Kai’s large hand buried into Lia’s hair, pulling her head back just enough to allow him to graze her neck. He was suckling at her skin, a slow, possessive mark of a new Luna, claiming her in front of the very woman he had discarded moments before.

I was crouched on the floor, my fingers digging so deeply into the fabric of my silver dress that I could hear the silk groaning. My hands were clutched tightly over my stomach, trying to hold my internal organs together. Every time his teeth grazed her, a white-hot spike of agony shot through my own chest, the shattered remains of our mate-bond screaming in protest. I forced my eyes to the floor, fighting the sob that threatened to shatter my ribs.

“Look at her,” Kai’s voice rumbled, vibrating through the hall. He didn't stop his assault on Lia’s neck, his eyes hooded and dark.

“A Beta who cannot even stand. A warrior who crumbles at the sight of her Alpha’s happiness.”

He pulled away from Lia just enough to sneer at me, his lip curling in a way that made my stomach turn. He took a deliberate step toward me, his heavy boots clicking against the marble. He leaned down, placing his hand on his knee, bringing his face level with mine.

"Tell me, June," he whispered, loud enough for the front row of the pack to hear.

"Does it burn? Does it feel like your soul is being shredded? Because that is the sound of reality finally catching up to your delusions. You thought you could be my equal. You thought a nameless, rootless orphan could sit on a throne."He reached out, not to touch me, but to flick a stray bead from my dress.

"You even tried to dress the part. But a crow in silver feathers is still a crow."He stood back up, looking around the room at the hundreds of eyes watching my downfall.

"From this moment, June is stripped of her rank. She is no longer a Beta of the Crescent Pack. She doesn’t deserve to be one. She is an Omega, the lowest of the low. A servant to the lineage she dared to insult."He gestured dismissively to the guards standing at the periphery.

“Take her to the servant chambers. I don't want her filth staining the royal tiles any longer. In fact, scrub the floors where she knelt. I want every trace of her arrogance erased by morning.”

I felt the cold bite of metal before I felt the guards' hands. they snapped silver-lined chains around my wrists. The silver hissed against my skin, dampening my wolf and sending a dull, sickening ache through my veins. As they dragged me away, I heard Lia’s soft, triumphant giggle and the sound of the pack resuming their celebration. The music started again.

By the time they threw me into the small, damp room that was to be my new home, I was gasping for air. The servant chambers were located in the bowels of the palace, where the stone was always wet and the air tasted of mold. Every breath felt like a shockwave of broken glass traveling down my lungs. I collapsed against the stone wall, the silver chains clinking mockingly in the dark. I closed my eyes, praying for a sleep that wouldn't come, a sleep that would swallow the memory of Lia’s hand in his hair.

Hours passed. Or maybe it was only minutes. In the dark, time becomes a distorted thing. I lay there, shivering, my body trying to heal the invisible wounds of a rejected bond while the silver chains continued to poison my blood.

A soft click of the door made my ears twitch.

I became alert instantly, my instincts screaming. Someone was here. I forced myself upright, my back scraping against the rough stone as I tried to find my footing. The door creaked open, admitting a sliver of light from the hallway.

Kai stepped into the dim light of the chambers. He had discarded his heavy Alpha cloak and his formal tunic, wearing only a thin black shirt that clung to his frame. He looked leaner and more dangerous in the shadows, his Alpha aura filling the tiny room until I felt like the walls were closing in.

“Why are you here, Kai?” I rasped, my voice sounding like it had been dragged over thorns.

“Is your new Luna not enough for you? Can you not even tolerate Lia’s bed for a single night before coming to gloat over my ruins? Did you forget to insult my parents one last time?”

Kai didn't look angry. He didn't even look annoyed by my sharp tongue. He looked predatory. He stepped closer, his movements fluid and silent. The space between us vanished until I could feel the heat radiating off his body, contrasting with the freezing dampness of the room.

"You always did have too much pride for your own good, June," he said, his voice a low, melodic hum. He looked around the room, his eyes lingering on the straw pallet that was to be my bed and the single, flickering candle on the wall.

