Chapter 3

Juliet POV

The crisp morning air was suffocating, thick with the tension of gathered wolves. Outside the grand gates of the Palmer Packhouse, a fleet of black bulletproof SUVs idled, their engines a low, menacing hum. The Royal Pack escorts stood like statues, radiating lethal discipline.

Beside the lead vehicle sat Prince Bryce in his wheelchair. His face was deathly pale, his eyes swirling with a gloomy, bitter darkness that dared anyone to pity him.

"Get in the car, Juliet," a burly Warrior growled, grabbing my bruised arm to shove me forward.

I dug my heels into the gravel, my blood running cold with absolute resolve. "No."

Alpha Harold stepped out from the crowd, his eyes flashing with a dangerous warning. "I, Alpha Harold, command you to get in that transport," he boomed, unleashing the full, crushing weight of his Alpha's Command.

The heavy pressure rolled over the crowd, forcing weaker wolves to lower their heads. But as the command hit me, a strange, icy resilience flared deep within my veins. The invisible weight shattered against my mind. I stood tall, completely unaffected.

Harold's eyes widened in sheer disbelief.

I turned my gaze directly to the crippled prince. "Prince Bryce!" I shouted, projecting my voice so every Pack member present could hear. "I will not marry you. My father and Alpha Heir Braydon are playing you for a fool. They forged a death warrant against my mother to force me-a 'wolfless' Omega-to take the place of his precious daughter, Charlize. All so she can marry Braydon and become the future Luna Queen!"

A collective gasp ripped through the courtyard. Bryce's head snapped toward Braydon, his dark eyes igniting with sudden, lethal fury.

"Shut your mouth, you lying bitch!" Braydon roared.

His golden Inner Wolf aura exploded outward. Before I could even brace myself, he lunged. His heavy leather boot slammed into my ribs with the force of a freight train. I flew backward, crashing hard onto the unforgiving gravel. The metallic taste of fresh blood flooded my mouth.

Harold immediately seized the chaos. He projected his gray wolf aura, trying to blanket the murmuring crowd in his authority. "Do not listen to this insane girl!" he shouted, feigning the heartbreak of a betrayed father. "Her mother, Estelle, is a greedy, arrogant woman who plotted to have Juliet seduce the Alpha Heir! This is nothing but a pathetic, jealous tantrum!"

Some of the Pack members began to sneer at me, easily swayed by their Alpha's scent.

I spat a mouthful of blood onto the stones and slowly pushed myself up. My ribs screamed in agony, but my hands were steady as I reached into my pocket. I pulled out the heavy parchment sealed with Harold's wax crest.

"Then explain this," I rasped, tossing it directly at Bryce's feet.

Bryce snatched the decree from the ground. His eyes rapidly scanned the forged charges of my mother mating with a Rogue. His knuckles turned white, the paper crinkling under his furious grip. With a roar of pure disgust, he hurled the crumpled parchment directly into Harold's face.

"You dare humiliate me with this trash?" Bryce snarled, his voice dripping with venom. "You think I'm a crippled fool you can just toss your garbage to, Harold? I will not accept this insult. Luna Queen Augusta will hear of this treachery." He shot a deadly glare at his brother. "And Braydon, I will remember this."

As the Royal escorts tensed, a strange sensation prickled the back of my neck. It wasn't the suffocating pressure of an Alpha. It was something far more terrifying. A faint, intoxicating scent drifted through the chaos-violent thunderstorms and dark cedar.

My newly awakening senses-sharper than any normal wolf's-pulled my attention upward. High above, on the secluded balcony of the Packhouse's side wing, stood a man cloaked in shadows. Lycan King Ezekiel Scott.

Even from this distance, his abyssal black eyes were locked onto me.

*"Should we intervene, My King? Prince Bryce is humiliated,"* a Warrior beside him whispered.

Through the ringing in my ears, my enhanced hearing caught Ezekiel's cold, rumbling reply. *"No. Let's watch the show."*

His gaze bore into me, stripping away my defenses. I saw a flicker of dark amusement in his eyes, a silent acknowledgment of my defiance against the Alpha's Command. But his next whispered words chilled me to the bone.

*"She has spine. But in the face of absolute power, stubborn weaklings always die the worst deaths."*

He was right. I had won this battle, but as Bryce spun his wheelchair around and barked orders for his men to leave, I knew the real slaughter was about to begin.