Chapter 3

Elara Vance POV:

The warriors' grips were like iron bands on my arms as they dragged me from the Great Hall. The eyes of the pack followed me, a mixture of scorn and morbid curiosity. My dignity had been publicly shredded, leaving me raw and exposed.

They didn't take me to the clinic. They hauled me up the stairs to the top floor, to the suite I had occupied for three years. It was adjacent to the Alpha's own, a constant, painful reminder of the proximity we shared in space but not in spirit. Kaelen had never once spent a night here. The room was a monument to his rejection, filled with the ghosts of my own lonely hopes.

Finnian followed us in, a scroll in his hand. His face was all business. "By order of the Alpha," he stated, his voice flat, "before your... departure, all items belonging to the Blackwood Pack must be surrendered."

Two Omega she-wolves I vaguely recognized entered behind him. Their eyes, however, were anything but vague. They were alight with a malicious glee I had seen festering for years. One of them, I realized with a jolt, was Lyra Thorne, Seraphina's younger sister. She had always looked at me as if I were a stain on her sainted sister's memory.

Lyra went straight to my closet and began pulling out my dresses. She held up a simple blue one, a favorite of mine, before dropping it to the floor and grinding her heel into the soft fabric.

"This kind of material," she sneered, her voice dripping with venom. "What's a lowly Omega like you doing with something so fine?"

My fists clenched at my sides, my nails digging into my palms. I wanted to let Lyra out, to snarl and fight back, but I knew it was pointless. It would only give them more satisfaction. I held my tongue, my silence a thin shield against their cruelty.

Finnian began to read from his list, his voice a monotonous drone. "The suite and all its furnishings are pack property. All clothing provided by the pack, all food rations, the communication crystal..."

As he spoke, the other Omega moved toward me. With a rough tug, she ripped a small silver pendant from my neck. It was a gift Kaelen had given me on my first birthday in the pack, the Blackwood wolf emblem cold and impersonal. He'd given it as his duty, not with affection. I felt no loss as it was taken.

Lyra directed the ransacking with relish, her sharp blue eyes missing nothing. They emptied my drawers, confiscated my books, even took the few coins I had saved. It was a systematic erasure of my existence here.

Finally, they ordered me to strip. I was forced to remove the clothes I wore and put on a rough, scratchy burlap tunic and trousers-the uniform of the lowest-ranking servants.

As I stood there, stripped of everything, Lyra's eyes fell on my wrist. On the simple, dark, and unadorned bracelet I always wore. It was made of a strange, non-reflective black wood.

"What's that piece of trash?" she asked, reaching for it.

"It's nothing," I said, my voice low and steady, pulling my arm back. "It's worthless."

Finnian glanced at it, his expression dismissive. "Leave it. It's not pack property and looks like a piece of junk."

My heart, which I thought had stopped feeling, gave a lurch of pure, unadulterated relief. The bracelet was my mother's. It was the Matron's Mark, the symbol of leadership for the Mooncrest Pack. It was the only thing I had left of my real life, my real identity. And they had missed it.

Unseen by them, Kaelen watched all of this on a monitor in his office. He had told himself it was a necessary, clean break. A matter of pack discipline. But as he saw Lyra Thorne step on my dress, a low, guttural growl rumbled in his chest. His wolf, Fenrir, was furious. An unfamiliar surge of protective rage washed over him, so potent it made him stand.

He slammed the monitor off, the screen going black. He paced his office, the feeling of wrongness a physical itch under his skin. He told himself it was Lyra's disrespect for pack property that angered him, not the insult to me. A lie, and a flimsy one at that.

Back in the suite, once everything of value was gone, I was shoved out the door. The suite was no longer mine. I had nowhere to go. The warriors led me down, down, down, past the main floors, past the kitchens, into the damp, musty basement.

This was where the unranked Omegas lived. In a large, crowded dormitory. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, dampness, and despair. As I entered, a wave of whispers and snickers followed me.

"Look, it's the one who thought she'd be Luna."

"Guess the Alpha finally got tired of her."

I ignored them, finding an empty, rickety bunk in the far corner. I pulled the thin, threadbare blanket over my head, trying to block out the world. My shoulder began to bleed again, a dull, wet warmth seeping through the rough burlap. There would be no Pack Doctor for me now. I would have to rely on my own slow, wolf--heightened healing.

In the suffocating darkness, I clutched the wooden bracelet on my wrist. This was all I had now. This, and a newly forged promise I made to myself. Every humiliation, every ounce of pain they had inflicted on me today, I would one day return to them. Tenfold.

Later, Finnian reported to Kaelen. "It is done, Alpha. She has been moved to the Omega quarters." He paused. "She was calm. She didn't cry or beg."

Kaelen, standing by his window, didn't turn. The news of my composure, my lack of a hysterical breakdown, didn't bring him the satisfaction he'd expected. Instead, that unsettling, irritating feeling intensified. He had expected tears. He had expected pleading. My quiet acceptance felt like a loss of control he couldn't explain.

Her calmness... it was unsettling.