🦋 ALTHEA
Ivanna stepped inside, alone, and fear wedged itself deep into my bones. I shuffled on the bed, cradling my injuries. My lungs refused to expand past my chest as my ribs ached. Once the adrenaline and shock from my exchange with her mother faded, the pain made itself known.
I bit back a scream as Ivanna ca closer, her expression not as openly hostile as her mother’s. Hers was unreadable, like she had raised walls around herself that no one could scale.
My dread only festered as she closed the distance between us in a few strides. The Moon’s Betrayal
The air beca a taut rope as neither of us spoke. The tension humd an eerie tune as we stared at one another.
She finally spoke, her words lacking inflection. "Strip," she ordered.
Ice flooded my veins.
I blinked in horror, not sure if I had heard her correctly. The last thing I wanted was to be even more vulnerable before these people.
My skin crawled as if her eyes were already raking over my bare flesh.
She spoke again, this ti her mask splintered just enough to hear the ire leaking through. "Strip, or I won’t be able to heal you properly."
My jaw dropped, confusion flaring bright and hot. "You want to—" Discomfort and temptation warred within in equal asure.
She rolled her eyes, close to fuming. Her lips contorted into a scowl. "I haven’t got all day," she said, her voice low and clipped.
And I found myself pulling my tunic up. I held my breath, waiting for her to gloat—because beyond the bruises on my chest, there were other deep, roughly healed lacerations all over my torso. They were deep and crudely stitched, discolored and, to so physicians, revolting.
She looked down, and I braced myself for laughter or amusent.
Her eyes did gleam—the light browns in her hazel orbs shining as she took in the sewn-up ss of my torso—but it was more surprise before it dulled to nothing.
No mockery ca.
No sharp-edged comnt about weakness or ugliness.
She just... looked.
Then her hand lifted, hovering just above the worst of the scars—a jagged line that ran from my collarbone to my navel, the stitching uneven, the flesh puckered and angry even after all this ti.
"Who did this?" she asked quietly.
I didn’t answer.
Couldn’t.
Because the answer was too complicated, too damning, too exposing.
Her jaw tightened. "Whoever it was," she murmured, "they weren’t trying to heal you. They were trying to keep you alive just long enough to hurt you again."
The observation landed like a slap.
Because she was right.
Every scar, every poorly healed wound—they weren’t accidents. They were maintenance. Keeping functional enough to torture. To use. To break again and again without letting die.
"This will hurt," Ivanna said, her tone still flat, but sothing softer edged the words now. "But it’ll hurt less than leaving it."
Her hands moved to my ribs, fingers pressing lightly against the bruised flesh. I hissed, jerking back instinctively.
"Hold still," she ordered.
I forced myself to breathe through the pain as warmth blood beneath her palms—not the searing heat of injury, but sothing else. Sothing that felt like sunlight filtering through water, gentle and pervasive.
Healing magic.
I’d felt it before, in fleeting monts when Morgana had deed too broken to continue without repair. But this was different. It wasn’t the rough, clumsy hands of newly recruited Deltas who needed a living, breathing practice dummy.
My mother would only allow new Deltas to heal —or at least attempt to.
But Ivanna’s touch held no roughness, no clumsiness.
It felt... careful.
"Why are you doing this?" I whispered, the question slipping free before I could stop it.
Her hands paused for just a mont. "The Gamma guards at your door let know that you hurt yourself."
They let her mother in. They heard exactly what was done to . But they had no loyalty to .
Her healing light turned from warm to slightly hot. I winced.
"And I will not let Thorne worry himself because of your clumsiness," she said, her words acerbic. "It is bad enough you are in his room."
The heat increased—not enough to burn, but enough to remind this was no act of kindness.
This was damage control.
The deft hand of resentnt was the best I would ever get, so I nodded. I had made a deal with her mother. Even if I wasn’t sure whether Ivanna knew what her mother was doing, whether she herself was complicit in whatever plan my mother had woven—I knew not to prod.
She knew what she knew, and I knew what I knew.
I had no interest in any more explosions.
Between us, I was the only one without a wolf.
"Done," she announced, pulling away from and making her way toward the door. "Try to stay out of trouble."
She said it just as she crossed the threshold, slamming the door behind her.
And I was left alone again, healed on the surface but aching beneath.
_______________________________________
THORNE
"She is dangerous to you, Thorne," Zeta Lysandra lanted, shaking her head. "She will be the death of you and the death of this clan."
"I will be the one to decide that," I replied, my tone lacking emotion.
It was Zeta Riven’s turn to shake his head. "She is already getting under your thick skin. She survived the mist, she survived your gaze, she turns out to be your mate. These cannot be coincidences. Once again, the fates are weaving events to complete what the allied packs failed to do decades ago. And you are leading us into Lycaon’s jaws."
"The moon has—" the crone began.
"Betrayed us," Zeta Lysandra bellowed, rising and slamming her fist on the round table. "Turned its back on us long before this. The moon watched as we lost our Luna, our husbands, wives, and our pups. It watched as the greatest pack in the realm was reduced to destitution and despair in one night. Alice, have you forgotten?"
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