A silver-heeled boot stomps onto my bleeding fingers.

The needle I am holding snaps in half.

Muddy mop water sloshes over the patched dress I sewed for tonight's banquet.

I bite my tongue and wring the dirty fabric.

The heavy oak doors crash open and the pack erupts in howls.

Alpha Kaelen strides in.

His milky, scarred eyes are now glowing gold and perfectly healed.

The man I hid in my cabin, the man who shared my bed in the dark, is the King.

He raises a hand to silence the crowd and pulls Princess Selene to his side.

"Meet your future Queen," he announces. "The healer who pulled me from the dark."

I press my hand over my stomach.

A sharp kick from the twin pups growing inside me ripples against my palm.

Kaelen stops speaking.

His golden eyes lock onto my dark corner, his nostrils flaring.

***

Filthy water slapped across Lyra's hand-sewn dress the second Cora's boot connected with the mop bucket.

She was already reaching for the dropped scrap of velvet when the heavy leather sole slammed down over her fingers. Bone ground against stone.

"Watch where you crawl, Omega," Cora sneered, twisting her heel.

Pain flared up Lyra's arm in a white-hot streak. She kept her mouth shut.

"Are you deaf?" Cora demanded. "I told you to move."

"The floor needs to dry," Lyra said quietly, her head down. Three more minutes and the marble would be clean enough for Selene's arrival. Three more minutes, and this particular torment would end.

"It wouldn't be wet if you knew how to wring a mop," Cora shot back.

"Leave her, Cora." Selene's voice drifted from across the corridor. The Beta female stood before a tall gilded mirror, adjusting the bodice of an intricate emerald gown. "She's just doing her job. Cleaning up our mess." The amusement in her tone made the word mess into something Lyra was supposed to feel grateful for.

"She ruined the hem of your celebration dress," Cora argued, pressing her weight down until the bones in Lyra's hand popped in protest. "A stray shouldn't even breathe near this fabric."

Lyra yanked her hand back. Skin tore, leaving a smear of red on the pale marble. She wiped her bleeding fingers against her stained apron and kept her face down. Strays did not react. Strays endured.

"Apologize to Lady Selene," Cora ordered.

Lyra stared at the dirty water pooling around her knees. "I am sorry for the mess."

"You're sorry you exist," Cora snapped. She kicked the wooden bucket hard.

Gray water washed over Lyra's lap, soaking through her dress instantly. She shivered, the cold seeping down to the bone.

"That's enough," Selene said, turning from the mirror. "The Alpha is crossing the bridge. I need everything perfect." She adjusted a strand of dark hair, smoothing an expression of practiced devotion onto her face. "His vision is restored. He will see everything clearly now."

"It will be, my lady," Cora said, her tone instantly sweetening. "He will see you as the savior you are."

Selene walked over, her shadow falling across Lyra's kneeling form. "Did you hear that, little Omega? He is returning. His eyes are open again."

Lyra grabbed her scrub brush. "I heard."

"I wonder who he will look at first," Selene whispered, a slow smile stretching her lips. "The noble woman who stood by his side through his darkness, or the pathetic servant scrubbing the dirt at his door."

"I wouldn't know," Lyra replied.

"No." Selene's voice dropped, soft as a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. "Because you are nothing. A nameless Omega with no pack mark and no rank. If you died on this floor tonight, we would mop you up with the rest of the mess."

The main doors shuddered. Then the great oak panels crashed inward.

"They are here!" a pack enforcer bellowed from the entrance.

Cora grabbed Lyra's shoulder and shoved her backward hard. "Get out of sight. Hide in the shadows where you belong."

Lyra scrambled up, clutching her bleeding hand to her chest. She backed away fast, slipping behind the massive stone pillar near the alcove as silence fell over the great hall.

Alpha Kaelen strode inside.

The white film that had clouded his eyes for months was gone. Sharp, piercing gold swept over the bowing crowd, unhurried and absolute. The brutal scars crossing his neck were the only proof he had ever come close to dying.

