"Corel…" I remembered suddenly.
One of the mid-ranked warriors. I've seen him at training, heard him laughing with the others. He's not laughing now.
He's smiling, and it's so much worse.
"Poor little Kira," he says, his voice almost sympathetic. "In heat and all alone. Your mate announces his new chosen Luna, and you didn't even feel it, did you?"
He takes another step closer, and I take another step back, my shoulders hitting the wall.
"The betrayal bond-pain that should've dropped you to your knees… But nothing. Not even a flicker."
My heart hammers against my ribs. He's right. I should have felt something when Theron chose Celeste. Every wolf knows that a mate's betrayal burns like acid through the bond.
But I felt just my own heart breaking.
Just my damned heat.
"How broken do you have to be," Corel continues, his head tilting like he's genuinely curious, "to not even register when your mate balls-deep in another female? What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing's wrong with me," I whisper, but the words sound hollow even to my own ears.
"No?" He's close enough now that I can smell him. "Because a normal wolf would've shifted by now. Would've been something other than this pathetic, heat-drunk mess you are."
My wolf snarls inside my mind, but she can't help me. Can't do anything but rage uselessly while I'm trapped in this body. Pressed against this wall, with nowhere to run.
"Stay away from me." I try to put force behind the words, but they come out shaky. Desperate.
"Why would I do that?" Corel's smile widens. "You clearly need… help. And I'm feeling charitable tonight. My cock especially."
His hand shoots out, fingers clamping around my elbow hard enough to make me gasp while his other hand grabs my waist, pulling me forward.
"No…" The word catches in my throat as his fingers dig deeper into my body, finding soft flesh. "Let go!"
"Come on, Kira." His breath is hot against my face. "You're burning up. Your mate doesn't want you. The pack doesn't want you. But I'm here, aren't I? I'm offering…"
"Help!" The scream tears out of me, echoing down the empty corridor. "Someone—anyone—help!"
"No one's coming.” Corel laughs. “They're all at the feast, celebrating your replacement. You think anyone cares if I—"
He doesn't finish. Someone slams into him from the side with enough force to make his grip on me break.
I stumble, catching myself against the wall as Corel crashes to the floor with another body on top of him. There's a sickening crunch, fist meeting bone, and Corel's cry of pain.
"Get off— You can't!" Corel's words dissolve into a wheeze as he's flipped onto his stomach, one arm wrenched behind his back.
"She said no." The voice is low, cold, absolutely devoid of emotion. "Or do you need me to explain what that word means?"
Another sickening crack, and Corel howls. Then he's scrambling away the moment the pressure releases, clutching his arm as he staggers to his feet. Blood streams from his nose.
He looks at his attacker, and something like fear flashes across his face. "Malik… I was just—"
"Leaving." The word is final. "Now."
Corel doesn't argue. He runs, disappearing around the corner with his footsteps echoing back like a fleeing animal.
Then the man turns to face me.
I know him. Of course I know him. Everyone in the pack knows Malik.
He's a proverbial story, the kind of tale mothers tell their pups to inspire them. Born as Omega—the lowest rank, meant for menial labor and submission. But he clawed his way up through sheer will and brutal competence.
Omega to Warrior. Warrior to Enforcer. Enforcer to Gamma, Head of the Pack's security. Always serious. Always focused. The kind of wolf who commands respect through action, not words.
I've seen him from a distance countless times. Watched him train warriors in the yard. Heard his name spoken with a mixture of admiration and wariness.
But I've never stood this close to him before.
He's so tall, even taller than Theron, with dark hair pulled back and eyes like chips of obsidian. There's a scar running from his left eyebrow to his cheekbone, and another across his jaw.
His posture is perfectly controlled, radiating a kind of coiled danger that makes my wolf go very, very still.
"Are you hurt?" His voice is flat.
I shake my head, not trusting my voice. My heat is still burning through me. Made worse by the adrenaline, the fear, the lingering ghost of Corel's hands on my body.
And now this. This man is standing in front of me. Who just saved me, who's looking at me with absolutely no expression on his scarred face.
Something dangerous unfurls in my chest. Gratitude, yes. But also something else. Something that makes me want to step closer, to—
"There's a servant's room in the east wing," Malik says, shattering whatever insane thought was forming in my heat-addled brain. "It's already prepared for you. Try not to die before you get there."
The words hit me like cold water. My eyes burn with tears I refuse to let fall.
He doesn't wait for a response. Just turns and walks away, leaving me alone in the hallway with my shame and my heat and the marks Corel's fingers left on my skin.
I don't let myself cry. Not yet.
Instead, I stumble back to what used to be my chambers—the Luna's chambers, though they were never truly mine. Everything is as I left it, but it feels like looking at someone else's life.
Someone who doesn't exist anymore.
I gather what I can carry. A change of clothes. The hair comb my mother gave me before she died. A small, leather-bound journal I've never had the courage to write in.
Everything else—the fine dresses, the jewelry Theron gave me during our "courtship," the Luna gown I never got to wear—I leave behind.
I won't be allowed to keep them anyway.
The walk to the east wing feels endless. My feet drag, my body screaming with exhaustion and heat and pain. When I finally find the room Malik mentioned, I almost laugh.
It's tiny. Barely bigger than Theron's closet. A mattress on the floor with a thin pillow and a threadbare blanket. A barrel of water in the corner for washing. Nothing else.
No windows. No warmth. Just stone walls and a door that doesn't lock.
"I guess this is my new chamber," I announce to the empty room, and my voice sounds morbid even to my own ears.
I drop my few belongings in the corner and sink onto the mattress. It's lumpy, smelling faintly of mildew, but I curl up on it anyway, making myself as small as possible.
Knees to chest. Arms wrapped tight. Like if I compress myself enough, maybe I'll disappear entirely.
The evening's events swirl through my mind in a nauseating spiral. Theron with Celeste in the grove. The feast. The cruel laughter. The brands burning into my wrists. The blood debt I never knew existed. My parents… traitors.
Corel's hands on me. His words. ‘How broken do you have to be?’
Malik's cold dismissal. ‘Try not to die before you get there.’
And underneath it all, the constant, burning need of my heat. My body demands something my mind can't give it. Won't give it.
I press my face into the pillow and try to think. Try to plan.
Because this can't be it. This can't be my life—trapped, bound, used. Serving the pack that mocks me. Living in a room barely fit for storage. Being prey for wolves like Corel while Theron fucks his new mate in the chambers that should have been mine.
An idea begins to form at the edges of my mind. Not fully realized yet. Not complete. But it's there, crystallizing with each painful breath.
I won't let Theron humiliate me any further.