“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."

I had seen the courtyard. Every wolf in the pack had. It was where justice was served, where punishments were carried out, where the Alpha reminded everyone exactly who held the power. I had stood in that courtyard as a child and watched wolves receive ten lashes, twenty lashes, fifty lashes. I had watched one wolf, a rogue who had killed a pup receive a hundred lashes, and I had watched him die before they reached fifty.

The courtyard was where wolves went to be broken.

I started fighting. It was pathetic, really, my body was weak from days without food, from silver poisoning, from wolfsbane. But I fought anyway. I dug my heels into the stone. I twisted in the guards' grip. I tried to bite the one on my left.

He backhanded me across the face without even looking.

My head snapped to the side, and stars exploded behind my eyes. For a moment, everything went grey. Then the world swam back into focus, and we were at the door.

The guard pushed it open.

Sunlight. So much sunlight, after days in the dark cellar. It blinded me, seared my eyes, made tears stream down my cheeks. I blinked desperately, trying to see, trying to orient myself.

The courtyard was packed. Hundreds of wolves, maybe more. They lined the walls, filled the balconies, crowded every inch of space. And they were all staring at me.

The silence was the worst part. In a pack of wolves, silence meant danger. Silence meant everyone was waiting, watching, holding their breath for what came next. I had spent my whole life reading pack silences, the comfortable silence of a shared meal, the respectful silence of a council meeting, the tense silence before a hunt.

This silence was different. This silence was hungry.

We reached the center of the courtyard. The post stood there, black against the bright sky, older than anyone could remember. The runes carved into its surface seemed to pulse in the sunlight, hungry for what was coming.

The guards stopped. For a long moment, no one moved. No one spoke.

Then someone in the crowd cleared their throat. Someone else shifted their weight. And I realized, they were waiting. They were waiting for me to apologize.

It was tradition. A wolf brought to the courtyard for punishment had one chance to save themselves. If they fell to their knees, if they begged forgiveness, if they admitted their crimes and swore loyalty, the Alpha could show mercy. The punishment could be reduced. The wolf could walk away, broken but alive.

Every wolf in that courtyard expected me to apologize. They expected me to cry, to beg, to grovel. They expected me to confirm what they wanted to believe, that I was guilty, that I deserved this, that their Alpha was just.

I looked at the post. I looked at the runes. I looked at the dark stains at its base, stains that would never wash away, stains that held the last moments of wolves who had come before me.

Then I lifted my chin. I squared my shoulders as much as the guards' grip would allow. And I waited.

The silence stretched. Became uncomfortable. Became wrong.

A murmur rippled through the crowd. Someone whispered, "She's not going to do it."

Someone else shushed them.

One of the guards leaned close to my ear. "Apologize," he hissed.

"Just do it. Save yourself."

I said nothing.

The other guard tightened his grip on my arm.

"You stupid—" he started, but a voice cut through the crowd before he could finish.

"June."

Kai. He stood at the edge of the courtyard, flanked by his enforcers. He hadn't taken the throne at the far end, he wanted to be close, I realized. He wanted to see.

"June," he said again, and his voice was almost gentle. Almost kind.

"This doesn't have to happen. A single word. That's all it takes. Admit what you did, and we can end this."

He wanted me to break. He needed me to break. My defiance was a threat to everything he had built.

"I have nothing to admit," I said. My voice came out stronger than I expected. The wolfsbane made everything feel distant, but my words were clear, steady, mine.

Kai's jaw tightened.

"Pride is a luxury, June. One you can no longer afford."

"Then let it kill me."

For a moment, something flickered in his eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or respect. Or regret. It was gone before I could name it.

He nodded to the guards.

They dragged me to the post. The silver chains came next, wrapped around my wrists, my ankles, my throat. The metal bit into my skin, hissed against it, burned. I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming. Blood filled my mouth, hot and copper-sweet.

The silver, combined with the wolfsbane, created a pain I couldn't have imagined. It was like being burned from the inside out, like every nerve in my body was on fire, like my bones were cracking and reforming and cracking again. My wolf, suppressed and silenced, whimpered somewhere in the darkness of my mind. She couldn't help me. She couldn't even reach me through the poison.

