The great hall of Ironfang Keep was already alive with the sounds of morning when I forced myself to cross its threshold. Platters of roasted venison and honey-glazed bread covered the massive oak tables, their scents mingling with spiced wine and woodsmoke that clung to the ancient stones. Warriors' laughter boomed between the arches, tankards slammed against scarred wood, and the scrape of knives against plates created a symphony of pack life.
And then I stepped into their domain.
The change was subtle—a shift like the moment before lightning strikes. Conversations didn't stop entirely, but they muted. Dimmed to half their previous volume. Eyes turned my way with lazy interest, gazes lingering just a heartbeat too long before sliding away with barely concealed smirks.
My chest tightened, but I lifted my chin and walked with steady steps toward the high table. The pale silver gown I'd chosen was meant to project serenity, to hide the shadows beneath my eyes and the tremor in my hands. Instead, it felt like wearing a target.
Every footfall echoed too loudly in the suddenly expectant silence. I could feel their attention like spider silk clinging to my skin, sticky and impossible to brush away. The mate bond in my chest pulsed with Jasper's emotions—irritation at my presence, indifference to whatever was about to unfold, and underneath it all, cold satisfaction that made my stomach clench.
He was already seated at the head of the high table, commanding and untouchable as carved granite. Storm-gray eyes that had once looked at me with such devastating coldness now wouldn't even acknowledge my existence. His plate was half-empty, his goblet refilled with wine dark as blood. When I took my seat in the ornate chair beside his—the Luna's chair, though the title felt like mockery now—he didn't so much as glance in my direction.
The silence that followed wasn't really silence at all. It was whispers, sliding like poisoned blades between cupped palms and knowing smiles.
"She wasn't touched." The words drifted from a cluster of she-wolves at the nearest table, spoken just loudly enough for me to hear.
"Not even on her wedding night?" Another voice, dripping with false shock and real amusement.
"Wolf-less and barren both. What use is a Luna who can't even hold her Alpha's interest long enough for him to claim her properly?"
My hands shook as I reached for the bread, tearing it with fingers that felt numb. The mate bond carried Jasper's complete lack of reaction to their cruelty—no anger, no protective instinct, nothing but that same cold indifference that had defined our entire marriage.
At the far end of the hall, a Beta's mate leaned close to her companion, not bothering to lower her voice. "The barren Luna," she said, her smile sharp as glass. "Can you imagine? A pack led by a womb as empty as winter itself."
Laughter erupted around her table—quick, vicious, designed to wound. My cheeks burned with shame so intense it felt like fever, but I forced myself to take a bite of bread, to swallow past the sob clawing up my throat.
Jasper lifted his goblet with deliberate slowness, his movements calm and controlled. He took a long sip of wine, the sound unnaturally loud in the expectant hush. That single action spoke louder than any words could have—their mockery wasn't worth refuting. I wasn't worth defending.
You are nothing, his silence declared to every watching face. Less than nothing.
I stabbed at the bread with my knife, forcing myself to eat though every bite tasted like ash. If I crumbled now, if I let them see me break completely, it would be exactly what they expected. Exactly what Serenya wanted.
And as if summoned by that thought, the great doors swung open.
Serenya entered like a queen claiming her rightful throne. Her emerald gown caught the firelight and threw it back in glittering waves, the silk clinging to curves that belonged in sculptures. Golden hair cascaded down her back in artful ringlets, and her smile—radiant, confident, devastating—could have launched a thousand wars.
Conversation didn't just pause—it died completely, every wolf in the hall turning to watch her passage with the kind of reverent attention usually reserved for visiting royalty. She moved with liquid grace between the tables, accepting murmured greetings and barely concealed worship like it was her due.
When she reached the high table, she leaned down to brush her lips against Jasper's cheek in a greeting that was entirely too familiar, too intimate, too deliberately provocative for a sister-by-marriage to bestow upon her Alpha.
My stomach twisted, but through the mate bond I felt his reaction—a flare of warmth, of genuine pleasure at her touch that he'd never once felt for me.
He didn't stop her. Didn't pull away. Didn't even have the decency to look uncomfortable at such a blatant display of impropriety.
"Good morning, brother," she purred, though the endearment dripped with honeyed venom. She turned to me then, green eyes sparkling with malicious triumph. "Sister."
I managed a jerky nod, not trusting my voice to remain steady. My hands clenched in my lap, nails digging crescents into my palms.
Serenya slipped into the empty chair beside me—the seat that should have been reserved for honored guests, not scheming half-sisters with designs on my husband. Her perfume was cloying and overwhelming, jasmine and honey and something darker that made my head spin. When she reached for a goblet, her shoulder brushed mine with deliberate intimacy, and I had to bite my lip to keep from flinching away.
The whispers rose again, feeding on the tension crackling between us like wolves scenting blood.
"She looks positively ill." This from a young she-wolf who couldn't have been more than twenty, her voice carrying clearly.
"Perhaps she couldn't endure the Alpha's touch. Some females are too delicate for a proper claiming."
"Or perhaps," another voice suggested with cruel speculation, "he never bothered to touch her at all. Why waste effort on damaged goods?"
The mate bond flared with Jasper's amusement at their words—not anger, not protectiveness, but actual entertainment at my public humiliation. The realization hit me like a physical blow, doubling me over in my chair as I struggled to breathe past the agony in my chest.
My throat closed. My vision blurred. I swallowed hard, forcing air into lungs that felt crushed beneath the weight of their collective mockery.
I will not break, I told myself fiercely. Not here. Not before them. Not when it's exactly what they want to see.
But Serenya wasn't finished with me yet.
She leaned closer, her breath warm against my ear as she spoke in a whisper soft enough that only I could hear. Her words were silk wrapped around a poisoned blade, delivered with the kind of deadly sweetness that could kill with kindness.
"Poor little Araya," she murmured, her voice carrying false sympathy that fooled no one. "Sitting there trying so hard to pretend you belong at this table. Trying so hard to ignore what everyone already knows."
I kept my eyes fixed on my untouched plate, not daring to look at her face. Through the mate bond, I could feel Jasper's continued indifference to whatever cruelty was unfolding beside him.
"They see right through you," Serenya continued, her lips barely moving. "Every wolf in this hall knows exactly what you are—a political necessity that's outlived its usefulness. A mistake that needs correcting."
Her hand settled on the table between us, close enough that our skin almost touched. Close enough that anyone watching would think she was offering comfort to her distressed sister.
"You'll be gone before the next full moon," she whispered, and the absolute certainty in her voice made ice form in my veins.
The words hit me like a curse, like a prophecy spoken by some ancient oracle who saw only truth in the patterns of blood and bone. Around us, the pack continued their breakfast as if my world wasn't crumbling to pieces.
Through the mate bond, I felt Jasper's complete lack of reaction to whatever poison Serenya was pouring into my ear. He knew. Of course he knew. This was planned, orchestrated, as carefully choreographed as our wedding ceremony had been.
I was being erased. Slowly, publicly, methodically stripped of every shred of dignity and purpose until there would be nothing left but the ghost of a girl who'd once been foolish enough to believe in fairy tales.
But as I sat there in that beautiful, terrible hall, surrounded by wolves who saw me as nothing more than entertainment, I felt something shift inside my chest. Not the mate bond—that remained as cold and indifferent as ever. Something else. Something that had been sleeping in the deepest parts of my soul, waiting for the right moment to wake.
Serenya's whispered threat hung in the air between us like smoke from a funeral pyre, but instead of despair, I felt the first stirrings of something that might—if I was very lucky—eventually grow into the kind of rage that could burn down kingdoms.
The next full moon was three weeks away.