"It’s a shame. Such a beautiful fire wasted on someone who doesn't know how to play the game."

He reached out, his thumb tracing the line of my jaw with a terrifying tenderness that made me want to recoil and lean in all at once. The touch sent a jolt through the broken bond, a cruel reminder of what should have been.

“Lia is the Luna this pack requires,” he whispered, his voice low and dangerous, vibrating in the small space.

“She has the bloodline, the status, and the public grace to lead. The elders respect her. The warriors fear her family. She is the perfect piece for the board I am playing. You... you are a liability to my crown, June. You are a ghost story. You cannot serve this clan as my mate. It would be a weakness I cannot afford. If I took an Omega as my Luna, the surrounding packs would see it as an invitation to war.”

He leaned down, his lips brushing against the shell of my ear, his breath hot against my cold skin.

“But that doesn't mean I am finished with you. I’ve watched you for years, June. I’ve watched the way you move, the way you defy everyone with nothing but a look. You have a fire that Lia will never possess. She is a statue; you are a storm. You cannot be my Queen, but you can very well become something more important to me. Something kept in the dark, away from Lia’s notice. A secret I keep in the heart of this palace. Something that belongs solely to me, without the interference of pack laws or elder councils.”

I felt my heart stop, then restart with a sickening thud against my ribs. I looked up into his dark, calculating eyes, searching for a hint of a joke, a shred of the man I thought the Goddess had intended for me. But there was only the Alpha, cold, hungry, and utterly selfish.

“You want me to be your mistress?”

“Do not think of it in such common terms, June,” he whispered, his voice smooth as silk but heavy as lead.

“You are looking at this through the lens of human morality, but we are wolves. We are creatures of destiny and design.”He stepped even closer, his heat radiating through my thin, silver dress, a cruel contrast to the damp stone wall at my back.

“By staying here, in the shadows of my shadow, you will be fulfilling the very purpose of your creation. The Moon Goddess tied our threads together for a reason. She gave me the strength to lead, and she gave you the spirit to endure. By keeping you close, I am doing exactly what she has always wanted me to do. I am honoring the bond without compromising the crown.”

I felt a surge of bile rise in my throat. The arrogance was staggering. He wanted to rewrite divine law to fit his own greed, turning a sacred union into a dirty secret.

“Never,” I rasped, the word cracking in the air like a whip. I pulled my face from his grip, the silver chains around my wrists clashing with a violent, metallic ring.

“I would never do such a thing. I would rather spend the rest of my life in these chains, rotting in the dark, than spend a single second as your secret. I am not a pet, Kai. I am not a toy you can tuck away in a drawer when the Luna enters the room.”

The air in the room suddenly turned freezing. Kai’s demeanor shifted instantly. The tender Alpha was gone, replaced by the monster that had publicly humiliated me in the hall. His eyes flashed a toxic gold, and the growl that ripped from his chest vibrated in my very marrow.

“You think you have the luxury of choice?” he hissed.

Before I could move, his hand shot out. He didn’t grab me this time. He extended his claws, the sharp, obsidian points glinting in the candlelight, and pierced the soft skin of my shoulder. I gasped, a sharp cry of pain escaping my lips as blood began to seam down my dress.

“Look at you, June,” he sneered, leaning in until our noses touched.

“You are a rejected Beta who has been demoted to the dirt. You are an Omega with no family, no rank, and no future. Who do you think is coming for you? Do you think some stray wolf from a neighboring territory is going to walk into my palace and claim the woman I cast aside? To accept you would be to declare war against the entire kingdom. None of my clan members are stupid enough to make such a silly, suicidal mistake.”

He twisted his claws slightly, and I bit my lip until I tasted iron to keep from screaming.

“You are of no use to this world outside of what I allow you to be,” he continued, his voice dropping to a sinister purr.

“You can be the secret power behind my throne, or you can be nothing. And I do not keep 'nothing' in my palace.”The pain in my shoulder was a burning fire, but the fire in my heart was hotter. I looked him dead in the eye, my vision blurring with tears of rage.

