"You missed a spot."

Zoe's slipper tapped the marble an inch from my fingers.

I had been on my knees in the banquet hall since before sunrise. My skirt was soaked through. The brush had rubbed my palms raw.

"Where, my lady?"

"Everywhere." She sank into the high chair at the head of the long table. Adrian's chair. "Bring me my tea."

I got up and lifted the pot from the side cart. Steam curled off the spout. I poured, turned, and held out the cup.

Zoe didn't take it.

"Did I say you could stand?"

"You told me to bring your tea."

"On your knees, Jane." She smiled sweetly. "An Omega doesn't stand to serve the future Luna. Surely Adrian taught you some manners before he died."

I knelt. I held the cup up over my head.

She took it. She looked at it for a long moment.

Then she tipped it over my hands.

The heat came first, white and blinding, then the pain. I bit down so hard I tasted blood. The cup clattered on the marble and rolled away.

"Clumsy," Zoe sighed. "Now you'll have to clean that too."

I stared at my hands. Red welts were already swelling across my knuckles.

"Nothing to say?" she asked.

"No, my lady."

Her smile thinned. She'd wanted me to cry. I could see it in the tight line of her mouth.

"Guards." She snapped her fingers. "Take her to the training yard. I think the pack should see what happens to Omegas who forget their place."

---

They dragged me out by the arms. My bare heels scraped the gravel.

The training yard was full. Young warriors stopped mid-spar. Omegas hanging laundry on the far wall turned to stare.

Zoe followed us out, a fur wrap around her shoulders. One of her guards held a silver collar. It caught the light like a coiled snake.

"No," I said. "I already wear the cuffs. I'm no threat to anyone."

"Cuffs are for wrists." Zoe took the collar from the guard and turned it over in her hands. "This is for dogs."

The guard forced my chin up. Zoe locked the collar around my throat herself.

It burned. Not like the tea. Deeper. It sank through my skin and found my wolf.

*Sera.*

Inside me, Sera whimpered. A thin, broken sound. Three months of silver at my wrists had already worn her down to almost nothing. Now she curled into a tight ball in the dark and went quiet.

"Look at her," Zoe called to the crowd. "This is the woman who was going to be your Luna. Kneeling in the dirt with a leash around her neck."

Someone laughed. Then someone else.

A young warrior near the weapons rack didn't laugh. He looked away.

I kept my eyes on the practice swords hanging on the rack. Wooden blades, worn smooth at the grip.

*Again, Jane. Feet apart. Don't drop your shoulder.*

Adrian, five summers ago, standing right here with the sun on his back. He'd taught me himself, when the other warriors said an Omega-born girl had no business holding a blade.

*Blood doesn't make a wolf strong,* he'd told them. *Every wolf in this pack deserves respect. Every single one.*

And Sera had run beside his wolf that night, fast and fierce under the moon.

"Is she even listening?" Zoe crouched in front of me and gripped my jaw. "What are you smiling at?"

I hadn't known I was.

"Nothing, my lady."

Her nails dug into my cheek. "Keep smiling, widow. We'll see how long it lasts."

---

It was dark when I finally limped back toward the servants' stairs. The collar was still on. Zoe had kept the key.

I didn't hear him until he spoke.

"Jane."

Vincent stood at the bottom of the stairs. A white bandage crossed his forehead where the candlestick had split it open.

His eyes went to my throat. Then to my hands.

His face changed.

"Who did this?"

I said nothing.

He crossed the hall in three strides and grabbed my wrist. I flinched. He turned my hand over and saw the blisters.

"I asked you a question. Who put silver on your neck?"

"Does it matter?"

"It matters to me."

"Since when?"

His jaw worked. For one second, he looked almost like his brother. Almost.

Then the softness drained out of him, and his old smirk slid back into place.

"You see how this goes now?" He let my wrist drop. "You're alone, Jane. Nobody protects you. Not Martha. Not the guards. Certainly not Zoe." He leaned closer. "But say yes to me, and no one in this pack will ever lay a finger on you again. Not one."

"And all I have to do is get on my knees for you instead."

"That's not what I said."

"It's what you meant."

He laughed under his breath. "You're stubborn. Adrian liked that. I'm starting to see why."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

I lifted my chin, even with the collar burning into my throat.

"Your brother never needed a woman on her knees to prove he was strong," I said. "Vincent, you sit on his throne. But you'll never be him."

The hall went silent.

Vincent's hand shot out and slammed against the wall beside my head. The stone cracked under his palm. His eyes flared gold.

I didn't move. I didn't blink.

