Allison POV
Evening settles over the pack grounds like a held breath, lights strung between trees and along the courtyard flaring to life one by one, warmth pooling where shadows had lived an hour ago, and for the first ti since the council chamber cracked open the past, the pack feels open.
Not unanimous, not perfect, but open.
Long tables are set under the trees, food steaming, laughter threading through the air in cautious waves that grow steadier with every greeting, and I move through it all with my shoulders back and my focus wide, returning smiles, eting eyes, answering questions without deflecting or shrinking, because tonight matters and everyone knows it.
Hands clasp mine and mindlinks brush politely, curious and tentative, so warm, so guarded, most honest.
’Welco,’ soone sends, relief plain.
’Glad you’re here,’ another adds, quieter but sincere.
Council mbers approach in pairs or alone, questions careful, voices low, asking about ops boundaries, about how the changes will affect their families, about what it ans to have a future Luna who doesn’t fit the mold they were taught to expect, and I answer what I can, promise transparency where I must, and watch sothing fragile and hopeful take root in the spaces where fear used to live.
When they leave, most do so with a nod that ans support. Not blind, but chosen.
Ruby hums beneath my skin, alert and pleased, tails flicking with contained satisfaction.
’They’re listening,’ she says.
’They are,’ I answer, letting myself feel it without clinging to it.
I scan for the triplets without thinking, habit and instinct braided together now, expecting to catch Ethan’s steady presence near the head table, Ezra’s laugh sowhere to my right, Elijah’s calm close enough that I can feel it even without looking.
They aren’t where I expect them but that doesn’t worry .
Then a pack mber approaches, soone I recognize by sight if not by na, posture deferential, expression earnest in the way people get when they think they’re part of sothing exciting.
"They asked to find you," he says quietly, leaning in so his voice doesn’t carry. "The Alphas. They said to et them at the treeline, before dinner starts. They’ve got a surprise." My first instinct is to mindlink them, but when I try it flickers.
Not blocked, not jamd. Just busy.
The pack’s collective hum is loud right now, overlapping conversations and greetings crowding the channel, and I hesitate for half a heartbeat, weighing the mont, the trust I’ve built, the way the man in front of doesn’t feel wrong.
’Just a minute,’ I link to no one in particular, more habit than warning, and step back.
"I’ll be right back," I tell Abigail as I pass her, earning a knowing smirk and a raised brow. "Apparently I’m being stolen."
"Figures." She chuckles.
I follow the pack mber toward the treeline, the lights thinning behind us, the sounds of the dinner softening into background noise, and with each step the world narrows a little more, the air cooling, the scent of earth and leaves replacing smoke and food.
The trees close in, the ground slopes, and then it’s wrong.
I feel it a split second before it happens, Ruby’s warning flaring sharp and furious,
’Allison..’
Hands slam into from behind.
Magic snaps tight around my throat like a collar, cold and choking, my breath tearing out in a sharp gasp as I stumble, claws scraping for a purchase that isn’t there, and a sharp sting bites into my neck before I can form a thought.
"No," I snarl, twisting, but my limbs go heavy imdiately, strength bleeding out of like water through sand, my vision blurring at the edges.
Drugged deliberately.
I try to scream, but nothing cos out.
The forest tilts, shadows saring, and the last thing I register before the dark takes is Ruby’s rage, white-hot and feral, slamming against the inside of my skin.
’Let out,’ she roars. ’I will tear them apart!’
’Not yet,’ I force back, clinging to the thought like a lifeline even as everything slips. ’Not yet. We need ti.’ Then darkness takes hard and fast.
When I wake, the world is stone and damp and cold.
My head throbs in a slow, nauseating rhythm, the air thick with the scent of old earth and tal, and it takes a mont to understand why I can’t move, why every breath feels constrained.
Chains.
Cold iron circles my neck, heavier than anything I’ve ever worn, anchored into the wall behind , another binding my ankles, limiting even the smallest shift, and the magic woven into them hums low and vicious, suppressive rather than painful, designed to contain rather than torture. It doesn’t bite, and it doesn’t even touch my magic enough to suppress anything. It’s just annoying.
For now I keep my eyes closed. Keep my breathing shallow.
Play dead.
Footsteps echo nearby, voices carrying through the space with careless confidence, and I recognize them imdiately.
Lizzy’s laugh cuts through first, sharp and unhinged.
"She’s nothing," she spits. "Nothing. And they chose her." I feel Ruby slam against the bindings, fury incandescent.
’Let ..’
’Quiet,’ I push back gently but firmly, every instinct screaming in protest. ’Please. We need to hear this.’
Lizzy paces, boots scraping stone.
"I did everything right. Everything. I was the obvious choice. Wolf. Loyal. Willing to sacrifice whatever it took for the pack. And they threw it away for a fox."
Jack’s voice answers her, smooth and malicious.
"They’ll regret it. All of them." The sound of him here, of all places, sends a cold shock through even as part of had already suspected it.
"You promised," Lizzy snarls. "You promised they’d listen."
"I promised to try," Jack replies calmly. "And when that failed, I promised to fix it."
Another voice joins them, older, clipped, unmistakable.
Harlan.
"This is risky," he says, irritation threaded through his words. "If she’s found.."
"She won’t be," Maren cuts in, her tone brittle with contempt. "And even if she is, the damage will already be done."
Lizzy laughs again, breathless.
"They’re going to break when they can’t find her. They’ll tear the pack apart themselves." Jack hums thoughtfully.
"Or they’ll co. All of them. And then we’ll finish it."
The plan unfolds in pieces as they talk, confident in my silence, in my supposed unconsciousness, details slipping loose because they believe they’ve already won, and I catalog everything, ti fras, locations, the way they keep referring to the pack dinner as if it’s leverage rather than coincidence.
They want my mates distracted. The pack pulled thin and everyone desperate.
Ruby shakes with barely contained violence inside .
’I can kill them,’ she growls. ’Right now.’
’You can,’ I answer silently, steady despite the fear coiling tight in my chest. ’But if you do, they’ll know. And the pack will co blind.’ I swallow, forcing my breath to stay even.
’We buy ti,’ I continue. ’We listen. We rember. And when the mont cos we end this.’ Ruby stills, fury compressing into sothing razor-sharp.
’I will follow you,’ she says finally. ’But they will bleed.’
I don’t open my eyes and I don’t move.
I let them keep talking, let them believe the drug has done its job, because every second they waste is a second my mates are still free, still searching, still able to tear this place apart once they find the thread that leads here.
And they will find it, I know that with a certainty that doesn’t waver.
For now, I endure. For now, I listen. And when this breaks, when the ground finally gives way under their feet, it won’t be because I was helpless. It will be because they underestimated how much damage a fox, and her wolves, can do when cornered.
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