Sable left the Hall with her chin level and her hands steady.
Even though her knees still burned from the cold stone and her mouth still tasted like blood. She moved through the crowd as if she belonged there, because the pack enjoyed nothing more than watching her flinch, and she refused to feed them again so soon.
The moment she stepped past the carved doors, the noise behind her swelled, voices returning to normal as if her humiliation had been nothing but a brief entertainment. Torches cracked and smoked in the wind, and the late-afternoon cold bit into her skin through thin fabric.
She walked toward the service quarters without looking back, and she told herself she was safe as long as she stayed moving.
A hand caught the back of her collar.
It wasn't a gentle grip. It was the casual, careless hold of someone who believed they had the right to stop her whenever they wanted, and Sable's steps jerked short before she forced herself not to stumble.
"You think you can walk out like that?" a woman's voice asked, amused.
Sable didn't turn too fast, because turning too fast looked like fear, and fear was a scent they could taste even if her body didn't carry the bond-scent they craved.
Three wolves stood behind her, all dressed in ceremonial colors, all wearing that smooth, satisfied expression that came from knowing the pack would believe them over her. The woman in front had pale hair pinned back tight, her eyes bright with the kind of cruelty that liked rules because rules made cruelty legal.
"You didn't kneel long enough," the woman continued. "Maybe the ritual didn't recognize you because you didn't show enough respect."
Sable kept her voice level. "I was dismissed."
The woman smiled as if that answer delighted her. "Dismissed by elders who don't have to clean the Hall afterward, and who don't have to live with the embarrassment of a scentless defect walking around Grimridge as if she's one of us."
Sable could feel the other two shift, boxing her in without touching her, making sure she understood she was alone. The courtyard was still busy, but people moved past with practiced indifference, eyes sliding away so they wouldn't be forced to choose a side.
The woman's fingers tightened on Sable's collar, dragging her a half-step back. "You should thank the pack, you know. Most packs would have thrown you out the moment you failed your first trial."
Sable swallowed slowly. "Then maybe you should be grateful I make Grimridge look merciful."
The slap came so fast Sable barely saw it.
Her head snapped to the side, pain blooming hot along her cheekbone, and a sharp ring filled her ears. For a second her vision blurred, and she tasted blood again where her teeth cut the inside of her mouth.
The woman laughed softly. "Look at you, trying to grow teeth."
Sable forced her head back to center, her breathing even. Her palms wanted to curl into fists, but fists were invitations, and invitations turned into punishment that lasted longer than bruises. She kept her hands open at her sides, the posture of a wolf who knew exactly how to survive.
One of the other wolves stepped closer, her voice low and sweet. "Don't worry. We'll remind you where you belong."
They shoved Sable forward.
Not hard enough to knock her down, not hard enough to leave obvious marks, but hard enough to make her stumble and catch herself on the icy ground. The woman's grip released her collar only so she could push her again, directing her toward the narrow path that led behind the kitchens, toward the service corridor where no one important walked.
Sable straightened, refusing to run. Running would make it a game, and Grimridge loved games.
"Clean the ceremonial circle," the woman said. "Every drop of your failure. Every stain you left behind."
Sable's jaw tightened. "That isn't my duty."
The woman leaned in, close enough that Sable could smell spiced perfume and cold satisfaction. "Everything disgusting is your duty. That's what you are for."
The three of them turned away, laughing as they rejoined the main stream of pack members, their steps light as if they had done something harmless. Sable stood still for a moment, letting the pain settle into something manageable, because if she moved too quickly she might move the wrong way.
She looked around the courtyard.
No one met her eyes.
A few wolves pretended they hadn't seen anything, and a few watched with the detached interest of spectators. The pack did not need chains for wolves like Sable, because silence was a stronger restraint than iron.
She started to walk toward the Hall again, alone.
The corridor behind the main doors smelled like smoke and old stone. The torches in the wall brackets burned low, and the shadows stretched long, turning the passage into a narrow throat that swallowed sound. Sable walked with measured steps, bucket and rag in her hands, because there were rules even for cleaning. There were rituals for the ritual.
When she reached the center circle, the Hall was mostly empty.
Only a few servants moved around the edges, keeping their eyes down and their shoulders hunched in the same way Sable's used to be, back before she learned that shrinking didn't save you from attention. It only taught people you were safe to step on.
Sable knelt at the edge of the painted line.
The dark stain of the Binding Draft had been left on the stone, a smeared shadow where it had spilled, and the sight of it made her stomach twist. It was proof, not of fate, but of the pack's enjoyment, because they always left something behind for her to scrub away.
She dipped the rag in water and began to scrub.
The first pass did nothing. The stain clung to the stone, stubborn and black, as if it had soaked into the Hall itself.
Sable scrubbed harder.
Her arms began to ache, and her knuckles stung where they had split earlier. The pain kept her grounded, and it kept her angry in the quiet way she could afford to be.
Behind her, footsteps sounded.
Sable didn't look up right away, because she had learned what happened when you met the wrong gaze at the wrong time. She kept scrubbing, her breathing steady, her shoulders tense.
The footsteps stopped a few paces away.
Sable felt the air shift.