"You think you know what I am?" His voice dropped low and rough. "You think he was some kind of saint?"

"I think he was better than you."

His nostrils flared. For a long moment, I thought he might hit me.

Instead, he stepped back and straightened his collar.

"The underground sanctuary," he said coldly. "It hasn't been cleaned since the war. You'll do it. Tonight. Alone."

"The sanctuary is sealed. Only the Alpha's bloodline is allowed—"

"Then consider it an honor." His smile was all teeth. "And Jane? Defy me one more time, and I'll sell you to the slavers on the southern border. They pay well for she-wolves with their wolves already broken."

My stomach turned to ice.

"You wouldn't."

"Try me."

He walked away without looking back.

I stood there until my legs stopped shaking. Then I took a lantern from the hook and started down the long stair toward the sanctuary, where Adrian's ashes had been laid to rest.

---

I didn't know that Zoe was awake.

I didn't know that while I was going down into the dark, she was sitting at her dressing table, turning something over in her fingers.

"My lady?" Her maid, Lisette, slipped into the room. "You called for me?"

Zoe held it out. A silver hairpin, shaped like a crescent moon. It had been Adrian's gift to me on the night he proposed. I hadn't seen it since they moved my things out of the Alpha wing.

My name was engraved along the curve. *Jane.*

"Take this to the sanctuary," Zoe said. "Wait until she's gone. Then leave it beside the altar."

Lisette hesitated. "Beside the altar? But my lady, that's where the Moon Stone sits."

Zoe smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

"I know exactly where the Moon Stone sits," she said. "And by tomorrow morning, so will the entire pack."

The sanctuary door groaned when I pushed it open.

Cold air rolled up the last steps and wrapped around my ankles. My lantern threw a weak circle of gold across the floor.

At the far end, on a stone altar, sat the Moonstone Crown.

Five hundred years old. Silver vines twisted around a single pale gem the size of a hen's egg. They said the Moon Goddess herself had blessed it. They said only true Alpha blood could touch it without burning.

Adrian had worn it once, on the night he took his oath.

Beside it, on a ledge carved into the wall, sat a plain clay urn.

"Hello," I whispered.

My voice came back to me off the stone. Nobody answered. Of course nobody answered.

I set down the lantern and dipped my rag in the bucket. My blistered hands screamed. I scrubbed anyway.

I'd cleaned half the floor when I heard boots on the stairs.

Two guards stepped into the light. I knew them both. Brann and Osric. Zoe's men.

"Alpha send you to check on me?" I asked.

Brann grinned. "Something like that."

Osric was already moving around the edge of the room. Toward the altar.

My skin went cold. "Don't go near that."

"Or what?" Brann cracked his knuckles. "You'll hit us with a candlestick?"

He lunged.

I ducked under his arm and grabbed the bucket. Filthy water hit him square in the face. He swore and swung blind. His fist clipped my temple and the room tilted.

"Hold her!" Osric barked.

Brann caught my hair and yanked me backward. I kicked. My heel connected with his knee. He howled and shoved me hard.

I flew sideways into Osric.

And Osric, smiling, let himself fall into the altar.

The stone table rocked. The Crown slid.

"No—"

I threw myself forward with my hands out.

Too late.

The Crown hit the floor. The gem burst apart in a spray of white light, hundreds of glittering shards skittering across the stone like spilled stars.

For one long second, nobody moved.

Then Osric stepped away from me and wiped his hands on his trousers.

"Well," he said. "That's done."

Torches flared on the stairs. Voices. Many of them.

Zoe swept into the sanctuary with four Elders behind her. Her father, Elder Marrick, was first. His face went gray at the sight of the floor.

Zoe pressed a hand to her mouth.

"Moon Goddess," she breathed. "Jane. What have you *done*?"

"I didn't—they attacked me—"

"Guards?" Elder Marrick turned. "Speak."

Brann straightened. Water still dripped from his chin. "We heard a crash, Elder. Came down and found her standing over it. She threw the bucket at us when we tried to stop her."

"That's a lie!"

"Is it?" Zoe crouched by the altar. When she stood again, something silver dangled from her fingers.

My crescent moon hairpin.

"Her name is on it," Zoe said softly. "She's been planning this. Jealous that I'll wear this Crown at my Luna ceremony instead of her."

---

They dragged me to the council hall in my wet dress.

They made me kneel in the center of the floor, under the carved wolf heads of every Alpha who ever ruled Silver Moon. Adrian's was the newest. The wood still looked pale.

Vincent sat on the high seat. His bandage was gone. A thin pink scar ran across his forehead.