Lyra shrank deeper into the darkness. Her chest tightened.

He had been nothing but a blind, fevered man shaking in her arms in the dark hunting cabin three months ago. Now he looked untamed, like something that had come back from the dead and liked what the experience had done to it.

"Alpha," Elder Thorne greeted, bowing low. "Welcome home."

Kaelen ignored him. He walked straight toward the dais and stopped directly in front of Selene.

"You waited," he said, his voice a low rumble that reached every corner of the hall.

Selene lowered her gaze in practiced humility. "I promised I would never leave you in the dark, my Alpha."

Lyra's fingernails pressed crescents into her own palms.

Liar.

It was Lyra who had dragged him from the frozen river. Lyra who had hidden him in the abandoned hunting cabin. Lyra who had kept him warm for three days, who had given him her blood to break the nightshade poison ravaging his body. She had held his blind, shaking face in her hands and told him he was safe. She had whispered the old pack healing prayers against his temple until the fever broke.

"I will find you," he had murmured when the fever finally cracked, his hands mapping her face in the pitch-black cabin. "I will know your scent anywhere."

"You saved my life," Kaelen told Selene. He reached out and took her manicured hand in his massive grip.

"I only did what my heart demanded," Selene answered smoothly.

"The healers said the poison was fatal," Thorne said, stepping toward the dais. "How did you draw it out, Selene?"

"With the ancient rites," Selene said, her voice settling into the cadence of a sacred confession. "I offered my own vitality. My own purity."

Lyra bit the inside of her cheek until metallic warmth flooded her mouth. She swallowed the blood.

"She did not leave my side for three days," Kaelen announced to the hall. "She brought me back from the edge. She endured my fever, my madness, the beast trying to claw its way out."

He raised Selene's hand high. "She tamed the monster inside me."

"Hear me, pack," Kaelen commanded.

The murmurs ceased instantly.

"For her sacrifice and her unwavering loyalty, Selene will not just be honored." He turned to look at her, golden eyes softening. "She will be my Luna."

The roar of the crowd hit the ceiling.

"Hail the new Luna!" Cora screamed from the front row.

"Hail!" the enforcers bellowed.

Lyra pressed her spine against the cold stone pillar. She could not speak. An Omega accusing a high-ranking Beta of treason? They would have her hanging in the courtyard before she finished the sentence.

Thorne hesitated. "Alpha, the council expected you to choose an Alpha-born female. Selene's bloodline—"

"Her bloodline is stronger than any coward on your council." Kaelen's voice dropped an octave. A dangerous growl vibrated through the hall.

"No, Alpha. But tradition dictates the Luna must be able to bear strong heirs."

"Tradition did not save me from the nightshade," Kaelen interrupted. "Selene did. The council will accept her, or they will answer to my claws."

"Understood, Alpha."

"We hold the mating ceremony at the next full moon," Kaelen declared.

"The council has prepared a list of candidates for your guard," Thorne said quickly. "We must ensure your safety. And—the rogue who poisoned you. We found no tracks. The snow covered their escape."

"They had inside help," Kaelen said.

"The poison was slipped into my chalice during the winter solstice feast," Kaelen continued. "Only someone within these walls could have done it."

"Someone from our own pack?" Selene gasped. "But they are all so loyal."

"Not all of them," Cora chimed in, casting a fleeting glare toward the shadows. "Some hold grudges. The lower ranks often complain."

"We interrogate every Omega and servant," Kaelen ordered. "No one leaves the grounds. Lock down the gates. Start with the hall staff." He turned to Thorne. "Drag them into the courtyard if you have to. I want a name by sunrise."

Lyra closed her eyes. The blood-stained tunic. The one Kaelen had worn the night she pulled him from the river, soaked in both his blood and her own. She had hidden it under her cot and had not been able to burn it yet. If the guards tore apart the servants' quarters tonight—

She took one silent step backward.

Her shoe scraped against a loose stone.

