Casey POV:

The Pack Hall was freezing the next morning.

The air was thick with the scent of aged pine, beeswax, and the unspoken tension of a pack trial. I stood alone on one side of the vast, circular room, my hands resting protectively on my belly. The steady, reassuring weight of it grounded me.

My pup was quiet, as if sensing the gravity of the moment.

In the center of the room, Wayne Tucker knelt, his hands bound tightly behind his back with silver chains. The bleeding on his face had stopped, leaving a grotesque, swollen mess around his nose and mouth. He glared at me with pure, unadulterated hatred.

The heavy oak doors swung open. Kandi Bradley strode in. Beside her stood her mate—Jace's adoptive father, Judd Frye. His face was a thundercloud of righteous indignation.

Clayton sat on the raised dais, looking down at Kandi with an unreadable expression. "Kandi Bradley," he began, his voice echoing in the silent hall. "You have been summoned because Casey Robinson has accused you of orchestrating last night's attack."

Kandi's head snapped up. She stared at me as if seeing me for the first time, her eyes wide with theatrical disbelief. Then, right on cue, her eyes welled up with tears.

"Me?" She pointed a trembling finger at her own chest. "Why would I ever harm my own daughter-in-law? The mother of my future grand-pup?"

She stumbled forward, turning to the crowd, her voice quivering with perfectly calculated sorrow. "I have been anticipating this pup more than anyone! I raised Jace as my own flesh and blood, loved him, and now... I am repaid with this?"

Judd Frye stepped forward, his fists clenched. "This is an outrage! Casey, you ungrateful wretch! Kandi has done nothing but care for you, and you repay her with this venomous lie?"

The wind of public opinion shifted instantly. The pack members who had previously looked at me with pity now began to point and whisper.

"Wayne Tucker," I said, my voice cutting sharply through her fake sobs. "Tell them again. Who sent you to my room?"

Kandi's eyes shot Wayne a subtle, warning glare.

Wayne, his mouth bloody and swollen, hesitated for a split second before his gaze hardened. He raised his head and pointed a bound hand directly at me.

"She did!" he snarled, his words slightly slurred. "She invited me! We've been mating in secret for weeks!"

A collective gasp sucked the air out of the hall.

Kandi seized the moment like a starving wolf. "Oh, Moon Goddess!" she shrieked, clutching her chest as if in physical pain. "Now it all makes sense! Casey... you've been unfaithful to my son!"

Riding her momentum, the lies spilled from her lips smoothly. "I've seen you and Wayne sneaking around! That pup in your belly belongs to him!"

A plump Omega named Doris—one of Kandi's notorious gossip cronies—immediately jumped up from the benches. "I saw her! I saw Casey going into the woods by the river with a man last Tuesday afternoon! They were acting so suspicious!"

Judd Frye roared in fury. "She has tainted my son's honor! She has disgraced this pack! Beta Clayton, I demand she be stripped of her rank! We must banish this whore and her bastard pup before they bring a curse upon us all!"

The whispers in the room morphed into loud, hostile murmurs. The eyes staring at me were no longer curious; they were filled with disgust and contempt.

In a matter of minutes, I had been twisted from the victim into the villain.

A faint, ice-cold smile graced my lips.

"Kandi," I said, my tone eerily calm. "Are you done with your performance? Because if you're finished with your lies... it's my turn."

Casey POV:

"Doris," I said softly, stepping forward. "You claim you saw me in the woods by the river last Tuesday afternoon. Could you tell the Beta what I was wearing?"

Doris blinked, caught off guard by the direct question. She cast a nervous, fleeting glance at Kandi.

"A... a blue dress," she stammered. It was clearly the script Kandi had fed her.

My smile deepened. "Oh? That's fascinating. Because my blue dress was ruined by bleach last month. I had to throw it in the trash."

I turned my head slightly, my eyes landing on an elderly Omega sitting in the second row. "You remember that, don't you, Martha? I was so upset about it, and you told me not to stress too much for the baby's sake."

Martha, a woman renowned throughout the pack for her absolute honesty, nodded slowly. "That's right. The dress was ruined. Completely faded. Unwearable."

Doris's face drained of color. Kandi's expression froze.

I didn't give them a second to breathe. I pivoted back to face Kandi.

"You also claim I was at the river last Tuesday afternoon? What a coincidence." I raised my voice, making it loud and clear so it bounced off the stone walls. "Because last Tuesday, for the entire afternoon, I was at the Pack Clinic having my prenatal check-up with Healer Maeve."

I shifted my gaze to the dais. "Beta Clayton, you can send a warrior to ask Healer Maeve right now. I was there from one o'clock until nearly four-thirty. The pup was resting in a slightly awkward position, so she kept me under observation."

Clayton didn't hesitate. He gestured to a warrior standing by the door, who immediately slipped out of the hall.

Kandi looked trapped. A sliver of genuine panic finally cracked her composed scent, smelling faintly of sour sweat.

"I... I must have remembered the day wrong!" she blurted out. "It was Wednesday! Yes, last Wednesday!"

A soft laugh escaped my throat.

"Wednesday?" I tilted my head. "Last Wednesday, every Omega in the pack was assigned to gather Moonlight Petals for the upcoming Moon Goddess Festival. I was right there in the fields, Kandi. Along with over twenty other females who can testify that I was present from sunrise to sunset."

Several Omegas in the crowd nodded vigorously. One of them even spoke up, "She's right. Casey was with us the entire day."

The doubt in the room was now palpable, but it was no longer aimed at me. It was a heavy, suffocating cloak settling over Kandi Bradley's shoulders. Even Judd Frye looked bewildered, his furious bluster evaporating as he stared at his mate with dawning suspicion.

The door opened, and the warrior returned. He jogged up to the Beta's dais and whispered something.

Clayton's face, previously clouded with impartial neutrality, cleared into a mask of deep, suppressed anger.

"Healer Maeve confirms it," Clayton announced, his voice booming. "Casey Robinson was in her clinic for the entirety of last Tuesday afternoon."

Kandi's face went completely ashen. She looked like she had seen a ghost.

I walked toward her slowly. Every step I took sounded like a hammer strike, echoing the frantic, terrified beating of her heart. I stopped just a few feet away, close enough to see the beads of sweat forming on her upper lip.

"Kandi," I said, repeating my earlier question, but this time, it was a death sentence. "Are you done with your lies?"

Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

"Wouldn't a grandmother who is 'anxiously anticipating' her grand-pup know exactly where her daughter-in-law was for the past week?" I asked, my voice dangerously soft. "Would an innocent woman need to fabricate so many pathetic, easily disproven stories to condemn someone else?"

My questions hung in the air, sharp and lethal. Kandi stumbled backward, her eyes wide with terror, until she bumped into Judd—who made absolutely no move to steady her.

Then, I turned my head, my gaze falling back onto the trembling, kneeling form of Wayne Tucker. A chilling smile bloomed on my face.

"Now," I said, my voice smooth as silk but hard as steel. "Let's talk about the real reason you were in my room."