Selene Thorne POV:

I forced myself to maintain a regal, unhurried pace until the shadows of the forest swallowed me whole, hiding me from any prying eyes. The moment I was concealed by the thick trunks of the ancient oaks, the façade crumbled.

My knees gave out, and I sagged against a tree, my breath coming in ragged, painful gasps. The adrenaline that had fueled my defiance drained away, leaving behind a tidal wave of humiliation and a pain so profound it felt physical.

My hand flew to my neck, pressing against the Mating Mark. It was still burning, a constant, agonizing reminder of the bond he was desecrating.

*It hurts,* Kara whimpered in my mind, her earlier rage now a wounded cry. *The bond, he’s tearing it apart.*

I squeezed my eyes shut, but the darkness offered no escape. An image, sharp and vivid, flashed behind my eyelids: a younger me, barely eighteen, seeing Ryker for the first time. The world had tilted on its axis. The air had crackled with an energy I now knew as the 'sparks' of a fated connection. My soul had recognized his, and I had thought myself the luckiest she-wolf in the world.

His vow, whispered against my skin on our mating night, echoed in the ruins of my heart. "You are my only Luna, now and forever." A bitter, hollow lie.

The sound of heavy, angry footsteps crunching on the forest floor ripped me from the memory.

Ryker.

He had followed me. His face was a thunderous mask of fury. Faye, thankfully, was nowhere in sight. This was between us.

His hand shot out, grabbing my arm in a bruising grip. "How dare you embarrass me in front of my pack?" he snarled, his face inches from mine.

I wrenched my arm from his grasp, a cold, humorless laugh bubbling up from my chest. "Your pack? I believe it’s *our* pack. And who was the one causing the embarrassment, Ryker?"

I stared into his stormy grey eyes and for the first time, I saw nothing of the man I loved. There was no warmth, no conflict, only a chilling, unadulterated rage.

"You brought a rogue, your ex-lover, to the most sacred gathering and flaunted her in my face! You speak to me of embarrassment?" My voice rose with each word, laced with disbelief.

He was momentarily stunned by my accusation, but his shock quickly morphed into defensive anger. "Faye needed me! She’s been through a lot. I expected my mate to show some compassion!"

"Compassion?" The word was a poison on my tongue. "You want me to show compassion to the woman sleeping with my husband?"

A montage of my life, my service, flashed through my mind. The countless sleepless nights spent poring over pack ledgers. The tense negotiations with rival packs to secure our borders. The hours spent comforting grieving families. The jagged scar on my side, a permanent reminder of the silver-tipped dagger I’d taken for him during his bloody fight to claim the Alpha title.

"When I was negotiating the treaty with the Winter Pack, securing the southern border for us, where were you, Ryker? You were with her," I accused, my voice trembling with a righteous fury.

"When I spent three days and nights nursing our warriors back to health after the rogue attack, where were you? With her!"

"I have given you everything! My loyalty, my wisdom, my body, my soul! What has she given you besides whispered promises and a past you should have left behind?"

Each word was a dagger, and I was twisting it in both our hearts.

His face was pale, his jaw tight. He couldn't deny a single word, because it was all true. He had no defense against my record, against my dedication. So he chose the cruelest weapon he had left: he devalued it all.

"You were a good Luna, Selene. A perfect political partner," he said, his voice flat and cold. "But Faye… she has my heart."

A perfect political partner.

The words struck me with the force of a physical blow, shattering the last fragile remnants of my hope. That’s all I was to him. A strategic alliance. An asset.

A bitter, coppery taste filled my mouth. The world swam before my eyes.

Seeing my stricken expression, a flicker of something—maybe regret—crossed his face, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared. He chose to end the argument not with an apology, but with an edict.

"This ends now. You will accept Faye’s presence. You will continue to be the Luna, and you will not cause any more scenes. That is an order."

He expected me to simply swallow my pain, to accept this monstrous arrangement. To stand by and watch as he loved another.

I looked at this stranger wearing my husband's face, and the last ember of love in my heart died, leaving behind nothing but cold, barren ash.

