On the day of my Luna Ascension Ceremony, I wore the late Luna's ceremonial pelt by mistake.

The Alpha who had stood beside me for ten years regarded me with flat indifference. "A poor imitation. Unfit for the title."

The ceremony ground to a halt. The pup I had raised for a decade turned on me with open disgust:

"I knew it! You've been trying to take my mother's place all along! I will never let a scheming wolf like you get what she wants!"

She hurled the blessing charm I had spent half a year embroidering into the ceremonial fire, then beat her small fists against my body.

A child's blows carried little force. But they shattered my heart completely.

I looked at her and spoke, word by word:

"What I wanted was never to replace anyone, and certainly never to become Luna."

…

The sun blazed overhead, but no amount of light could melt the prejudice frozen in their hearts.

The ceremonial pelt, discarded to one side, seemed to mock my carelessness and my stupidity. The scent of white lilies and first frost still clung to its fur, Isabelle Ravencrest's memory woven into every fiber, untouchable even now.

I paid no attention to the prying stares and whispered ridicule around me. All I wanted was to leave this place as quickly as I could.

But Eloise Valdoran seized my arm. "You say you never wanted to be Luna. Then why didn't you refuse when I brought you Mother's pelt?"

"You say you never wanted to replace her. Then why were you so happy when Father agreed to grant you the Ascension?"

"You promised I'd be your only pup. So why did you give birth to Rosalind!"

Eloise's eyes were rimmed red, brimming with what looked like a thousand grievances. Her scent, frost-touched violets and new silver, had gone sharp and electric, a storm deciding to break.

But I did not step forward and gather her into my arms the way I always had. I simply looked at her, expression blank, and said nothing.

My wolf was silent. She had been silent for a long time now.

My unblinking gaze made Eloise flinch. Her eyes darted sideways.

She tried to hold her ground, lips trembling around the words: "Why are you staring at me? Why won't you explain yourself? The ceremony didn't go through. You must be furious!"

My voice came out flat. "Eloise, since this is what you wanted to see, then consider it done."

Three days ago, the ceremonial pelt delivered by the Pack Council had been stained with paint by Eloise during one of her drawing sessions. The pigment would not wash out.

I had been about to request a replacement, but Eloise dropped the hostility she usually wore around me and came to me with a bright smile, offering an apology.

She even produced an exquisite pelt of her own.

It looked slightly worn, but anyone could see it had been meticulously preserved. The fur still held a faint luminescence, the way only pelts blessed under a full moon could.

Something felt wrong. I sent my den attendant to look into it.

The pelt turned out to be the one the late Luna Isabelle Ravencrest had worn at her own Ascension.

Knowing it was a line I could not cross, I tried to make Eloise take it back.

But she burst into tears, sobbing that she had cared for me as her true mother after ten years together, and that was the only reason she wanted me to wear Luna Isabelle's pelt.

Then she demanded to know whether I looked down on it simply because it was made for an Omega Luna's rank, not a Supreme Luna's.

Those words happened to reach Cassius Valdoran as he walked through the door. His Alpha aura pressed into the room before he did, cold iron and ancient stone filling my lungs. His gaze darkened, and he told me in a low voice to honor the pup's wishes. He even remarked that I had worked hard, caring for Eloise day after day for ten years.

That evening, Cassius and Eloise dined together with me at Everspring Hall. He even agreed to bring Rosalind back from the outer territory where she had been raised.

I was overwhelmed. I believed that years of devotion had finally earned me a place in their hearts.

But the cold contempt Cassius and Eloise had just shown me tore that delusion to shreds.

I should have known long ago. Warm your hands against ice and all you get is water. You can't hold it, and you can't make it stay.

I gently pried Eloise's fingers from my arm.

"You were afraid I'd rise to the rank of Luna. Now my Ascension has been halted for the offense of wearing the late Luna's ceremonial pelt. Nothing like this has ever happened in our pack's history. From this day forward, I will be ridiculed and suspected by every wolf in this territory. You've already gotten what you wanted. What more could you possibly be unsatisfied with?"