"Strip her."

The command came from behind me. Lia. Of course.

A guard stepped forward and sliced through my shift. The fabric fell away, and suddenly I was bare to the waist, my back exposed to the crowd, to the sun, to the whip that would soon tear it apart. I heard gasps from the crowd not at my nakedness, but at the bruises, the burns, the evidence of what had already been done to me in the dark.

"Look at her," Lia said, stepping into my line of sight. She walked slowly, circling me like a predator examining wounded prey.

"Look at what she's become. This is what happens to those who betray the pack."

I said nothing. I focused on her face, on the gold necklace at her throat, on the satisfied smirk she couldn't quite hide.

"You could have been something," she murmured, stopping directly in front of me.

"You could have accepted your place. You could have been grateful for the mercy we showed you. But no. You had to steal. You had to prove that you were exactly what we always suspected."

The lie sat between us, ugly and obvious. I wondered if she even believed it anymore, or if the lie had become so familiar that truth and fiction had blurred together.

"Look at me," she commanded.

I looked.

For a moment, something wavered in her expression. Something almost human. Then it hardened again.

"Any last words?" she asked.

"Before the pack sees what happens to traitors?"

She turned away, and I watched her walk back to the edge of the courtyard, back to Kai's side. He put his arm around her, pulled her close, whispered something in her ear. She smiled up at him, all trace of fear gone.

The executioner stepped forward.

He was huge, larger than any wolf I had ever seen, with arms like tree trunks and eyes that held absolutely nothing. He carried a whip of braided leather, each strand tipped with silver beads that caught the sunlight and threw it back in cruel little glints.

"June of the Bloodmoon Clan," he intoned, his voice flat and empty,

"you have been found guilty of theft from the Alpha's treasury and treason against the pack. Your sentence is twenty lashes, to be carried out in full view of the clan, that all may witness the consequences of betrayal."

The crowd murmured its approval. Or its acceptance. Or its fear. It was hard to tell the difference anymore.

The executioner raised the whip.

I closed my eyes.

The first lash fell.

Pain. Pure, absolute, world-ending pain. It tore across my back like fire, like claws, like everything I had ever feared made real. I screamed, I couldn't help it, the sound ripped out of me before I could stop it and the crowd drank it in.

The second lash crossed the first. The third opened new ground. By the fifth, I had lost count. There was only the fire, the rhythm of destruction, the warm blood sliding down my back and pooling at the base of the post.

I thought about my mother.

She had died when I was six. I didn't remember much about her, just fragments, really. The smell of her fur when she was in wolf form. The sound of her laugh, deep and warm like summer thunder. The way she used to sing to me at night, old pack songs about the Moon Goddess and the heroes of old.

The tenth lash landed. The eleventh. The twelfth.

I stopped screaming. Not because it didn't hurt, it hurt, it hurt worse than anything I could have imagined. But because screaming took energy I didn't have, and because somewhere deep inside, something was changing.

My mother's blood, maybe. Or something older than that. Something that refused to die.

The thirteenth lash. The fourteenth. The fifteenth.

And then, suddenly, it stopped.

I hung from the chains, barely conscious, my back a ruin of torn flesh and flowing blood. I couldn't feel my body anymore. I couldn't feel anything except the deep, cold emptiness where my wolf should have been.

But I was still breathing. I was still alive.

Through the roaring in my ears, I heard voices.

"Fifteen is enough." That was Kai.

"She's learned her lesson."

"She's still defiant." Lia.

"Look at her. She's not broken."

"Enough." Kai's voice, final and absolute.

"I've made my decision."

Footsteps approached. I forced my eyes open, forced my head up.

Kai stood before me. Close enough to touch. Close enough to kill. His face was unreadable, but his eyes, his eyes were something else. Something almost like regret.

"You could have avoided this," he said quietly.

"A single word. That's all it would have taken."

"Go to hell," I whispered.

"Take her back," he ordered.

"And make sure she doesn't die. I want her to live with what she's lost."