Barely a whisper. Swallowed entirely by the cheering crowd.

But Kaelen's voice abruptly stopped mid-sentence.

A suffocating silence.

"Alpha?" Selene asked, reaching for his arm.

Kaelen did not answer. He did not look at her.

His head tilted a fraction.

His golden slit-pupils snapped directly toward the dark corner behind the pillar.

Lyra froze.

His nostrils flared hard. Once. Then again. His jaw clenched like a trap springing shut.

Kaelen stepped off the dais. His heavy boots struck the stone floor. One stride. Two. He walked straight toward the shadowed alcove as if the crowd, the ceremony, and his newly declared Luna did not exist.

Lyra slammed her spine against the freezing pillar. Rough granite bit into her shoulder blades.

"Alpha?" Thorne called out, sharp with confusion. "Is something amiss?"

"Quiet," Kaelen commanded, his golden eyes locked on the darkness. "I know this scent."

Lyra clamped a bloody hand over her mouth.

He remembered.

Kaelen closed the distance. His massive frame blocked out the light from the chandeliers. The heat radiating off his body reached her shivering skin before he did.

"Come out," he said, voice low and certain. "Now."

Lyra's knees shook. If she stepped forward, if he saw her face—

"My Alpha, please!" Selene rushed forward, her silk gown rustling loudly.

She planted herself between Kaelen and the pillar.

"Move aside, Selene," Kaelen ordered.

"She's diseased," Selene said, standing her ground. "You just recovered. You cannot risk exposure to whatever she carries."

"I said move." The growl vibrated through the floorboards.

Selene stepped back—but her hand slipped behind the folds of her dress. Her fist clenched. A tiny embroidered pouch burst open in her palm.

A cloying, suffocating wave of heavy rose perfume exploded into the tight space. It coated the back of Lyra's throat and scalded her sinuses.

Kaelen stopped dead.

He yanked back from the scent wall, his face twisting in revulsion. He pulled a dark linen handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it hard over his nose, his watering eyes scanning the pillar.

"What is that stench?" he growled.

"Just a servant, Alpha," Selene said, wiping her crushed palm against her skirt. "They mask their unwashed bodies with cheap oils. I warned the head maid about this yesterday."

"A failure in discipline," Thorne remarked, stepping up behind the Alpha. "The lower ranks have grown bold during your absence."

"Clearly." Kaelen peered over the handkerchief, his gaze finding Lyra.

She knelt in the puddle of dirty mop water. Her coarse dress was soaked gray. Her knuckles were bruised and bleeding.

He stared down at her.

There was no recognition in his golden eyes. Only cold, flat disdain.

"You let this crawl around the great hall?" Kaelen asked.

"She was supposed to be cleaning," Cora yelled from the front row. "But she's lazy. She ruins everything she touches."

Lyra looked up at him. "Alpha," she whispered. "I—"

"Silence," Kaelen snapped.

The single word struck her like a blow to the sternum.

He looked at her the way he might look at a diseased animal. The man who had held her in the dark hunting cabin, who had mapped every line of her face with urgent, gentle hands, stared at her with absolute loathing. His scent recognition, that perfect certainty he'd had thirty seconds ago, gone. Drowned in cheap perfume.

"She reeks," Kaelen told Thorne. "Get her out of my hall. Now."

Two guards marched across the floor. The first reached her, tangled a massive hand in her hair, and yanked. Lyra cried out as her scalp burned. She lost her footing, crashing hard against the stone tiles.

"Don't let her bleed on the rugs!" Cora yelled, stepping back from Lyra's proximity.

"Let me walk," Lyra choked out, clawing at the guard's wrist.

"You lost that right when you offended the Alpha." He kicked her legs out. Her knees slammed into the stone.

"Throw her in the snowdrifts," Thorne instructed. "Let the cold wash the stench off her."

The second guard grabbed her upper arm. Together, they dragged her toward the entrance, her boots scraping uselessly. She craned her neck back over her shoulder.

