🦋ALTHEA
The crone’s silence stretched too fucking long, as if she were weighing sothing far heavier than the scene in front of her. Her one seeing eye lingered on , unblinking, and I felt it skim the surface of my skin and sink deeper, probing for fracture lines, for weakness, for truth.
I did not give her any. It would ruin the plan.
She is a smart wrench, don’t give her enough to read you.
My posture remained slack, my gaze unfocused, my mouth set in a faint, careless curve—as though the weight of the sanctum that I had ruined and the Alpha himself were all equally beneath my notice. Inside, my pulse battered against my ribs, but I kept my breathing shallow and uneven on purpose, a practiced imitation of instability rather than fear.
Ivanka had warned about this one.
She does not hate easily, she had said. That is why she is dangerous.
The crone’s brow creased slightly, more in thought than in anger. I could almost feel her sifting through the echoes I had left behind in the morial hall, testing whether the madness there had been real—or rely convincing.
Spit thickened at the back of my throat. I dared not swallow.
Across the room, Thorne stood rigid, his presence a blade pressed between my shoulders. I did not look at him, but I felt him—felt the tight coil of his restraint, the way his attention circled like a restrained predator trying to decide whether to strike or retreat.
I was used to being watched.
My entire life had been spent under eyes that asured, judged, and calculated my worth in terms of usefulness or pain. I had learned long ago how to survive scrutiny. How to beco exactly what they expected to see.
But this—this was different. The crone’s gaze was not cruel. It was curious.
That, sohow, was worse.
I let out a small, breathless laugh before I could stop myself, the sound brittle enough to draw attention without sounding forced. "I know," I said lightly, tilting my head as if the realization had only just occurred to . "You can see it, can’t you?"
The crone’s lips parted, just barely. "See what, dear?" Her tone was gentle. Almost indulgent.
I laughed again, this ti fuller, sharper, the sound ringing too loud in the sanctum. "Oh, don’t play coy," I replied, finally lifting my eyes to et hers directly. "Not you. Not after all this."
A murmur rippled through the gathered elders.
"I know what you are," I continued, gesturing vaguely toward her face, her sightless eye. "And I know what you’ve been staring at since you walked in."
Her head inclined a fraction. "And what would that be?"
I smiled. "That I am ant to stand beside him," I said, my voice gaining confidence with every word. "That the moon didn’t drag through the mist, through blood and ash and ruin, just to leave kneeling at his feet."
Thorne moved then, a sharp, restless step forward. "Grandmother," he snapped, frustration breaking through his composure. "Do you hear this? She’s speaking nonsense. Why is this happening?"
His voice carried more heat than he likely intended.
I turned my gaze toward him at last, letting my eyes rake over his face as though appraising sothing that already belonged to .
"Oh, don’t pretend you don’t feel it," I said softly. "You’ve been fighting it since the first night."
"That is enough," he growled.
But I wasn’t finished. "I even arranged for you to be attacked," I went on, my tone almost conversational, as if discussing a minor inconvenience. "Did you know that?"
The room erupted.
Thorne’s head snapped toward . "What?"
I shrugged, careless. "I needed to test you. To see if the bond was real—or if the moon had made a mistake."
"You’re lying," he said flatly, though his jaw was clenched so tightly I could see the strain along his throat.
"Am I?" I asked. "You were in pain. Bleeding out. And yet—" I lifted my hands slightly, palms up, "—when I touched you, you stabilized."
I let the silence stretch, like a bow pulled taut.
"No other woman could do that," I added. "Not your healers. Not your pack. Only ."
The crone’s gaze sharpened.
"And the moon," I continued, my voice lowering, threading conviction through every syllable, "does not grant reprieve without purpose."
Thorne stared at like he was seeing a stranger wearing my skin. "You planned all of this?" he demanded.
I smiled at him then, the slow curl of my lips unrepentant. "The moon planned it," I corrected. "I simply listened."
The crone said nothing but her eye never left my face.
"Grandmother, can you tell what is happening? The last thing we need in this clan are more unsolved mysteries, and I am one strike away from severing her head from her neck if she as much as utters another word about owning . "His face hardened, hate etched into every line of his face. And even as a terrible chill snaked down my spine at the acidic expression—at least I knew it was working.
"He pretends not to care about her opinions but she is his weakness." Ivanka’s voice rang in my ears.
Despite his stubbornness, her opinion mattered. Or she would not be here.
We were close to our goal.
When I was gone, my words and actions were what he would rember. Not my pathetically quivering form, or my little conversation with his sassy raven, or my touch on his ripped and bloodied skin. When my na ca to mind, the mate bond thrumd in his spine, he would rember that I desecrated his mother’s sanctum, called her an obstacle in our path and claid him as mine before his pack with all the revolting ego of a pack-born.
Those were the mories I was leaving behind.
Because I had been fated once before, and even as Draven held down while the moon watched, so part of still dared to hope the tis when he had been the only light in my wretched world had not yet ended.
Love was one thing, a force all on its own, but a mate bond was another entirely.
It was a shackle dressed up as fate, a hunger that did not ask whether you could survive what it demanded—only whether you would submit. I had learned that lesson with blood under my nails and teeth clenched so hard my jaw had ached for weeks after. Love could be chosen. Endured. Even lost.
A mate bond took.
It hollowed you out. It trampled on logic, danced with fate and decayed morality if it willed it.
And as much as he hated , his masked kindness, his need to protect, his instinctual nature to be tender. I was not blind, though in this case I wished I was.
It would have made it easier.
But nothing had ever been easy.
For .
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