Not loudly, not dramatically, but in that unmistakable way the Hall had shifted earlier, the way wolves stilled when something bigger entered the space. Her skin prickled, and she hated it, because she didn't want her body to react to anyone anymore.
A voice spoke, calm and male, not cruel but not kind either.
"You're bleeding."
Sable's hand froze for half a heartbeat, then she kept moving as if she hadn't heard him. "It's nothing."
"It's not nothing," the voice replied, closer now, and something in the tone made her think of polished steel. "It's blood on stone, and if you keep pressing like that you'll leave stains you'll be punished for."
Sable swallowed.
She finally lifted her eyes just enough to see boots near the edge of the circle, clean leather, expensive craftsmanship, and a stance that didn't belong to a servant.
Her gaze traveled upward, slow and unwilling.
Cassian stood there.
He wasn't close enough to touch her, and he didn't step into the circle, but his presence filled the empty Hall the way smoke filled a closed room. He wore dark clothes, fitted and immaculate, and even fully covered his body looked like something built for war. His face was unreadable, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on her hands as if he was measuring the damage she refused to acknowledge.
Sable forced her voice to stay steady. "Am I required to speak to you now too, Alpha?"
Cassian's gaze lifted to her face, and the weight of it made her throat tighten even though she refused to show it. He didn't look amused by her tone. He didn't look offended either.
He looked like a man watching a knife edge, waiting to see which way it would fall.
"You're required to do what you're told," he said. "Nothing more."
Sable's fingers clenched around the rag until water dripped onto the stone. "Then tell me what you want."
Cassian's eyes narrowed slightly, and for a moment she thought he might step closer, might finally do the thing everyone had been waiting for since she first failed the ritual, the thing that would turn her into a new kind of spectacle.
He didn't.
Instead, his gaze flicked to the smear of Binding Draft on the floor, and something cold moved behind his eyes, like anger pulled tight under control.
"Finish," he said, voice low. "Then leave."
Sable's stomach tightened. "That's it?"
Cassian's mouth hardened, and the briefest silence stretched between them, heavy with things that were not being said.
"That's it," he repeated, and there was warning in the simplicity of it, because alphas didn't explain themselves to wolves like her.
Sable turned back to the stain and scrubbed until her shoulders burned.
Cassian didn't leave.
She could feel him behind her, standing at the edge of the circle like a shadow with a pulse, and the longer he stayed, the more Sable's skin reacted in ways she didn't understand. It wasn't the dreamy pull people described when they talked about mates, and it didn't feel like comfort.
It felt like pressure and it felt like being seen too clearly.
When the stain finally began to fade, Sable wrung the rag out with shaking fingers she refused to look at, and she pushed herself to her feet.
Cassian was still there.
He met her eyes again, and Sable couldn't tell if what she felt was fear or something worse, something that made her want to step away and step closer at the same time.
"You shouldn't be here," she said before she could stop herself. "Not for this."
Cassian's gaze held hers, steady and dark. "Neither should you."
The words landed strangely, not like sympathy, and not like an apology. They landed like a statement of fact, like he was naming a wrongness he couldn't ignore.
Sable swallowed, her throat tight. "Then fix it."
Cassian didn't move.
His eyes dropped for the briefest moment, not to her face, but to her throat, to the place where a mark should have been if her life made sense. The look was quick enough that it could have been imagined, but Sable felt it like heat.
Then his gaze lifted again, sharper.
"Go," he said, and the word was not an order meant to punish her. It was an order meant to end the conversation before it became something neither of them could control.
Sable hesitated only long enough to make sure she could still breathe.
Then she turned and walked out of the Hall, bucket in hand, her cheek still aching, her hands raw, and the Alpha's silent attention following her like a shadow she couldn't outrun.
Outside, the cold air hit her face and made her eyes water, and she blamed the wind because she refused to give the pack anything else.
As she headed toward the service quarters, a familiar figure stepped into her path.
Adrian.
He was dressed in clean dark clothes, pack crest pinned neatly at his throat, and he looked like the kind of man the pack liked, composed and controlled, the sort of wolf who fit perfectly inside their rules. His gaze flicked to her swollen cheek, then to her hands, and something like irritation crossed his face.
Not at her but at what had been done to her.
"Sable," he said quietly, and his voice was careful, as if he didn't want to be overheard. "What happened?"
Sable stared at him for a beat, because no one ever asked that question unless they wanted an excuse to blame her for the answer.
She forced her voice flat. "Nothing."
Adrian's jaw tightened, and he stepped closer, blocking the path just enough that she couldn't pass without acknowledging him.
"That's not nothing," he murmured, his eyes sharp now, and his gaze slid briefly toward the Hall behind her. "And if someone thinks they can keep treating you like this in public, they're going to cause a problem they can't control."
Sable's stomach twisted, not with hope, but with suspicion, because in Grimridge kindness always had a reason.
She didn't know what Adrian's reason was yet.
But she knew one thing with cold certainty, even as she held his gaze.
In a pack that lived on proof, being seen was the most dangerous thing that could happen to her, and tonight she had been seen by two men who mattered.
One of them was the Alpha.
The other one was smiling like he might be her salvation.