The great hall blazed with torchlight and laughter. Pack members crowded around tables laden with roasted meat and ale, celebrating another victory against the rogues who'd tried to breach our northern border. They had no idea the wards I'd woven into the territory's edge were what kept them safe. They never did.

I stood near the back wall, as always. Luna in name only. River's mate by a bond he'd never truly honored.

"Julie." River's voice cut through the noise like a blade. The hall fell silent. "Come here."

Every eye turned to me. I moved forward, my simple dress a stark contrast to the finery around me. River sat at the head table, Alondra perched beside him in a gown that cost more than most pack members earned in a month. The Luna Stone—his mother's heirloom that he'd never let me wear—glittered at her throat.

"The Falcon's Eye," River said, his tone casual but his eyes hard. "Hand it over."

My fingers instinctively went to the amulet hidden beneath my collar. The ancient artifact pulsed against my skin, warm with the protective magic I'd poured into it years ago. "River, I—"

"Alondra needs protection." He gestured to the woman beside him, who gazed up at him with wide, frightened eyes. "A true Luna deserves the pack's best defense. You understand, don't you?"

The words hit like a slap. A true Luna. As if I were nothing.

"Of course, Alpha," I said quietly, though my wolf stirred restlessly inside me. Not now. We couldn't reveal ourselves. Not yet.

But I didn't remove the amulet.

River's jaw tightened. "My study. Now."

I followed him through the corridors, Alondra's heels clicking behind us. The study door slammed shut, and River rounded on me.

"Why are you making this difficult?"

"Because the Falcon's Eye isn't jewelry." I kept my voice steady, measured. "It's the keystone to the northern wards. Without it positioned correctly, the defenses will—"

"I don't care about your superstitions." River moved closer, his Alpha aura pressing down on me. "Give it to me."

"River, please listen—"

"She wants me dead." Alondra's voice trembled as she clutched River's arm. "Can't you see? She's keeping the protection for herself while I'm left vulnerable. What if the rogues come back? What if they—" Her voice broke into a sob.

River's eyes flashed gold. His wolf was rising.

"I would never—" I started, but he wasn't listening anymore.

"You've always been selfish," he snarled. "Weak. Useless. I should have rejected you years ago."

The words should have hurt. Maybe once they would have. But I'd heard variations of them so many times that they'd lost their sting. What terrified me was the way his hands were shaking, the way his wolf was taking control.

"River, calm down—"

He lunged.

I tried to dodge, but he was faster, stronger. His hand closed around my wrist like a vice. The other hand grabbed my fingers.

"You want to hide things from me?" His voice was barely human now. "Let's make sure you never can again."

The first bone snapped with a sound like a dry branch breaking.

I screamed. The pain was white-hot, blinding. My knees buckled, but River held me up by my wrist, his grip unrelenting.

"River, stop!" The words tore from my throat, but he wasn't River anymore. He was pure Alpha rage, pure wolf instinct.

Another bone. Another. The intricate tattoos on my hands—the channels for my magic—seemed to burn as the bones beneath them shattered. My fingers bent at impossible angles.

"Please," I gasped, but the word dissolved into another scream as he crushed my other hand with the same brutal efficiency.

When he finally released me, I collapsed. The cold floor pressed against my cheek. Through the haze of agony, I felt him rip the Falcon's Eye from my neck, the chain breaking and cutting into my skin.

"Here, love." River's voice was tender now, gentle. "It's yours."

I forced my eyes open. Alondra caught the amulet with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. She examined it like a trophy, then looked down at me.

"Thank you, Julie," she said sweetly. "For finally being useful."

Their footsteps faded. The door clicked shut.

I lay there, my hands twisted ruins, and felt something inside me finally break. Not my bones—those were already shattered. Something deeper. The last thread of hope I'd been clinging to.

The mate bond pulsed weakly in my chest, a connection I'd cherished for years. River had just destroyed the hands that had saved his life, built his pack's power, protected his people.

And he didn't even know.

I don't remember crawling to my room. The pain swallowed everything else—time, distance, thought. Just the endless throb of shattered bones and the wet warmth of blood soaking through my sleeves.

My door. I had to reach my door.

Somehow I made it. The handle turned under my elbow because my hands were useless, twisted things I couldn't bear to look at. Inside, I kicked the door shut and collapsed against it, gasping.

The hidden compartment. Behind the loose floorboard under my bed.

