Luna Amelia’s internal clock was rarely wrong. When the secure mobile on her bedside table began its insistent, harsh buzzing before the sun had fully cleared the horizon, she knew immediately that the threat level in her life had escalated from political tension to immediate crisis. She picked up the phone, the cool ceramic casing doing little to calm the sudden heat of adrenaline in her palm.
The caller ID confirmed her unease: the private, emergency line of Simon, the personal assistant to the Lunar King at the Citadel.
“Yes, Simon. What is it? You know better than to use this line unless the news is dire,” Amelia stated, her voice tight and professional, instantly shedding the last vestiges of sleep.
“Luna Amelia, my sincerest apologies for the hour.” The assistant’s voice was clipped, nervous, and utterly stripped of any usual deference. “I was instructed to deliver a formal summons. You are required to appear before the Grand Council of Elders at the Lunar Citadel. The hearing is scheduled for the day after tomorrow, Friday, at 14:00 hours.”
Amelia pushed herself upright, running a hand through her hair. Two days. That was not a convenience; it was a deadline designed to cripple preparation but not eliminate the requirement to attend.
“A hearing? On what grounds? State the charge clearly, Simon.”
“The charge is one of severe financial malfeasance and fraud related to your previous tenure as CEO of Stellar Holdings ten months ago,” Simon recited, sounding like a man reading a firing squad’s orders. “They claim to have uncovered irrefutable evidence that you deliberately manipulated asset reports and diverted funds, causing significant loss to the royal family’s trust funds. The penalty, should the Council find against you, is the forfeiture of personal assets and the review of your Luna status and Pack standing.”
Amelia inhaled sharply, the shock giving way to focused, cold fury. Fraud? Stellar Holdings? That company had been a swamp of corruption when she inherited it, and she had cleaned it out, exposing and prosecuting half a dozen long-standing shell schemes. The only major corruption she had found was related to her predecessor.
“Tell me, Simon,” Amelia said, her voice dropping to a dangerous purr, “is the documentation signed by anyone from the Vane family, perhaps? Is Alpha Zoran Vane’s name attached to any part of this fabricated evidence?”
The assistant hesitated, a full second of professional silence. “Luna, I cannot confirm or deny… but the charges are complex, detailing the period immediately before your takeover, which the Elders claim you later obscured.”
Bingo. Zoran Vane, the disgraced Alpha whose corruption she had exposed and whose assets she had seized five years ago, was trying to rewrite history. He had been the one pillaging Stellar Holdings before she arrived, and now, he and her step-family were colluding to pin his crimes on her. The stakes were no longer just about property; they were about exonerating herself and exposing a sitting Alpha’s corruption—a move that could destabilize the entire Council.
“Send every piece of the document to my secure comms line now. Inform the Council I will be there on Friday to expose the actual criminals involved,” Amelia commanded, terminating the call.
Her phone immediately lit up with a blocked number—the secondary signal that the puppet master was calling. She answered, her face hardening into a mask of pure, cutting disdain.
“You’ve wasted no time, Theodora. You’ve crawled out of your exile den just to stir up this months old manure. You should have stayed hidden.”
Theodora’s voice, though digitally sweetened, dripped with unbridled malice. “Good morning, Dearest Sister. Did you enjoy the summons? My husband, Zoran Vane and his legal team did such a marvelous job crafting the narrative. It’s so much more believable than your story of being a saint who cleaned up a multi-billion dollar operation.”
“You are aligning yourself with a known felon just to steal a few pieces of jewelry?” Amelia’s disgust was palpable. “You have truly sunk to the lowest possible tier of wretchedness.”
“Lower? No, Amelia, I’m finally rising to my true potential! Zoran provided the evidence—he knows how the company truly worked. I provided the motivation, the Elders, and the political pressure needed to turn ‘circumstantial evidence’ into ‘irrefutable proof.’ We want it all, Luna. Your titles, your fortune, your influence with the smaller Packs. I want to see you standing there, stripped bare, before you have to run back to your precious Kian, who will be too crippled by the political fallout to protect you.”
Theodora paused, drawing a breath in a theatrical, expectant way. “So, will you come? Or will you tuck your tail and let us win by default? I expect you to be there, Amelia. Octavia, my mom, and I have our best gowns prepared. We need to look our best when we divide your assets.”
The sheer, unrepentant greed of her step-sister made Amelia’s stomach churn. This wasn't about principle; it was the hunger of jackals for scraps of meat.
A terrible word clawed its way up Amelia’s throat, raw and heavy with years of suppressed anger. “You are nothing but a greedy, incestuous whore, Theodora. I know you and Zoran secretly fucked behind me. You are going to burn for this.”
“Tsk, tsk, such language for a Luna,” Theodora cooed. “We shall see who burns on Friday. Bring your lawyers, Amelia. But bring your resolve, too. You’ll need it.”
Amelia did not waste time with a farewell. She cursed her step-sister with a single, silent, venomous vow before slamming the phone onto the nightstand.
The summons was a direct, lethal attack on the stability of the Nightshade Pack. They were forcing her hand. If she used the two days to focus solely on the Myra crisis, she would lose her political platform. If she ran off to the Citadel without preparing Kian and Gareth for her absence, the Pack might be vulnerable.
But retreat was not in Amelia’s blood. The thought of Theodora inheriting anything she had earned, or of Zoran Vane escaping justice again, was intolerable.
“Fine. You want a trial? You’ll get a public execution,” Amelia promised the empty air. She swung her legs out of bed, her mind already calculating the quickest route to the Citadel, the most devastating counter-evidence she could gather, and the precise moment she would expose the conspiracy between her step-sister and Alpha Vane. She would go to the Citadel, she would finish this dispute forever, and she would return victorious.