The door swung open without a sound.

The lamp by the bed was still on. It lit everything.

Seraphina was on top of him. Her bare back arched, her dark hair stuck to her sweaty skin, and her hips were still rolling. Alaric's hands gripped her waist. His fingers pressed into her the way they used to press into me.

The silver mating gown hung over the chair in the corner.

For a second, nobody saw me. Then Seraphina tipped her head back to moan, and her eyes landed on the doorway.

The moan turned into a gasp.

"Alaric," I said.

My voice came out flat, like it belonged to someone else.

He turned his head. The color drained out of his face so fast it was almost funny.

"Mara?"

"I wasn't dead." I held on to the door frame because my legs wanted to fold. "Rogues took me. Three months in a basement. Silver chains. They told me who paid them."

He went completely still.

Then he moved all at once. He shoved Seraphina off him so hard she tumbled sideways onto the mattress. He snatched his black coat off the floor and threw it over her body.

He covered *her*.

I waited for him to look at me. He looked at the coat instead, tugging it over her shoulders.

"Mara." He swung his legs off the bed and yanked on his pants. "Mara, how... we searched every..."

"You held a funeral," I said. "I heard."

"Alpha." Seraphina's voice cracked into a sob. She crawled across the bed and pressed herself against his back, clutching the coat closed. "Alpha, she's saying it was me. I know that look. She's going to say I did it."

"I haven't said your name yet," I said.

She flinched.

"You don't have to!" Tears spilled down her cheeks. "You always hated that he cared about me. I would never hurt you, Mara. You were like a sister to me. You *know* that."

"I sat with you the night your mother died," I said. "But you sold me to Kord for a place in my bed."

"That's a lie!" She buried her face against Alaric's shoulder. "Alaric, please. I've been here every day. I helped search. I *grieved* for her."

Alaric's jaw locked. He stepped away from her, toward me, and stopped halfway across the room. His nostrils flared.

"You smell like silver," he said quietly.

I peeled back the shredded sleeve of my shirt. The black burn circled my wrist like a collar. My thumb still sat crooked in its joint. Blood had dried in brown lines all the way to my elbow.

Then I turned around and pulled my shirt up.

"Look," I whispered. My eyes burned, and I hated it. I hated that they picked now. "Every night, salt water. Every morning, the whip. I called for you through the bond until Ember stopped answering."

I faced him again. The tears were running freely now.

"I crawled through a sewer to get home to you."

His gaze traveled over the burn, the welts, and the split skin at my ankle. Something cracked open in his face. For one heartbeat, he was the man who pressed his forehead to mine three years ago.

He reached for me.

"Alaric." Seraphina's voice was small and shaking. "Rogues lie. You know they lie. Anyone could have told her my name."

His hand dropped.

I stared at that hand, hanging empty at his side.

"Throw her in a cell," I said. "Tonight. Let the pack see."

"No."

The word landed soft.

"No?" I laughed. It came out jagged, and Seraphina actually shrank back from the sound.

"I'm saying not like this." He dragged a hand down his face. "You've been gone three months, Mara. You're half out of your head on silver. You show up in the middle of the night and accuse a member of my pack..."

"Of *our* pack."

"...and you expect me to sentence her before I know a single fact."

"You know me."

"I knew you." He swallowed hard. "I'll find out what happened. All of it. Then I'll decide what to do with Seraphina."

"Decide," I repeated.

Behind him, Seraphina lowered her wet lashes. The corner of her mouth twitched. It lasted half a second, but I caught it.

Alaric raised his voice. "Greta!"

The old housekeeper appeared in the hallway so fast she must have been listening. Her hand went to her mouth when she saw me.

"Luna..."

"Take her to the east guest room," Alaric said. "Get her clean. Get the pack healer."

"The guest room?" I said.

He didn't answer. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

Greta touched my elbow gently, like I might shatter. I let her lead me out. If I stayed one more second, I would have torn Seraphina's throat out with my bare teeth, silver or not.

---

The hallway was crowded now. People had come running at the noise. They were warriors and their mates, half-dressed, with wine still on their breath from the ceremony.

They parted for me. Nobody bowed.

"Goddess, look at her back," someone murmured.

"Is that really the Luna?"

"Was the Luna."

A woman near the stairs leaned toward her friend. She didn't bother to whisper very quietly.