I crawled. Each movement sent fresh waves of agony through my arms. The tattoos on my hands—the intricate channels that had once glowed with power—were dark now, lifeless. The magic couldn't flow through broken pathways.

My fingers—what was left of them—scraped uselessly at the floorboard. I used my elbow instead, prying it up. Inside lay a small crystal, no bigger than my thumb, pulsing with a faint silver light.

The emergency beacon. Protocol Zero.

I'd hoped I'd never have to use it.

I pressed my forehead against the crystal, focusing past the pain, past the mate bond that still whispered River's name in my chest. The high-frequency mind-link opened like a door I'd kept locked for years.

*Your Majesty.* My mental voice shook. *I'm invoking Protocol Zero.*

Silence. Then, a presence—ancient, powerful, unmistakable.

*Julie.* The Lycan King's voice resonated through my mind, steady as stone. *What has happened?*

*He destroyed my hands.* I couldn't keep the tremor out of my thoughts. *The Falcon's Eye is gone. The wards will fail. I can't—I can't do this anymore.*

*Extraction approved.* His tone shifted, colder now. *The rejection will be finalized within forty-eight hours. Hold on, child. Justice is coming.*

The connection severed. I slumped against the floor, the crystal rolling from my forehead. Darkness pulled at the edges of my vision, and I let it take me.

---

I woke to screaming.

Morning light filtered through my window, gray and weak. My hands were on fire—or felt like it. Someone had bandaged them while I slept. Macie, probably. She was the only one who'd dare enter my room uninvited.

But the screaming wasn't mine. It came from outside.

I dragged myself to the window. Below, chaos. Pack members ran in every direction. Three rogues had breached the northern perimeter—the exact section protected by the Falcon's Eye. Without the amulet in place, without my daily maintenance of the runes, the wards had collapsed.

River stood in the center of the courtyard, his Alpha aura blazing. He was shouting orders, directing warriors to intercept the rogues. But his eyes—his eyes kept darting to the pack house, to the invisible barrier that should have held.

"Julie!" His voice carried up to my window. "Julie, get down here!"

I didn't move.

He appeared at my door minutes later, slamming it open. "What did you do?"

I turned from the window slowly. "Nothing."

"The wards failed." He stalked toward me, his face twisted with fury. "You cursed us. You're punishing me for—"

"For breaking my hands?" My voice came out flat, empty. "The hands that maintained those wards every single day for five years?"

He stopped. Something flickered in his eyes—confusion, maybe the beginning of understanding. But then Alondra appeared in the doorway, the Falcon's Eye gleaming at her throat.

"She's lying," Alondra said softly. "She's always been jealous, River. Now she's trying to make you feel guilty."

River's jaw clenched. The moment of doubt vanished. "Where are your spell books? Your scrolls?"

"River—"

"If you won't fix this, I'll find someone who can." He turned and strode toward my library—the small room adjoining my bedroom where I kept centuries of knowledge, irreplaceable manuscripts passed down through Lycan generations.

"No." I stumbled after him, but my legs wouldn't hold me. I fell, catching myself on my elbows because my hands couldn't bear weight. "River, those scrolls are sacred. They're not just mine—they belong to—"

He wasn't listening. He grabbed an armful of scrolls from the shelves, ancient parchment crackling in his grip. Alondra handed him something. A lighter.

"River, please." I crawled toward him, my bandaged hands leaving smears of blood on the floor. "Those are the only copies. The defense spells, the history—"

"Should've thought of that before you cursed my pack." He flicked the lighter.

The first scroll caught instantly, flames racing across centuries-old ink. He dropped it onto the pile of manuscripts. Fire spread like a living thing, hungry and bright.

I watched my life's work burn. The spells I'd studied since childhood. The wards that had protected not just this pack, but dozens of others. The counter-curses for threats River couldn't even imagine.

Gone.

"Stop," I whispered, but the word had no power. Not anymore.

River stood over the flames, his face illuminated by the orange glow. Alondra wrapped her arms around him from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder. The Luna Stone—his mother's stone—caught the firelight.

They looked like a portrait. Alpha and Luna. Exactly what River had always wanted.

I closed my eyes and felt the mate bond pulse weakly in my chest. Forty-eight hours, the King had said. Forty-eight hours until I was free.

I just had to survive until then.

I stayed in my room through breakfast. The smell of bacon and coffee drifted up from the dining hall, but I couldn't face them. Couldn't face her.