Kaelen had already turned away. He tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket, his attention entirely on Selene.

"Are you unharmed?" Kaelen asked her.

"Just startled," Selene murmured, leaning against his chest. "Thank you for protecting me."

The massive iron-wrought doors groaned open. The howling wind screamed in, bringing a spray of ice and snow.

"Out you go," the second guard grunted.

They swung her forward and let go.

Lyra flew through the open doorway and hit the frozen ground. The impact knocked the wind from her lungs. The heavy doors slammed shut. The iron latch fell into place with a definitive thud.

Locked out. In the middle of a blizzard.

Snow gathered on her wet dress almost immediately. The temperature bit into her exposed skin, turning her fingers numb.

She pressed her palms into the snow, trying to lever herself up. The servants' entrance. She had to reach it. She still had to burn that tunic before the guards tore her room apart.

She forced herself to her hands and knees. The wind whipped her hair across her face.

She took one agonizing breath.

A meat-grinding, heavy pain struck deep in her abdomen.

A scream tore from her throat, lost instantly to the howling wind.

She collapsed onto her side, her hands flying to her stomach.

A thick, warm droplet slid down her inner thigh, staining the white snow bright red.

Lyra dug her freezing fingers into the snow and dragged herself forward. A thick red smear painted the white drifts behind her.

She clamped her free hand over her lower abdomen. The grinding pain flared again, forcing a choked gasp from her throat.

"Just a little further," she whispered to the empty night.

The dim yellow glow of the medical cabin flickered twenty yards ahead. She pushed off her good knee, her soaked dress freezing to her skin. The howling wind fought to push her back, but she anchored her elbows in the ice and pulled.

She reached the wooden steps. Her arms gave out. She slammed her fist against the door base, her knuckles splitting open against the rough wood.

"Help," she rasped.

The door yanked inward. Warm air rushed over her face, smelling of dried sage and burning pine.

Thorne stared down at her, his wrinkled face pulling tight. "By the Moon. Get inside before the patrols see you."

He grabbed her under the arms and hauled her across the threshold, kicking the door shut with his foot.

"Put pressure on it," Thorne ordered. He dropped her onto a narrow wooden cot and turned to his mortar.

Lyra pressed her palms against her stomach. "Is it the poison? Did it stay in my blood?"

"Keep your voice down," Thorne scolded. He grabbed a stone pestle and crushed a handful of dried leaves with heavy strikes. "Lift your soaked skirt."

She obeyed, her hands trembling violently. The coarse linen stuck to her thighs.

He scooped a thick green paste from the bowl and pressed it directly onto her lower abdomen. The icy burn of the herbs sliced through the blinding pain.

"It is not poison," Thorne murmured. He wiped a damp cloth over her hip, then paused. He pressed two fingers against the pulse point near her pelvic bone.

His gray eyes widened.

"What is it?" Lyra demanded.

Thorne leaned in, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "You carry life, Omega. Two heartbeats. Both radiating an overwhelming Alpha aura."

Lyra stopped breathing.

Two heartbeats.

"That is impossible," she whispered.

"The pulse does not lie," Thorne replied firmly. "They are fighting the cold. They are strong. Extremely strong. But your body is starving. You lost too much blood out there."

"Will they survive?"

"If you survive," Thorne answered bluntly. "An Omega is not built to carry Alpha pups. They will drain your energy, your marrow, your very life force to sustain themselves."

A strange, fierce heat ignited in Lyra's chest. The agonizing betrayal in the great hall faded to background noise. She was not empty. She had an anchor now. Two of them.

"Let them take it," Lyra said, grabbing Thorne's wrist. Her nails dug into his skin. "Let them take whatever they need. Just save them. Please."

"I am trying," the old healer replied, tossing a bloody rag into a tin basin of hot water. "Drink this."

He shoved a wooden cup against her lips. Bitter tea coated her tongue. She swallowed it in three large gulps, welcoming the scalding heat.