"She looks like something that got dumped at the border. Like a feral dog somebody stopped feeding."

Her friend snickered. "Smells like one too."

Greta's grip tightened on my arm. "Don't listen, child."

"I'm not," I said.

I was memorizing their faces.

Behind us, Alaric's Alpha voice rolled down the corridor. It hit the hallway like a wall.

"Nobody goes near her. Not one of you. Not until I say."

The whispers died.

For one foolish second, my heart lifted. He was protecting me.

Then two guards stepped out of the crowd and followed us. Their boots thudded heavily on the wooden floor behind me.

---

Greta washed the blood off my arms with warm water. Her hands shook the whole time. The healer came, wrapped my ribs, set my thumb with a sharp pop, and left without a word.

Then Greta left too.

I heard the door shut. Then I heard a second sound, a heavy click.

I limped over and tried the handle.

It didn't turn. I pulled harder. The brass rattled in my hand, but the door stayed shut.

There was no lock on the inside. Someone had removed the knob plate. I could see the fresh screw holes in the wood.

"Hello?" I knocked. "The door's stuck."

A pause. Then a deep, uncomfortable voice came through the wood.

"It's not stuck, Luna. Alpha's orders."

"Orders to do what?"

"Keep you safe."

"Safe from *who*?"

He didn't answer.

I crossed to the window and shoved back the curtain. Rain streaked the glass.

Below, under a dripping pine, a third guard stood with his arms folded. He was looking straight up at me.

When he saw my face in the glass, he didn't look away.

I let the curtain fall.

Three months in a basement. One night home.

And I was back in a cage.

Deep inside me, so faint I almost missed it, Ember stirred.

*Mara,* she breathed. *The man at the window. Smell him.*

I pressed my nose to the cold glass and drew in a slow breath.

Under the rain and the pine, there was the faint, sour stink of cheap whiskey.

Four days passed, and Alaric never came.

The healer came twice. Greta came with trays. The guard outside my door changed every twelve hours, always at dusk and dawn.

On the fifth morning, I asked Greta straight out.

"Am I a prisoner?"

She set the tray down too carefully. "You're recovering, Luna."

"Then why can't I open my own door?"

"The Alpha thinks..." She stopped and smoothed her apron. "He thinks you need quiet."

"Greta. Look at me."

She wouldn't. She picked up yesterday's untouched soup and hurried out. The lock clicked behind her.

---

That afternoon, two maids stopped right outside my door to gossip. The wood was thin, and they weren't careful.

"She's moving her things into the Luna suite tonight," one said. "Seraphina, I mean."

"Already? With *her* still in the house?"

"Alpha says the ceremony goes ahead. New date, end of the month. White flowers again. I have to reorder the whole lot."

"Poor thing."

"Who, Seraphina?"

"Of course Seraphina. Imagine your mating night ruined by a madwoman crawling out of a ditch."

They laughed and moved on.

I sat on the edge of the bed with my nails buried in my palms.

*He's sick,* Ember whispered. She was stronger now, but only a little. *Something's wrong with him. Make him look at you.*

---

At dusk, the boots outside my door shuffled. A voice muttered, "You're late." Another grunted, "Piss off, I'm here."

Then I heard footsteps going down the stairs, and nobody came up to replace them.

I had loosened the window latch with a spoon over three nights. The drop was one story onto wet moss. My ribs screamed when I landed, but I didn't make a sound.

The air was thick with lilies again. Under them, I found cedar and smoke.

I followed it around the back of the main house, past the kitchen gardens, to the side hall where the pack kept its old hunting trophies. A strip of gold light leaked under the door.

I heard a soft gasp. Then I heard a low voice.

"Easy. Easy, sweetheart. I've got you."

I pushed the door open.

Alaric sat in the big leather armchair by the fire with his shirt hanging open. Seraphina was in his lap, facing him, naked from the waist down. Her thighs straddled his hips, and his cock was buried deep inside her. His arms were wrapped all the way around her back. He held her like she was made of glass.

She rocked slowly against him. He kissed her temple.

"That's it," he murmured into her hair. "Just like that. Good girl. Such a good girl for me."

He used to say that to me. Only to me. In the dark, with his mouth against my neck.

Something inside my chest went very quiet.

Seraphina saw me first again. This time, she didn't gasp. She smiled, small and slow, over his shoulder.

