Chapter 6

Elara Thorne POV:

Ryker's command to leave was my salvation, but I knew the performance wasn't over yet. I couldn't just get up and walk away. That would look like defiance. I had to see this through to its bitter end.

Remaining on the floor, my forehead still pressed to the cold marble, I let out a sound that was half-sob, half-gasp of gratitude. "Thank you, Alpha," I whimpered, my voice muffled and thick with manufactured emotion. "Thank you for your mercy..."

Slowly, as if every joint in my body ached, I pushed myself up. My movements were deliberately shaky, my limbs trembling with the supposed aftershocks of my emotional breakdown. Once I was on my feet, I didn't look at Ryker. I didn't look at anyone. My entire focus went to the wooden box, which I snatched up and hugged to my chest like a drowning woman clinging to a piece of driftwood.

I pressed my cheek against the smooth, cool lid, stroking it as I began to mutter, just loud enough for those nearby to hear. "It's okay now... Father... They won't hurt you anymore. We're safe now."

I was playing the part of a woman unhinged by grief, a poor, mad creature talking to a box of her father's remains. It was a far less threatening role than that of a jealous, malicious Luna. It made me an object of pity, not of scorn.

I risked a glance at Ryker from beneath my lashes. The disgust in his eyes had deepened. I had ruined his perfect day, sullied his celebration with my pathetic, female hysteria. He wanted me gone.

His nephews, Zane and Freya, were staring at me, their young faces a mixture of fear and confusion. "Mommy," Zane whispered loudly to Lyra, "what's wrong with Aunt Elara?"

The child's innocent question made Ryker's jaw tighten. This was an unseemly display for the pack's young. It was a stain on his authority.

He waved a dismissive hand at two of Lyra's maids who were hovering nearby. "What are you waiting for? Escort the Luna to her chambers. See that she rests."

The two women rushed forward. Their hands on my arms were less of a support and more of a restraint, their only goal to remove me from the public eye as quickly as possible. I allowed myself to go limp, letting them half-drag, half-carry me, my feet stumbling, my eyes glazed over and vacant. I was the perfect picture of a shattered mind.

As they guided me past Lyra, I let my head loll to the side, my empty gaze meeting hers for a fraction of a second. In that fleeting moment, I let the mask slip. I let her see the arctic, bottomless chasm of cold that had opened up inside me. I saw her flinch, a tiny, involuntary shudder, before I let the vacant, foolish expression slide back into place. She would dismiss it as a trick of the light, a figment of her imagination.

They hustled me through the thinning crowd and toward the grand staircase. I could hear the whispers trailing in our wake.

"Poor thing. She never did get over her father's death."

"The Alpha is so patient. Another man would have had her locked away."

Their pity was a shield. I let their condescension wash over me, feeling nothing. I had won. That's all that mattered.

As I disappeared around the bend of the staircase, I heard Ryker's voice boom through the hall, forcibly cheerful, desperately trying to reclaim control. "A small interruption, my friends! My apologies. Let the Naming Ceremony continue!"

The music swelled, a flimsy bandage over a gaping wound.

The moment the door to my chambers closed behind me, the transformation was instantaneous. The madness, the fragility, the brokenness-it all evaporated like mist. My back hit the heavy wood of the door, and a violent tremor wracked my body, a reaction of pure, unadulterated rage and adrenaline. I slid down to the floor, the box still clutched in my hands.

With trembling fingers, I lifted the lid. I looked at the soft, grey ashes, the final, tangible evidence of my daughter. The tears that came now were not for show. They were silent, hot, and full of a hatred so potent it felt like it could dissolve steel. It was a grief that had curdled into something dark and terrible.

*We will not forget this,* Ivy growled in my mind, her voice no longer a howl of pain, but a low, predatory snarl. *He, and that she-wolf he calls a sister, will pay for this day.*

I ran my fingers through the ashes, the texture a soft, heartbreaking caress. My eyes, when I lifted them, were no longer empty. They were hard, focused, and utterly resolute.

I leaned down and whispered to the box, a vow made in the silent sanctuary of my room. "Rest now, my sweet girl. I promise you, Mommy will make them all regret the day they were ever born."