Eloise bristled like a cornered wolf pup, teeth clenched, voice rising to a snarl. "I'm not satisfied! Not even close! Unless you go to the Alpha yourself and ask to be sent to the Hollow Den, you're just saying all this to trick me into feeling sorry for you!"

My gaze settled on her face. That small, childish face, barely bigger than my palm, was written over with nothing but fury aimed at me.

I was about to speak when I looked up and saw Cassius standing behind Eloise.

Those cold, imperious eyes, unchanged in ten years. Not by a fraction. The scent of black frost and ancient stone rolled ahead of him like a warning, and the air in the chamber thickened with the weight of his presence. Every wolf in the hall had already lowered their gaze. Every wolf except me.

When I didn't respond, Eloise ground her teeth and snapped:

"I knew it! You've been playing hard to get this whole time! You say you don't want anything, you don't compete for anything, but the second I tell you to go to the Hollow Den, you won't do it! Liar!"

"Eloise."

Cassius said her name, just once, and every sharp edge on her smoothed out in an instant. She burrowed into his arms, small and pitiful, her wolf settling into the safety of his aura like a pup curling against its sire.

Even though I had given Cassius a daughter five years ago, Eloise was still the only pup who existed in his eyes.

He'd even sent my baby away the day after I gave birth, afraid that having my own pup would make me less devoted to Eloise. A pup I had nearly died delivering.

The agony of labor was nothing compared to the pain of being separated from my daughter.

But for the honor of my bloodline, for my parents stationed on the distant Unclaimed Territories, I had pulled myself together and gone back to pleasing this father and daughter.

Ten years, though.

I was done.

For the first time, I did not bare my throat or lower my gaze to Cassius. I looked him straight in the eye.

"Your wolf Seraphina Thornfield has offended the late Luna and failed in her care of the Alpha's heir. I request to be sent to the Hollow Den."

Cassius walked toward me, slow and deliberate. Those deep-set eyes betrayed nothing. His Alpha aura pressed against my skin like a hand on my chest, but I held my ground.

"Are you throwing a tantrum?"

"But you did offend the late Luna today."

I knelt and pressed my forehead to the cold stone floor. "The fault is mine. I ask the Alpha to send me to the Hollow Den."

I had called myself "your wolf," not "your bonded." The same term I'd used ten years ago, before any of this began.

Cassius's brow furrowed tight.

"Eloise spoke out of anger. Why must you hold it against her? Besides, she can't do without you."

"Apologize to her nicely, right now, and I'll pretend I never heard any of this."

He assumed I would do what I had always done: lower my head and beg their forgiveness.

I didn't move. Somewhere deep inside me, my wolf lay flat and still, her muzzle between her paws. Not in submission. In refusal.

Eloise, tired of waiting for her apology, balled her fists and charged at me, pounding blow after blow against my body.

"You're the one who wants to take my mother's place! Why won't you apologize to me!"

"You promised you'd never have pups of your own besides me! You lied! You're the one who wronged me!"

Her fists struck the exact spot where I'd been injured half a moon cycle ago, saving her when she fell during a pack run. Pain tore through me so fast my face contorted.

Cassius only looked annoyed. "She's a ten-year-old pup. How hard can she possibly hit?"

Then the blood began seeping through my shoulder, staining the fabric dark.

Only then did his expression shift. He reached out and caught Eloise's arm.

Eloise stared at the spreading red, startled, but she still lifted her chin in defiance.

"You were already hurt. Don't you dare blame me for that!"

I looked at Eloise with a bitter half-smile. "The Alpha's heir is absolutely right."

I had no desire to argue with a pup. All I wanted now was to get away from this father and daughter as fast as I could.

I had promised Cassius I would never bear a pup of my own. Every time I was called to his chambers, I drank the wolfsbane fertility suppressant without fail.

But five years ago, Cassius had accidentally been dosed with a heat-triggering tonic. That night he was relentless, and I couldn't escape him.

I didn't wake until the following evening. I took the suppressant immediately.

Two weeks later, the routine health check from the pack healer still came back carrying.

Cassius said nothing at the time, but his brow stayed knotted, and it didn't ease.

The Unclaimed Territories were in crisis then. Morale among the border wolves had plummeted.