Macie brought me water and tried to get me to eat something. I shook my head. My hands throbbed under the fresh bandages she'd wrapped this morning, tight and clean. She'd worked in silence, her jaw clenched so hard I thought her teeth might crack.

"You need to see this," she said finally, pulling out a small device from her apron pocket. It looked like a compact mirror, but when she opened it, silver light pooled in the glass.

A recording device. Lycan tech.

"I'm going down there," she said. "To the dining hall. She's wearing it today."

I didn't need to ask what she meant. The Luna Stone. Of course Alondra would wear it. She'd won, hadn't she?

"Don't do anything," I said. My voice came out hoarse. "Please, Macie. Just record it."

Her eyes flashed—not her human eyes, but something deeper. Her wolf. For a second, I saw the Gamma she really was, the warrior hiding beneath the maid's uniform.

"I won't touch her," Macie said. But the way she said it made me think she wanted to.

She left. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my ruined hands. The tattoos were still there, dark lines against pale skin, but they felt dead. Empty channels with nothing to carry.

Time crawled. Then Macie was back, her face flushed, the device clutched in her fist.

"She paraded it in front of Elder Simmons and Elder Kara," Macie said, her voice shaking. "Told them River gave it to her because she's his true mate. His true Luna."

I closed my eyes. The mate bond pulsed in my chest, a sick, twisted thing that wouldn't let go.

"I got it all," Macie said. "Every word. Every smile."

Good. The Lycan Court would need evidence.

A commotion outside made us both freeze. Voices. Shouting. Not the panicked kind from yesterday's rogue attack, but something else. Something controlled.

I moved to the window. Below, a sleek black vehicle rolled through the pack gates. It looked wrong here, too modern, too clean against the rustic pack houses and dirt roads. The kind of car that cost more than most wolves made in a year.

It stopped in the center of the courtyard.

Four figures stepped out. They wore dark suits, not the casual clothes pack members favored. Their movements were precise, coordinated. Enforcers. I recognized the way they carried themselves—the same way Macie moved when she forgot to play weak.

The lead figure was tall, broad-shouldered, with silver streaking his dark hair. Even from here, I could feel his authority. It pressed against the air like a weight.

Marcus Blackwood. The Lycan King's right hand.

"They're here," Macie breathed beside me. "Protocol Zero worked."

River emerged from the pack house, his Alpha aura flaring. He looked confident, almost pleased. He probably thought they were here to help with the rogue problem. To praise him for his leadership.

He had no idea.

I watched Marcus extend his hand. River shook it, all smiles. They talked—too far away for me to hear, but I could read River's body language. Relaxed. Proud.

Then Marcus said something that made River's smile falter.

They moved inside. The other Enforcers followed, their eyes scanning everything. One of them looked up at my window. Our gazes met for a heartbeat before he looked away.

"We need to get you out," Macie said. "Now, while River's distracted."

"Out where?"

"To them. To Marcus." She was already moving, pulling a cloak from my closet. "You're the victim here, Julie. They need to hear your side."

My side. As if I had one. As if anyone would believe the weak, useless Luna over their powerful Alpha.

But Macie was already wrapping the cloak around my shoulders, careful of my hands. "There's a back staircase. It leads to the kitchens. We can slip out through the service entrance."

"River will know—"

"River is busy explaining to a Lycan Enforcer Captain why his wards failed and his territory was breached." Macie's voice was hard. "He's busy trying to justify why he destroyed sacred Lycan artifacts. Trust me, he's not thinking about you right now."

She was right. She was always right.

We moved through the pack house like ghosts. The back staircase was narrow, dark. My hands screamed with every step, but I bit down on the pain. We passed the kitchens—empty, everyone drawn to the spectacle in the main hall—and slipped out into the cold morning air.

The black vehicle sat thirty yards away. One of the Enforcers stood beside it, arms crossed. When he saw us, he straightened.

Macie pulled back her sleeve, revealing a mark on her wrist. A silver wolf, the symbol of the Lycan Court.

The Enforcer's eyes widened. He nodded once, sharp and quick, then opened the vehicle's back door.

"Get in," Macie said. "Marcus will want to see you."

I climbed inside. The interior was dark, quiet. The door closed behind me with a soft click.

Through the tinted windows, I could see the pack house. Somewhere inside, River was talking to Marcus. Somewhere inside, he was sealing his own fate.

And he still didn't know what he'd destroyed.