“You can chain me, you can pierce me, and you can tell the world I am nothing. but you will never have me, Kai. You will have my shadow, you will have my scars, but you will never have my soul. You are a king of dirt.”

His face contorted into something truly demonic.

“We shall see how long your soul lasts when your body is broken.”

He lunged forward, his massive frame pinning me against the stone wall. The silver chains caught between us, searing my skin as he tried to force his mouth onto mine. I fought like a wild animal, scratching at his chest, kicking at his shins, but he was a mountain of muscle fueled by Alpha rage. The weight of him was suffocating, a dark tide rising to drown me. I felt the first sob of true terror break through my defenses.

Goddess, please, I screamed internally. Not like this.

“Kai?”

The voice was like a bucket of ice water thrown over a fire. It was melodic, sharp, and carried the effortless authority of a woman who knew she was exactly where she belonged.

Kai froze. His grip on my wrists didn’t slacken, but the feral light in his eyes dimmed instantly. He pulled back, his breathing heavy, and smoothed his hair with one hand as he turned toward the door. The transition was terrifying in a heartbeat, he went from a predator to a composed Alpha.

Lia stood in the doorway. She looked like an angel of mercy, her yellow dress glowing softly in the torchlight of the hallway. She looked down at me crouched on the floor, bleeding from my shoulder, chained like a beast and then back at Kai.

For a moment, a sliver of hope pierced through my heart. Lia and I had been sisters in everything but blood. We had shared dreams, secrets, and bread. Surely, she wouldn't allow this. Surely, the woman I grew up with would see the horror in this room and demand my release.

“Kai, love,” she said softly, stepping into the room. She didn’t look at the blood on my dress. She didn’t look at the silver burns on my wrists. She walked straight to Kai and placed a delicate hand on his arm.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you. The celebration is still ongoing, and the elders are asking for their Alpha.”

“She was being... difficult,” Kai said, his voice now calm, though his eyes still drifted back to me with a lingering hunger.

Lia finally turned her gaze to me. I looked up at her, my eyes pleading, begging her to remember the girls we used to be. Help me, Lia. Please.

Lia’s expression remained unreadable for a second, and then a small, pitying smile touched her lips.

“I know she’s been a burden, Kai,” Lia said, her voice dripping with a false sweetness that made my skin crawl.

“But there’s no need to spend your night in this damp cell. She’s learned her place now.”

She looked me up and down, as if assessing a piece of furniture that had been moved to the wrong room. The hope I had felt withered and died, turning to ash in my throat as she spoke the words that would seal my fate.

“We can use her as the palace maid. There is much work to be done after all.”

The door to my chamber was standing open. A figure stood there, framed in the doorway, blocking the morning sunlight that fought to enter the bowels of the palace. The shadow it cast was long and thin, cutting across the filth of my floor like a blade. I could tell from the hue of the shadow, the slenderness of the frame, and the lack of that suffocating, heavy pressure that it wasn't Kai.

I squinted, my head throbbing in time with the pulse in my wounded shoulder. As the blurry image finally snapped into focus, my breath hitched. It was Mali, the Royal Physician. The man who had patched my scraped knees when I was a pup and who had treated the entire royal lineage for decades.

A flicker of foolish, desperate hope ignited in my chest. Had they realized the horror of last night? Had Kai’s conscience if he had one finally bitten him? Maybe the pack’s elders?

"Mali?" I rasped, my voice a ghost of itself. I tried to sit up, but the silver chains rattled, the metal hissing against my skin.

"Did they send you to... to help?"

Mali didn't answer immediately. He stepped into the room, his footsteps heavy and hesitant. He didn't look like a man on a mission of mercy. He looked like a man walking toward a gallows. He knelt beside me, his eyes averted, and slowly opened his black medical toolbox. The hinges gave a mournful creak.

My eyes darted to the contents of the kit. There, nestled in velvet, was a long, shimmering needle filled with a liquid the color of bruised violets.

Wolfsbane.

