thrashed and fell. I couldn't catch him in time.'

I stared at Matthew, waiting for him to see through the lie, to notice the wheelchair she'd just risen from without assistance.

'She killed him,' I said, my voice breaking. 'Matthew, she killed Shadow.'

He looked down at the small, broken body, then back at me with cold impatience. 'It was an accident, Penelope. Stop acting like a child over a dead animal.'