Selene stared at him, a strange, chilling calm settling over her features. The pain was so immense it had become numbness. She slowly shook her head, her voice a mere whisper, "An order? You have no idea what you've just done, Ryker. You haven't just broken a bond. You've broken a queen."

Selene Thorne POV:

My whispered words hung in the air between us. Ryker flinched, a flicker of unease in his stormy eyes, but the ingrained arrogance of an Alpha refused to let him back down. He opened his mouth to issue another command, to crush what was left of my spirit.

But he was interrupted.

"Ryker…?"

Faye’s soft, quavering voice drifted through the trees. She had followed us after all, arriving at the precise moment of our standoff.

She took in the scene—my deathly pale face, Ryker’s towering rage—and immediately fell into her role. "Oh, no… are you fighting because of me?" she cried, her big green eyes welling with tears. "Luna, please don’t blame Ryker. This is all my fault."

Once again, she positioned herself as the innocent, the blameless catalyst for all this pain.

Ryker’s fury instantly dissolved into concern. He moved to her side, his voice softening. "What are you doing out here? It’s cold."

The stark contrast in his tone, the gentle care he showed her versus the cold command he gave me, was another knife in my already bleeding heart.

I watched them, and a strange, cold laugh escaped my lips. It was a quiet sound, utterly devoid of humor, full of bitter irony.

They both stared at me, startled.

I let the laugh die and fixed my gaze on Faye, looking past Ryker as if he were nothing more than an obstacle.

"Your fault?" I said slowly, savoring the words. "Oh, your faults extend far beyond tonight, Faye."

Faye’s face paled, a flicker of genuine fear in her eyes.

I shifted my attention to Ryker, but my words were a proclamation for all three of us to hear. "My Alpha, you are so determined to protect her, but do you even know the creature you’ve brought into our home?"

*Yes... tell them,* Kara whispered in my mind, her voice laced with a vengeful glee. *Tell them what she is.*

My voice gained strength, ringing with the authority of a judge delivering a verdict. "Five years ago, Faye, you didn't just leave the Black Moon Pack. You defected. On the eve of our bloody battle with the Red Fang Pack, you fled with half of our medicinal herb supply and took it straight to our enemies!"

Ryker's head snapped toward Faye, his eyes demanding an answer.

All the color drained from Faye’s face. "No… it wasn't like that!" she stammered, shaking her head frantically. "I didn't! It was a misunderstanding!"

I gave her no room to spin her lies. "A misunderstanding? I have the written testimonies of the guards who saw you leave. I have the intelligence we gathered after the war, from Red Fang warriors who gloated about their good fortune. You used our herbs to heal their lead warrior—the very same wolf who nearly killed your former Alpha. Ryker's father."

As a Luna, I dealt in facts, not feelings. My accusations were always backed by evidence.

The crime was unforgivable. Treason. Aiding the enemy. It was a sin no pack, no wolf, could ever forgive.

Ryker's breathing grew heavy, his gaze fixed on Faye's panicked face.

"I… I was young!" she cried, her words tumbling out in a desperate torrent. "They tricked me! They told me… they told me you didn't love me anymore, Ryker! I was confused…"

Her excuses were pathetic, especially in the face of what she had done.

I stared at her, my expression devoid of pity. "So, your 'confusion' cost three of our warriors their mobility. They live with the consequences of your actions every single day. Do you even remember their names, Faye?"

I spoke their names, one by one. "Marcus. Liam. Thorne."

Each name was a hammer blow, striking at Ryker's conscience.

Faye was speechless, tears streaming down her face as she looked at Ryker with desperate, pleading eyes.

I could see the war raging within him. The love he felt for this she-wolf was now clashing with the undeniable proof of her betrayal against his pack, against his own father.

I had driven a wedge between them. I had transformed this from a personal squabble into a matter of pack law and justice.

I was no longer the scorned wife. I was the Luna, exposing a traitor.

I looked at Ryker's conflicted face and felt no satisfaction, only a cold, desolate emptiness. I knew this blow was heavy, but I also knew it might not be enough to sever the hold she had on him. But the seeds of doubt had been planted, not just in his mind, but in the very fabric of our pack's history.