The hope died so fast it left me dizzy. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. "No," I whispered, scrambling backward until my spine hit the cold stone wall.

"Mali, please. Not that. Anything but that."

"Mali, please look at me," I begged, my voice cracking.

"Don't take my wolf. Don't leave me alone in my own head."

Mali finally looked up, and his face was a map of sorrow. His hands, usually so steady, were trembling as he prepared the syringe.

"I have a family, June," he whispered, his voice so low I could barely hear it over the sound of my own frantic breathing.

"the Alpha... he made it clear. If I do not perform this procedure, my sons will find themselves in the same chains you are wearing by nightfall. He is a king who will burn anything that doesn't bend."

The hatred flared in my chest then,a dark, hot coal. Kai wasn't just breaking me, he was poisoning everyone I had ever cared about, turning a healer into a torturer.

"I’m sorry, child," Mali choked out.

Before I could scream, he grabbed my arm with a grip born of desperation. The needle pierced my skin, and the violet liquid surged into my veins. It felt like liquid fire at first, and then, a terrifying, absolute silence. My wolf, who had been pacing and snarling in the back of my mind since the rejection, let out a final, whimpering howl before she was smothered by the fog. The colors in the room bled into shades of grey. The sounds of the palace above became muffled. I felt small. I felt empty.

Mali packed his kit in silence and left without looking back.

I didn't have long to mourn the silence. Moments later, the heavy thud of boots echoed in the hall. Two guards, entered the room. They didn't speak. They grabbed the silver chains at my wrists and yanked me upward, dragging my limp, wolf-less body out of the cell and through the winding corridors of the servant quarters.

We emerged into the Royal Court. The transition from the dark cellar to the gilded grandeur of the throne room was staggering. The entire clan was gathered, a sea of faces that used to look at me with respect, now twisted into masks of suspicion and disgust.

Kai sat on the high throne, his face a mask of iron. Beside him, in the seat that should have been mine, sat Lia. She looked radiant in a gown of shimmering silk, her fingers playing with a heavy gold necklace that looked suspiciously familiar.

"June," Lia said, her voice echoing through the silent court. She stood up, her eyes bright with a cold, calculated fire.

"I wanted to show you mercy. I wanted to give you a place in this palace where you could find redemption. But it seems a thief cannot be changed by kindness."

She held up a small, ornate velvet pouch. From it, she pulled a signet ring, the crest of the Alpha’s private treasury.

"This was found hidden beneath the straw in your cell this morning," Lia declared, her voice rising so every member of the clan could hear.

"You tried to steal from the very man who spared your life. You tried to rob the pack that fed you."

"That’s a lie!" I screamed, the words raw and jagged in my throat. I looked toward the elders, toward the warriors I had bled beside.

But no one moved. No one spoke. The wolfsbane made my voice sound thin, lacking the Alpha-given authority I once carried as a Beta. To them, I was just a frantic, lying Omega.

Lia looked at Kai, her eyes brimming with fake tears.

"It hurts, Kai. To be betrayed by someone I called a sister."

Kai’s gaze fixed on me, colder than the silver around my wrists. He stood up, the power radiating off him enough to make the air hum. He didn't look like he believed her, but he looked like he didn't care. He wanted me broken, and Lia was providing the hammer.

"The evidence is clear," Kai said, his voice a death knell.

"But I am a just Alpha. June, if you fall to your knees now, if you kiss the feet of your Luna and apologize for your crimes against this clan, I will allow you to stay in the servant's quarters. I will spare you the public lash."

I looked at Lia’s smug face, and then at Kai’s expectant, cruel eyes. My wolf was gone, suppressed by the violet poison, but my pride was still roaring.

"I will never apologize for a lie," I spat, my vision blurring with a fierce, defiant heat.

"And I will never kiss the feet of a traitor. You can take my rank, you can take my wolf, and you can take my blood, Kai. But you will never, ever get an apology from me."

Kai’s jaw tightened. He turned to the guards, his voice devoid of anything but steel.

"Take her to the courtyard."