The brisk rap on the door shattered the remnants of Celine's sleep, startling her awake. In the dim morning light, Helga, Leon’s Beta appeared at the threshold, arms crossed tightly like iron bars.
"Up and at 'em," she snapped. "You start today."
There was no warmth in her voice—none of the illusions that life here wasn't just captivity with a different name.
Celine's body protested as she forced herself upright, each muscle groaning from disuse. A dingy cloth landed beside her with a ghostly whisper, carried by the early breeze through an open window.
Helga eyed her coldly. "You'll clean all of it—the packhouse and training yard. No grumbling. No laziness." Her words hung heavy in the air before she added coolly, "And steer clear of the warriors unless you're looking for trouble."
A threat veiled as guidance lingered between them.
Locking her jaw against irritation, Celine managed a nod.
Cleaning was preferable to an untimely end. Better this than death by far.
***
She hadn’t realized how much she hated silence.
It wasn’t just the ache in her arms from scrubbing the floors of the packhouse, or the rawness of her fingers from wringing out dirty water.
It was the quiet.
No one spoke to her. They barely acknowledged her at all. She should have been relieved, but their eyes lingered. They were curious and untrusting.
Leon hadn’t crossed her mind all morning. She refused to let him. She refused to think about his hands on her jaw, the way he had hesitated.
But as she scrubbed the dirt from the wooden floors, her thoughts drifted somewhere else.
Somewhere worse.
Luke.
Her stomach twisted. She had tried not to love him. She had fought not to love him. Back then, before Lilith had gotten her claws in him, Luke had been kind.
She had been twelve the first time she saw him fight—really fight. He had been taller than the other boys, broader, his bronze skin glistening with sweat as he took down his opponent with terrifying ease.
And afterward—when the other warriors cheered for him, when Lilith made sure everyone knew how impressed she was—Luke had still found Celine in the crowd.
She remembered the way he had smiled, easy and familiar. The way he had asked for her opinion after his fights like she was the one person in the world who mattered.
“When you become Luna, I’ll be honored to be in your Guard,” Luke told her once.
Like she wasn’t the weak link in their bloodline. And she had been foolish enough to let that moment live in her heart. Foolish enough to hold on to it.
She remembers it clearly. The two of them by the river at the edge of the territory, Luke dragging his fingers through the water, Celine trying to memorize the way his arms flexed when he moved.
“You’re quiet tonight,” he had murmured, the golden glow of the lanterns making his skin look like it was carved from bronze.
She had shrugged, feigning indifference, but he had seen right through her.
He always did.
“Celine.” He had said her name softly, just for her. And she had wondered, wildly, foolishly, what it would feel like to kiss him.
She had been sixteen. She had told herself it was nothing. And then, not even a year later—Lilith had taken him from her.
Lilith, with her golden hair and easy cruelty, had taken the last thing Celine had let herself want. She’d smiled when she did it—wrapped herself around Luke, and said, “Did you really think someone like him would want you?”
The words had cut deep, like a knife. A knife Celine couldn’t pull out.
Her hands shook as she twisted the rag, trying to ignore the sting of it all.
She had tried everything to forget him, trying to scrub his touch, his voice, his presence from her thoughts. But Lilith had made sure Luke was burned into her, whether she wanted him there or not.
And then the bucket clattered. Celine blinked. She wasn’t in Midnight Crest, she wasn’t that girl anymore. She was here. In this pack. That life was dead.
She squeezed the water from the cloth one last time, reaching for the next bucket when—
“Lick my boot, or I’ll slit your throat!”
The words snapped through the air.
Celine froze.