Darkness did not arrive all at once.
It seeped into Seraphina slowly, like ink bleeding through water; cold, heavy, inescapable. Her body floated somewhere far away, suspended between sensation and nothingness. At first there was no memory, no pain, only the distant hum of machinery and the faint sterile scent of antiseptic.
Then her wolf stirred.
Not with its usual alertness -no instinctive readiness, no coiled awareness- but with a weak, wounded tremor. The sensation dragged her upward through layers of numbness.
Her eyes opened.
White ceiling. Soft lighting. A quiet room that smelled too clean.
Silverfang medical wing.
The realization settled with a dull thud in her chest.
Memory followed immediately.
The gala. The crowd.
Kael's voice. I reject you.
Her breath caught. Her chest tightened as if the words had weight, pressing inward. The phantom pain returned; a tearing sensation deep beneath her ribs, where the bond had once burned bright and alive. Now there was only an aching hollow.
Her wolf whimpered.
Sera swallowed hard and forced herself upright. Every muscle protested. Her limbs felt heavy, as though her body had not fully agreed to return. A monitoring band slid loosely around her wrist, blinking with soft blue light.
She removed it.
The silence in the room was wrong.
No attendants. No healer. No pack representative. Nothing.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold beneath her feet. The sensation grounded her just enough to steady the dizziness swirling behind her eyes.
Someone had left her here to wake alone.
The implication landed quietly, she was no longer worth attending.
A small device rested on the bedside table; her personal slate. Its screen pulsed faintly with notification alerts. Too many.
Her stomach tightened.
She picked it up, the screen exploded to life.
Headlines filled the display.
"Silverfang Gala Scandal: Auxiliary Wolf Claims Alpha Heir."
"Public Rejection Rocks Elite Pack Ceremony."
"Was It Ambition or Delusion?"
Her breath stalled. She tapped one, footage loaded instantly.
The video opened on the gala floor; glittering lights, elegant wolves frozen mid-motion. Then the camera zoomed.
Her face filled the frame. Pale, shaking, eyes wide with disbelief.
Kael stood opposite her, immovable. Cold.
His rejection echoed through the recording.
The sound scraped against her nerves like broken glass.
Gasps rippled through the captured crowd. Someone laughed; a short, disbelieving sound that had been too distant to register in the moment but now rang sharp and humiliating.
The clip cut to her collapse.
Her body folding in on itself.
The slate trembled in her hands.
She closed the video, but the silence that followed was louder than the audio had been.
Notifications continued to pour in. Comments scrolled faster than she could read.
"Auxiliary wolves should know their place." "Embarrassing."
"She tried to trap him." "Security should've removed her sooner."
Her throat tightened.
The narrative had already solidified.
Not victim. Not rejected mate.
Disruptor.
Attention seeker.
Social climber.
Her wolf recoiled at the collective judgment; a psychic pressure pressing down through the network of pack consciousness. Wolves thrived on hierarchy. The moment someone fell outside it, instinct demanded correction.
And she had fallen publicly.
The slate chimed again, a live broadcast notification.
Silverfang Pack Network — Official Statement Pending.
Her fingers hesitated before opening it.
The screen filled with the Silverfang crest. After a brief delay, Mira Ashwood appeared.
Composed. Impeccable. Controlled.
Her voice carried calm authority.
"Last evening's incident at the Moon Gala has understandably drawn attention. Silverfang Tower remains committed to maintaining ceremonial integrity and pack dignity. The disruption originated from a misunderstanding involving an auxiliary employee. No misconduct occurred on the part of the Alpha heir."
Sera's pulse thudded painfully.
Misunderstanding… Auxiliary employee.
The phrasing was deliberate, distancing, minimizing, isolating.
Mira continued smoothly.
"Silverfang does not condone attempts to manipulate ceremonial proceedings. We remind all pack members that hierarchy exists to preserve order and unity."
The message was clear without being spoken, Sera was the disruption, the problem, the broadcast ended with polite finality. Her hands went cold.
Kael had not appeared, he had not spoken, he had not corrected the narrative. His silence was louder than any accusation.
Her wolf stirred again; confusion, hurt, instinctive searching for a bond that no longer answered. The emptiness where it should have been pulsed like an exposed nerve.
She set the slate down slowly.
The room felt smaller.
Walls closing in.
Everything she had built; her position, her routines, her quiet sense of belonging was unravelling faster than she could process.
A soft knock broke the silence.
She turned. The door opened just enough for a uniformed attendant to step inside. The woman avoided eye contact; posture rigid, expression neutral in the way wolves adopted when proximity itself felt dangerous.
"You're cleared to leave," the attendant said. "Medical discharge completed."
No concern. No inquiry.
Procedure only.
Sera nodded.
Her voice felt distant when she answered. "Thank you."
The attendant placed a sealed envelope on the bedside table.
"Administrative delivery."
Then she left. The door shut with quiet finality.
Sera stared at the envelope. The Silverfang seal glinted under the sterile light.
Her heartbeat quickened, she knew.
Some instinct deeper than reason recognized the shape of inevitability.
Her fingers trembled as she broke the seal.
The letter inside was brief. Formal. Precise.
Effective immediately, Seraphina Vale's employment with Silverfang Tower is terminated. Access privileges revoked. Housing reassigned. All pack resources withdrawn pending further review.
The words blurred.
Terminated. Housing revoked. Resources withdrawn.
Her chest hollowed out further; as if the bond tear had carved space for this exact moment.
This was not just a job.
Silverfang employment meant protection, territory rights, financial access, community standing. Without it, she was… exposed.
A wolf without pack shelter? The weight of that reality settled over her shoulders. Isolation wasn't emotional anymore, it was structural.
Deliberate.
Systematic.
She lowered herself back onto the edge of the bed, the paper trembling in her grip. For a moment, disbelief numbed everything.
This cannot be happening.
But it was. The evidence sat in her hands.
Outside the room, footsteps passed, wolves moving through their routines, their lives untouched by her unravelling.
The world had continued.
Only she had stopped. Her wolf curled inward, wounded and silent.
For the first time since waking, tears gathered -not violent, not dramatic- but slow and steady. Grief without sound.
She pressed her lips together, breathing through the ache.
No one came. No apology.
No explanation. No defense.
Just silence. And termination.
The Moon Gala humiliation had lasted minutes, this aftermath would last much longer.
Sera folded the letter carefully, as if respect for the paper could somehow restore dignity. She stood on unsteady legs and looked once more around the sterile room. Nothing here belonged to her. Nothing waited for her outside.
Silverfang Tower -once her place of quiet survival- had closed its doors.
And she had nowhere to go.
The slate chimed again.
Another notification.
Access privileges revoked.
Her reflection stared back at her from the blackened screen; pale, tired, changed.
She barely recognized the woman looking back.
And somewhere deep inside, beneath pain and disbelief, a new sensation flickered.
Not hope. Not yet. But awareness.
The fall was complete.
What came next would be survival, and survival did not ask permission.
She turned toward the door, tthe future beyond it was uncertain, hostile, and empty.
But it was hers now. And Silverfang had made its choice.