Cassius, still seething, had been withholding supply shipments to the frontier outposts. To rally the wolves, to give my parents and brother fighting on the border something to hold on to, I had no choice.

I let word of the pregnancy spread.

Cassius had no sons. For a pack bloodline, there was no greater vulnerability.

So when news broke that I was carrying a pup, the entire realm believed the Valdoran line finally had an heir.

Morale had never been higher.

My father and brother had crushed the rogue packs that plagued the Unclaimed Territories for years, even capturing their war-chief's firstborn.

From that moment on, the two of them saw me as a woman of calculating ambition.

Even when the pup I bore turned out to be only a little girl, she was sent away from the pack den the very next day.

The memory of that tiny face, glimpsed for barely a second, sent a dull ache through my chest.

I had done what I knew I shouldn't have. I had wanted too much.

I met Cassius's dark, unreadable gaze and spoke with all the sincerity I possessed:

"If the Alpha still holds any regard for our past and cannot bring himself to banish me to the Hollow Den, then send me beyond the territory walls to be with Rosalind. Tell the pack I left of my own will, to offer prayers to the Moon Goddess for the pack's prosperity."

A crease of anger had already settled between Cassius's brows:

"I've already shown you more kindness than you deserve. I even sent for Rosalind to be brought into the den. What more do you want?"

"Even if Eloise went too far today, you raised her for ten years. That she turned out this way is your failure. What right do you have to be dissatisfied?"

My voice remained steady, earnest:

"I have no dissatisfaction. I only ask for the Alpha's grace."

Cassius was silent for a long moment before his voice turned cold:

"No bonded Omega has ever left the pack den. Since you've begged to be thrown into the Hollow Den, I'll grant your wish."

His tone shifted: "If you regret it, I can still revoke the order. The command hasn't been announced to the other quarters yet."

I pressed my forehead to the ground, baring the back of my neck in full submission, and accepted. "I thank the Alpha for his grace."

"Seraphina!"

Cassius ground out my name through clenched teeth, then turned and swept from the room. The scent of black frost and iron trailed behind him, sharp enough to cut.

The Hollow Den was bleak and desolate, yet I felt lighter than I had in years.

If I hadn't come here, Eloise would only have grown more furious seeing me close to Rosalind.

She didn't love me, but she was fiercely possessive of me.

To embroider the perfect blessing charm for her, I had stitched a hundred and seventy-seven before she finally picked the one she liked.

The rest she burned in a single fire.

At the time, Eloise had said:

"I know you wanted to save one for Rosalind. But she doesn't deserve to have the same things as me."

Her smile was innocent. Her eyes were as cold and deep as her father's.

A plate of coarse bread and half-raw greens was set before me.

The den attendant who brought it looked vaguely familiar. She smiled and said:

"You're no Luna-Designate now. You should count yourself lucky to get even this."

"If you hadn't served the Alpha all those years, you probably wouldn't get anything at all."

When I gave no reaction, she let out a theatrical sigh:

"Really, all you'd have to do is bow your head to the Alpha, and you could have any delicacy you wanted. You were a pampered young lady in the Thornfield bloodline. Why ruin yourself over a moment of stubbornness?"

Behind the crumbling door, a sliver of the Alpha's ceremonial gold peeked into view.

I understood. This was Cassius's clumsy way of offering me a way out.

He had always used other people's mouths to remind me that I was nothing without him.

And I had always followed meekly behind him and his daughter, without a word of complaint.

Ten years of being hollow. I was done.

I fixed my gaze on that sliver of gold fabric and spoke:

"No feast in the world compares to this simple meal. These days in the Hollow Den have given me more peace than I ever knew before."

Here, I didn't need to please anyone. I didn't need to carry the weight of my bloodline's honor.

And no one stood over me every waking moment to remind me I was a replacement, a cuckoo in another wolf's nest.

The door slammed shut. The flash of gold vanished.

I had no interest in chasing after him. I turned back to my meal.

But a small figure came darting out from behind the door.

She had her hair tied in two little buns, and the moment she saw me, she called out for her mother, over and over.

We had never met before. Yet I knew her at a single glance. Something deep inside me went very still, then ached with a recognition that had nothing to do with sight. This was my flesh and blood, separated from me for five long years.