Then she screamed.

"Alpha! She's here, she got out!"

Alaric's head whipped around. He turned her body away from me with one arm and dragged a throw blanket off the chair back to wrap her.

"How did you get out?" he snapped.

"That's your first question?" My voice shook. "Not *are you okay*? Not *I'm sorry*?"

"Mara, go back to your room."

"My room is upstairs. The one she's moving into tonight."

Seraphina slid off his lap and crouched behind the chair, clutching the blanket. "I didn't ask for it. I didn't..."

"Why her?" I stepped closer. "I came back, Alaric. I'm alive. I'm *right here*. Why are you still choosing her?"

He stood. He pulled his pants up and buckled them without looking away from me.

"look at you."

"What?"

"Look." He pointed at my wrist and the black ring of the burn. "You jumped out a window. Your wolf's half dead. You come home after three months and the first thing you do is point at the one person who stood by me while you were gone."

"Because she *paid* them!"

"Because you've always been jealous of her!" His voice rose until the glass in the cabinets hummed. "Maybe you ran. Maybe you didn't. But you came back with a story and I'm supposed to swallow it whole?"

I stared at him.

"Maybe I *ran*?"

He didn't take it back.

Behind the chair, Seraphina was sobbing. "I don't know what I did to you, Mara. I don't. I've only ever loved you. Why do you hate me this much?"

"Stop crying," I said. "You're bad at it."

She cried harder.

Footsteps pounded down the corridor. Doors banged. The shouting had carried. A dozen pack members crowded the doorway, warriors and their mates. The woman from the stairs was there too, with her friend.

"Seraphina, sweetheart, are you hurt?"

"She attacked her again?"

"Goddess, she's out of control."

The woman from the stairs wrinkled her nose at my back. My shirt had torn in the fall, and the welts showed.

"Honestly, how does anyone stand to look at that?" she said. "She's covered in it. Like a butchered animal."

"Ugly as sin," a warrior muttered. "No wonder the Alpha moved on."

Someone laughed.

I turned to face them all. My face was wet. I let it be wet.

"I am your Luna," I said. "I am the Luna of Silverpine. I stood beside him at the border wars. I nursed your pups through the winter fever. Teddy, I sat with your boy for three nights. Lise, I paid for your mother's healer."

Nobody answered. Lise looked at the floor.

"I am your *Luna*," I said again, and my voice broke in half.

"No," Alaric said. "You're not."

The room went still.

He walked to the center of the floor. He didn't come to me. He stood where everyone could see him.

"I, Alaric Thornvale, Alpha of Silverpine," he said, "reject you, Mara, as my mate and as my Luna."

It felt like a hook had been sunk under my sternum and torn straight out.

I hit my knees. The floorboards cracked against them. Inside me, Ember threw her head back and howled. It was a long, shredded sound that filled my skull until I couldn't hear anything else.

Something warm filled my mouth. I coughed, and blood splattered across the floor.

Someone gasped. Nobody moved.

"Alaric." I reached a red hand toward his boots. "Alaric, please. One more time. Just listen to me one more time. Kord has a scar where his ear should be. He drinks cheap whiskey. One of your guards smells like..."

"Enough."

He stepped back from my hand.

"Guards. Take her out of the main house. Now."

Two men grabbed my arms and hauled me up. My feet dragged. Seraphina peeked out from behind the chair, her eyes red and her mouth soft.

"Be gentle with her," she said sweetly. "She's not well."

---

They dumped me past the stone markers in the rain and walked away without a word.

It took me until midnight to find the old hunters' cabin in the gully. The roof sagged. The door hung on one hinge. I crawled inside and lay on the rotten floor while blood dried on my chin.

Ember wasn't howling anymore. She was breathing slowly, and she was awake.

*Mara,* she said. *Are we done crying?*

I wiped my mouth with the back of my wrist and smeared red across the black burn.

"Yes," I said.

I pushed myself up to sit against the wall and stared through the broken door toward the lanterns of Silverpine.

"Seraphina. Kord. Dax. Every one of them who laughed." My voice came out steady for the first time in three months. "And Alaric."

*Him too?*

"Him most of all."

Outside, a branch snapped.

Then something heavy shifted in the dark near the tree line, and I heard slow breathing. It wasn't mine.