"Alpha," Elder Marrick said. "The evidence speaks for itself."

"The guards are Zoe's," I said. "Vincent, you know they are. Ask them who paid them. Ask Lisette where my hairpin's been for three months."

Zoe laughed lightly. "Now she accuses my maid."

"I'm accusing *you*."

The hall erupted. Elders shouting. Someone spat on the floor near my knee.

I kept my eyes on Vincent.

He looked at the hairpin in Marrick's hand. He looked at the guards. I watched him put it together. I watched him understand.

Then I watched him look at Marrick. At the gold that was rebuilding his walls.

His fingers tightened on the arm of the throne. Then they went slack.

"Vin," I said quietly.

He didn't answer.

"You told me no one would ever lay a finger on me. You said it last night."

His eyes met mine. Something moved in them, there and gone.

"The council will decide," he said.

That was all.

It didn't hurt the way I expected. It didn't hurt at all. It just felt like a door closing somewhere inside me, very gently, and locking.

Elder Marrick rose. "Jane of the Omega quarters. For the destruction of the Moonstone Crown, you are stripped of your name, your rank, and your pack. You are banished forever. Any Silver Moon wolf who sees you after tonight may kill you on sight."

"Is that everyone's vote?" I asked.

One by one, the Elders lifted their hands.

Vincent didn't lift his. He didn't lower it either. He just sat there.

"Bring the iron," Marrick said.

They tore my sleeve. The brand glowed orange in the brazier.

I didn't scream when it touched my shoulder. I stared at Adrian's carved wolf head the whole time, and I counted, and somewhere around eleven the hall went dark at the edges.

The last thing I heard was Zoe's voice, close to my ear.

"Goodbye, little widow."

---

I woke in the back of a cart, wrists bound, shoulder on fire.

Brann and Osric sat up front.

"Where are you taking me?"

Osric glanced back. "The Alpha's orders were the border villa. Nice and quiet. Somewhere you can sit and think about saying yes."

So that was it. Vincent hadn't saved me. He'd just moved me to a smaller cage.

"But," Brann added, "Lady Zoe pays better."

The cart lurched to a stop.

Black trees rose on both sides of the road, so tall and close they swallowed the moon.

The Black Forest.

"Please," I said. "You know what lives in there."

"Yeah." Osric cut my ropes and hauled me off the cart. I hit the mud on my hands and knees. "That's the point."

They turned the cart around. The wheels faded into silence.

Then, from deep in the trees, something howled.

Another answered. Then three more.

I ran.

Branches lashed my face. My bare feet tore on roots and stones. The collar still burned at my throat. Sera didn't stir. Without her, I was just a woman. Slow. Weak. Bleeding.

I burst into a clearing and stopped dead.

Eyes. Yellow eyes, all around me, glowing between the trunks.

Five rogues slunk out of the dark. Scarred. Starving. Their ribs showed through matted fur.

The biggest one licked its teeth.

I picked up a branch. My arms shook so hard it rattled.

"Come on, then," I said.

It came.

It hit me like a falling wall. The branch snapped. I went down on my back with its paws on my chest and its jaws wide over my throat. Hot, rotten breath poured across my face.

I closed my eyes.

*I'm sorry, Adrian. I tried.*

A roar split the night.

The weight vanished. I heard a yelp, a crunch, a body slamming into a tree.

I opened my eyes.

A black wolf stood over me. Huge, bigger than any wolf I'd ever seen, even an Alpha. Moonlight slid along fur so dark it looked wet.

The rogues circled. The black wolf didn't. It just lowered its head and growled, a sound so deep I felt it in my teeth.

Two rogues rushed it at once. It took the first by the throat and threw the second across the clearing with one swipe. The rest broke and fled into the dark, whining.

Silence.

The black wolf turned toward me.

Its shape bent and shifted. Bone and fur folded away. A man rose where the wolf had been. Tall. Broad. Dark hair falling over a hard, cold face I couldn't quite see through the blood in my eyes.

He knelt and lifted me into his arms like I weighed nothing.

I should have fought. I didn't have anything left to fight with.

His hand brushed the collar at my throat. He went very still. Then I felt the silver snap apart between his fingers, as easily as thread.

Inside me, for the first time in three months, Sera lifted her head.

And she whimpered. Not in pain.

In recognition.

The man pulled me against his chest. He smelled like pine and rain and something achingly familiar.

"Don't be afraid," he said, low and rough. "From now on, no one will ever hurt you again."

I knew that voice.

I *knew* that voice.

Then the darkness took me before I could say his name.