Chapter 5

Seraphina POV

The dimly lit corridor was a stark contrast to the dazzling Golden Ball. The thick crimson carpet muffled my footsteps as stern portraits of past Black Moon Alphas glared down at me from shadowed walls. I just needed a moment to breathe, away from the suffocating politics and prying eyes.

But I didn't even have time to exhale before a violent surge of winter pine and ozone hit me.

A large hand clamped down on my upper arm, the touch sending a traitorous electric current straight to my marrow. Before I could react, I was shoved roughly against the wall, trapped between the expensive vintage wallpaper and Kaelen's towering frame.

His obsidian eyes were wild, burning with a toxic mixture of rage, betrayal, and primal possessiveness. But I knew his anger wasn't because he had just discovered who I was. He had seen me standing beside Dominic at the ball. He had already understood the meaning of the surname. His anger was because I dared to come back, because his world was falling apart at this moment, and he didn't know how to handle it.

"You think you can just show up like this?" he growled, his voice a deadly whisper that vibrated against my skin. "With his scent on you, wearing his clothes, and just walk away unscathed?"

My inner wolf, Selene, bared her teeth, her silver fur bristling at the disrespect. I forced my chin up, refusing to yield to the heavy Alpha aura he was trying to crush me with.

"Let me go, Kaelen."

His grip tightened, the severed mate-bond humming painfully beneath our skin. "Is this the example you're setting for my daughter?" he spat, his gaze dropping to my lips before snapping back to my eyes. "Five years. You disappeared for five years, hiding her somewhere I couldn't find. What have you been teaching her? How to run away like you?"

A blazing fury ignited in my chest. "You have no right to speak her name," I hissed, pushing my hands against his solid chest. "You drove us out, Kaelen. You kept Liam and threw us away like garbage. What right do you have to accuse me of anything?"

Something flickered across his face, something that looked like pain, or confusion. "I-"

Before he could finish, the cloying mixture of artificial flowers, vanilla, and sharp mint invaded the narrow space.

"There you are, Kae." Cassondra cooed, emerging from the shadows with Vanessa and Elara flanking her like a pack of hounds. Cassondra immediately latched onto Kaelen's free arm, her eyes gleaming with malicious jealousy when she noticed our proximity.

Vanessa visibly froze when she saw me. Her gaze flickered away, unable to meet my eyes, let alone her brother's. She had already been publicly humiliated once tonight at the ball, and now her face was etched with tension and unease, completely devoid of the arrogant spite she had shown when throwing her wine.

Elara, Kaelen's mother, stepped forward, her face carved from ice. "Some stains can never be washed away," she said coldly.

"Not now," Kaelen growled at them. Yet his hand remained wrapped around my arm, his knuckles white. He was torn between the excuses he had woven for his cruel actions and the mate-bond that made his inner wolf, Draegan, scream at him not to let go.

The combined hostility of their scents was suffocating. Drawing on Selene's strength, I wrenched my arm free from Kaelen's grasp and stepped out of his shadow.

"Stay away from her."

The low, earth-shaking command penetrated the floor. Dominic strode down the corridor, his tall frame immediately blocking me from the Black Moon wolves. His rich cedar and earth scent dispelled the toxic air and grounded me.

"Lord Rhodes," Kaelen said quickly, his Alpha mask snapping back into place. "We still have matters of alliance to discuss. Your-"

"Sister," Dominic interrupted, his voice calm but edged with steel. "My sister, Steele. You should have understood that from what I said at the ball. Or did you not bother to check her surname when you rejected her five years ago?"

Kaelen froze. He stared at Dominic, then at me, the color draining from his handsome face. Rhodes. The name detonated in his mind, not for the first time. He had already realized it at the ball. But now it landed with a new, heavier weight. He realized that the woman he had rejected with his own hands five years ago was not a backgroundless orphan, but the sister of the Silverwood Pack's Alpha.

He realized that the ally he had been desperately seeking, his only hope of saving his son, was the brother of the woman he had humiliated and cast out.

He realized that every lie he had ever believed about her being unworthy of him had, at this moment, turned into a blade aimed at his own throat.

Dominic's Alpha aura exploded outward, that overwhelming pressure causing several nearby wolves to stumble and bare their necks. "Any alliance is built on respect," Dominic continued, his voice echoing in the sudden silence of the corridor. "And you, five years ago you humiliated my sister, and tonight you allowed your people to attack her in public. Perhaps I should reconsider whether you and your pack are still worth a chance."

The power dynamic shattered in an instant, only to be rebuilt in my hands. Kaelen stared at me, humiliated and cornered by his desperate need for Silverwood's military support against the Rogue threat, not to mention the impending death of his son Liam. For the first time in five years, I was no longer the victim. I held the blade.

Kaelen clenched his jaw so hard I thought his teeth might crack. He swallowed his pride and stiffly pointed toward the glass doors leading outside.

"Then let us talk privately on the terrace."

I did not flinch. I met his gaze and walked into the night.