I lay on the floor, the world a meaningless blur of motion and sound around me. Ethan's words echoed in the hollow space where my heart used to be. But beneath the roaring of his accusations, something was stirring. A memory. A single, sharp fragment from that night, rising from the depths where I had buried it.

The world dissolved.

**[Flashback]**

The blood moon hung low and heavy in the sky, staining the world in shades of crimson. The air was alive with the sounds of the celebration-the crackle of the bonfire, the thumping of a drum, the laughter of young wolves drunk on beer and possibility.

I saw myself, a younger, more naive version, in a simple white dress. I stood at the edge of the clearing, a shy spectator, watching my sister, Celeste. She was the center of it all, a queen in her element, her laughter like bells.

Then Alpha Kieran Valerius had walked toward her. The moment their eyes met, the world seemed to hold its breath. The sparks were real, a visible shimmer in the air between them. A murmur went through the crowd. The Goddess had blessed them.

My heart had swelled with so much happiness for her. I raised my cup of cider in a silent toast.

It was then that a server, one I didn't recognize, his face a blur in my memory, approached me. He held out a different cup, a darker, richer vintage. "A special toast," he'd said, his voice smooth. "For the Alpha's other daughter."

I'd smiled, touched by the gesture, and drank it down without a second thought.

The drink was spicy, with a strange, bitter aftertaste of herbs I didn't recognize. I assumed it was just part of the ceremonial brew.

But then a strange heat began to spread through my limbs. The world started to soften at the edges, the drumbeat growing louder, more insistent in my blood. A dizzying wave of vertigo washed over me. Lyra began to whine and claw at the inside of my mind, agitated, trapped.

I needed to get away, to find some air. I stumbled away from the firelight, my legs feeling clumsy and disconnected from my body. My vision swam.

I remember the feel of the cool night air on my feverish skin. I remember trying to make it back to my room in the Packhouse.

And then... nothing. A black, gaping void in my memory.

The next thing I knew, I was being ripped back to consciousness by a pain that was not of the body, but of the soul. It was the searing, brutal agony of a mate bond being forged by force, a brand on my very essence.

I gasped, my eyes flying open. I was in my own room, staring up at my own ceiling. But the air was thick with a scent that did not belong there-the overwhelming, intoxicating scent of a thunderstorm and pine. Kieran's scent. It was everywhere, sinking into my skin, claiming me.

A wave of panic seized me. I was naked. And Kieran was lying beside me, equally bare, his eyes closed, seemingly unconscious.

I tried to scream, but my throat was paralyzed.

That's when the door flew open, slamming against the wall.

Celeste stood in the doorway, her face a portrait of pure joy, a smile just beginning to form. And then her eyes found us. The smile froze, shattered, and was replaced by a look of such profound shock and devastation that it was physically painful to witness. Her lips trembled, but no sound came out.

Behind her, my father appeared, then my mother, then the elders, their faces a gallery of horror.

I would never forget my father's eyes. Not fury. Not rage. Just a deep, bottomless disappointment. The look of a man watching his most prized possession being ground into the dirt.

My mother made a small, strangled sound and collapsed.

And Ethan... Ethan launched himself into the room like a rabid animal, his face contorted in a mask of murderous rage, roaring my name. The elders had to physically restrain him.

**[End Flashback]**

I came back to myself with a violent, racking cough, my body convulsing on the cold floor of the medical wing.

I remembered.

The drink. The bitter, herbal taste.

It wasn't just a special brew. It was Wolfsbane.

A poison to our kind in large doses. But in small, carefully prepared amounts, it acted as a powerful aphrodisiac, a mind-altering drug that could confuse the senses and, most importantly, subdue a wolf's inner instincts, leaving the human half vulnerable and suggestible.

I wasn't the predator. I was the prey.

We both were. Kieran and I. We had both been drugged.

The truth, a decade late, hit me like a bolt of lightning, illuminating the dark corners of my mind. I wasn't a monster. I was a victim.

A surge of adrenaline, of pure, unadulterated rage, flooded my system. I had to tell them. I had to make them see.

I pushed myself up, my limbs shaking, my eyes scanning the faces around me. I saw Ethan's sneer. My mother's averted, grief-stricken gaze. The elders' cold, impassive expressions.

And the lightning of revelation was followed by the crushing thunder of reality.

Ten years had passed. My word against theirs. The word of a disgraced outcast against the memory of a perfect, heartbroken princess. I had no proof. No witness.

If I screamed the truth now, they would see it as nothing more than the desperate, pathetic lie of a cornered sinner.

Chapter 5

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