★Nuel's Pov★
The splash of cold water snapped me awake. My lungs seized as though I'd been dredged from the bottom of a river. Blinking against the sting, I found myself not in a cage like I had anticipated but in the great hall I'd first been led to upon arriving in the North.
My eyes drifted around, sluggish and heavy, taking in the gathering. Elders lined the walls, their faces carved from stone. The Alpha Council sat in grim silence. And before the dais, my father stood with his beta, their backs rigid beneath the furious glare of the Northern Alpha who sat upon his throne, his eyes darting between me and them like a predator deciding which throat to tear first.
It was morning. The room gleamed with the clear light of the sun pouring through tall windows, not the murky glow of lanterns and chandeliers that had haunted last night.
My gaze fell to myself. My skin burned in patches, angry red welts climbing up my arms and across my torso where the scalding water had eaten into me. I remembered the guards obeying that brutal command, shoving me into boiling agony.
Yet strangely, though the pain still lanced through me, my flesh was not peeling the way it should have.
The wounds looked half-mended. Wish was impossible since I had no wolf and no wolf meant no healing in my world.
I wanted to ask my father. To demand an answer silently through a mindlink. But the truth pressed into me like chains. Even if I had a wolf, even if I could reach for the mindlink, he would never have answered me. He never had even initiated one with me before. Why would he start now?
Still, when I saw him walking toward me, my chest lifted with the fragile hope of a whispered explanation. Maybe now he would tell me where the rogues had been. Why they hadn't come for me. Why I'd been left to face hell alone.
But instead, his hand cracked across my cheek. The pain exploded against my skin already raw from the burns and the force snapped my head sideways.
I raised my eyes to him, stunned, my mouth opening soundlessly.
"How dare you, Nuel?!" His voice thundered across the chamber, sharp enough to silence every murmur.
"How dare you betray your father and your pack this way?"
Betray? My mind stumbled over the word, but before I could gather it, the Northern Alpha's voice cut through, his anger dripping disbelief.
"Father?" he barked, the word spat like poison. "Spare us your cock-and-bull story. Answer me, and answer before the council, why you sent a man in place of your daughter. A man who clearly underwent surgery to mimic her face. Do you take me for a fool? Was this your agreement?"
Surgery? My chest hollowed. What was happening?
"This is my Alpha's son," my father's beta interjected smoothly, stepping forward. "Not a man with face surgery. His own flesh and blood. His daughter's twin."
My breath hitched. His son? Why were they calling me that now, here and in front of everyone? My father had never once claimed me as his son back home. No one ever had. I was nothing. So why the change now?
"I believed you, Nuel." My father's voice cracked again with feigned grief, thick enough for the crowd to hear. He clutched his chest like a wounded man, though his eyes burned cold. "How could you betray me this way? After everything?"
Confusion clawed at my mind. Betray him? Me? I was the one in chains. I was the one thrown into boiling water for trying to help my pack. What betrayal?
The beta spoke again, smooth as a viper. "We were attacked last night by rogue wolves after the entourage you sent to collect the princess. They came swiftly and before we could rally, the cars were gone."
The Northern Alpha's voice boomed in fury. "And how does that concern me? Where is your daughter? Where is my appeasement? That is all I am concerned about!"
"She lies in intensive care," the beta replied gravely. "Barely clinging to life. She was stabbed repeatedly in her chambers by none other than her twin brother here who did that to take her place."
A gasp rippled through the hall. My knees weakened.
What?
My father's gaze pinned me like a spear. "He butchered her in jealousy. Replaced her with himself. Forced the servants to prepare him instead of her. He even raided my treasury. We didn't see his treachery until it was too late. He'd only just returned from his training. We didn't know he came back resentful and with a plot to steal from his own father"
Those were lies. All lies. My mouth opened, but the words withered. My tongue was stone. Tears blurred my vision as I looked at him, my father, who spun this theater of blood against me as though it had been rehearsed a thousand times.
Thor stepped forward then, a leather bag slung in his grip. He opened it with a flourish. Gold bars and wads of money gleamed in the sunlight.
"While searching the woods last night, we found this hidden by the five rogues who attacked," Thor announced. "It makes sense now. They were here to rescue him from the pack. He must have planned it all."
My chest caved. Five. Only five rogues. Not even a score of them to save me. Just pawns, placed to damn me.
My tears came hot and unrelenting. Why? Why me? Why did he choose me to bear this weight? Why did he need me broken so badly that he'd craft this vile story?
"He's lying," I whispered, but my voice was a feather in a storm. "I did nothing—"
"I cannot believe you, Nuel!" my father thundered over me. "I cannot believe you would cut down your sister for her title, for her seat! You stole from me, from your family, from your own blood!"
He lunged again, striking me with his fist this time and blood flooded my mouth, sharp and metallic. My body crumpled, but his beta caught his arm, dragging him back as he screamed curses at me.
I knew then it was an act. A performance to cast me as villain before the world.
The Northern Alpha shifted, his jaw clenched tight, his fury palpable. But before he could speak, one of the council elders leaned forward, voice grave.
"If he is truly your son, then he qualifies as an offering. The North demanded appeasement. If the girl cannot fulfill it, then the boy will."
Another elder nodded, eyes narrowed as he studied me. "Strange he mirrors her so closely. For a moment, I thought he was the girl."
Their voices blurred together. My father's fury, the Alpha's rage, the elders' verdicts—all swirling into a storm that pressed down on my chest until I could scarcely breathe.
I didn't bother to listen to what they continued to discuss in my presence, whether it was about the stolen bag of money handed over to the Alpha of the North, or the council's final decision. None of it mattered anymore.
What seared through me was not their words but the truth finally laid bare. I had been betrayed. My parents. My father. My mother. And perhaps even my sister.
No, especially my sister. She had to be a part of this treachery despite being sick. After all, they claimed she had been stabbed by rogues—rogues I supposedly sent—because of a photo that was circulated. She must have consented to let them carve fake wounds into her flesh, just so this lie could stand and I could be condemned.
Hot tears streamed down my face, blurring the room. I had never mattered to them. That much I always knew. But what I never imagined was that they would discard me like this, so cold and brutally, with such calculated wickedness.