"You must stay quiet," Thorne warned, taking the cup away. "If the council finds an unregistered Omega carrying Alpha blood, they will rip them from your womb. They view it as a threat to the pureblood lines."

"I won't let them touch my pups," Lyra swore, her jaw tightening. "They belong to me."

"They belong to the Alpha who sired them," Thorne said quietly. "Do you know who the father is?"

Lyra stared at the flickering lantern on the table. "He doesn't remember me."

Thorne exhaled heavily. "Then you must hide. I will bind your scent once you stabilize. We need to get you out of the territory before your stomach swells."

Heavy leather soles crunched against the snow outside the cabin window.

"Check the outbuildings!" a harsh voice barked. "The Alpha wants every unregistered stray hauled to the labor camps tonight."

Lyra flinched. "Labor camps?"

"Kaelen ordered a purge," Thorne whispered, moving quickly to pull a thick wool blanket over her shivering frame. "He claims rogues infiltrated the lower ranks to poison him."

"I am registered," Lyra argued, her voice shaking.

"As a scullery maid," Thorne corrected. "But you have no pack mark. To the enforcers, you are a rogue."

A fist pounded on the heavy wooden door. The hinges rattled.

"Elder Thorne! Open up!"

Thorne pointed a stern finger at Lyra. "Do not make a sound. Do not move."

He wiped his hands on his apron, grabbed a clean towel, and unlatched the door.

Cold wind whipped into the room, scattering dried herbs across the floorboards.

"What is the meaning of this?" Thorne demanded, blocking the frame with his broad shoulders.

"Alpha's orders," a guard replied, stepping onto the threshold. "We are searching for the rogue who slipped poison into his cup. No one is exempt."

"I am the pack healer. There are no rogues here. Only sick wolves."

"Move aside, Elder." The guard shoved a hand against Thorne's chest. "We search every room. If you hide a traitor, you share the noose."

"You will not disrupt my clinic. I have patients in critical condition. Their blood is on your hands if they die from the cold you are letting in."

"I don't care about your patients," the guard sneered. "Then you won't mind if I look."

That voice did not belong to a guard.

Selene pushed past the enforcer, stepping into the dim cabin. She brushed a snowflake from her emerald gown, her nose wrinkling in disgust. "It smells like dirt."

"Lady Selene," Thorne said stiffly. "This is a sterile environment."

She strolled past him. Her sharp gaze swept the room—supply cabinets, examination tables—and finally landed on the cot in the corner.

Lyra lay perfectly still under the heavy wool blanket, her eyes half-closed, her chest rising and falling in a slow, deliberate rhythm.

Selene stopped at the foot of the bed. A slow, cruel smile touched the corners of her mouth.

"The little Omega from the hall," she observed. "Still leaving messes."

"She is recovering from severe frostbite," Thorne intervened, stepping between Selene and the cot. "I must ask you to leave so I can treat my patient."

Selene ignored him. She sidestepped, her gaze dropping to the floor. The tin basin sat near the cot. The water inside was a dark, murky red.

"Frostbite?" Selene asked. She tilted her head, her eyes shifting back to Lyra's sweat-drenched face. "Frostbite does not bleed like a slaughtered pig."

Lyra tightened her grip on the blanket beneath the covers. Her heart hammered. She pressed her thighs together, praying the bleeding had stopped.

"She fell on the ice and tore her leg," Thorne lied smoothly. "It required stitches."

"Did it?" Selene's fingers trailed over the stone mortar on the wooden workbench. She picked up a handful of crushed green residue from Thorne's mixture, rolling the sticky paste between her manicured fingers. She brought it close to her nose.

"Blood-clotting root," Selene said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "And wolfsbane extract. Highly restricted materials." She dropped the herbs back onto the table, her eyes flashing with malicious triumph, and turned her head toward the open doorway.

"Alpha," Selene called out, her voice carrying crisp and clear into the freezing night, "I found a thief stealing supplies."