Ryker stared at Faye's tear-streaked face, his own expression a mask of conflict and disbelief. He didn't push her away, but he didn't comfort her either. He looked at me, his voice rough with an emotion I couldn't decipher. "Is this your revenge, Selene? Tearing open old wounds?"

I met his gaze without flinching.

"This is not revenge, Alpha. This is justice."

Selene Thorne POV:

My declaration of "justice" hung in the cold night air, a truth Ryker could not refute. But as I watched him, I saw the internal battle end, and my heart shattered into a million more pieces. His loyalty, his love, was not with his pack's laws or his Luna's truth. It was with the weeping, manipulative she-wolf at his side.

Faye, sensing his hesitation, pressed her advantage. She sobbed harder, her body swaying as if she might faint. "Ryker, I… I didn't know it would be so bad," she whimpered. "If I had known, I would rather have died…"

She expertly admitted a sliver of guilt while painting herself as the ignorant, tragic victim.

It was enough.

Ryker took a deep breath, his decision made. He pulled Faye behind him, shielding her with his body, repeating the same soul-crushing gesture from the platform. The past had won. His feelings for her had triumphed over his duty as Alpha.

His voice, when he spoke to me, was as cold and hard as iron. "Her past mistakes will be dealt with by me, as the Alpha. It does not give you the right to persecute her."

He had twisted my pursuit of justice into a personal vendetta. He called it persecution.

*He chooses the traitor!* Kara howled in my mind, a cry of pure, undiluted despair. *Over us! Over his pack!*

I was drowning in an ocean of ice. I had lost.

"So this is your decision?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

"This is my decision," he confirmed, and his eyes narrowed, becoming hard and menacing. "And you, as my Luna, will respect it."

He stalked towards me, his powerful Alpha aura pressing in, heavy and suffocating. "You will drop this matter," he commanded, each word a stone. "You will return to the Packhouse, and you will not speak of Faye’s past again. To anyone."

It was a gag order, a threat delivered with the full weight of his authority.

I lifted my chin, the last act of a defiant queen. "And if I don’t?"

A dangerous light flared in his eyes. "Don't test me, Selene. The pack needs a Luna, but it doesn't have to be you. You are Luna because you are my mate. A position I gave you."

The insult was absolute. He stripped me of my heritage, my accomplishments, my very identity. He reduced my position, one I held by birthright as much as by our union, to a mere gift he had bestowed upon me. It was a violation of every sacred tradition our people held.

The moment the words left his lips, the burning on my neck exploded.

It was no longer a sting or a burn. It was the agony of my soul being ripped in two. A pain so absolute, so cataclysmic, that a strangled gasp was torn from my throat. My body involuntarily doubled over, and a cold sweat drenched my back in seconds.

His cruel, dismissive words had been translated by our Mate Bond into pure, physical torture.

I clutched my neck, my nails digging into my own skin, a futile attempt to claw away the source of the agony.

Ryker saw my reaction and misinterpreted it completely. He thought his threat had broken me, that I was collapsing in fear of losing my title.

His face held no pity, only the cold satisfaction of a victor. "I see you understand. Now, go."

From behind his shoulder, Faye peered at me. I saw the flash of vicious pleasure in her eyes as she watched me suffer.

With every ounce of strength I possessed, I forced myself to stand straight. The pain was a black vortex, threatening to pull me under, but I would not give them the satisfaction of seeing me fall.

I lifted my head and met Ryker's gaze. My own eyes, I knew, held nothing but a mixture of pity and contempt. He was a fool, blinded by a lie, and he had just destroyed us both.

Without another word, I turned. I began the long walk back to the Packhouse, each step a journey through hell, my body feeling like it might disintegrate into dust at any moment.

I didn't look back. Every step was an agony, a fire licking at my soul through the brand on her neck. She could hear Faye's soft, comforting murmurs to Ryker behind her, and the sound was a poison worse than any physical pain. I thought, *He feels nothing. He causes this pain, and he feels nothing at all.*