Chapter 2 The Prince's Last Breath

Selene's POV

The world came to a stop. Funeral pyre smoke lingered on the lips of Kane's words, and all the clearing's eyes came to rest on me. My heart was hammering so hard in my chest that I knew everyone must be listening.

"What?" The word escaped as little more than a whisper.

Kane stepped one pace further, his feet crushing the fragments of Marcus's cup of wine. "You heard me, Luna Selene. You poisoned the prince."

"It's impossible." Corwin's voice broke as he raised his gaze to look at his brother's motionless figure. "Selene would never-"

"Study the evidence, Alpha." Kane's voice was steady, business-like. Deadly. He pulled out a small vial from his pocket, the glass sparkling with the moon. "It was found among Luna Selene's herbs. Extract of nightshade. Very concentrated."

My mouth trembled open and shut again like a fish gasping for air. "I don't understand. That's not mine. I would never-"

"And this." Kane displayed a tattered scrap of cloth. Emerald green silk that would have gone perfectly with my festival dress. "Was found tangled on the wine table this evening. Right where an outsider could have poisoned the prince's cup."

The crowd came in, their festival spirit replaced by malevolence. Malice. Mrs. Davies, whom I had recently healed by the laying on of hands, moved away from me as if I carried contagion.

"But I was dancing," I said, my voice becoming sterner. "I was with all of you. All of you saw me."

"Were you?" Kane cocked his head. "Can anybody place you during the time the wine was coming out? Before the music began to play?"

The quiet between us stretched like a sword. I concentrated, trying to remember, but the night was unclear in my thoughts. Had I been alone when the servants were setting out the wine table? I had been working through the crowd, healing the people, preparing for the ritual.

"She was near the altar," someone yelled from the back of the crowd. "I saw her there an hour or so ago. Not another soul to be seen."

"That's when I was blessing the moon offerings," I protested. "It's tradition. The Luna always-"

"The Luna has always had access to the ceremonial wines," Kane explained. "The very wines Prince Marcus has been drinking this evening."

More whispers spread through the pack. I saw the doubt seeping onto their faces, taking the place of the love and trust I had so diligently earned. These smiling people who had brought their kids for me to cure, these people who had called me friend, now regarded me as strange. Dangerous.

"It's lunacy." I appealed to Corwin. "Make them see. You know me better than most. I adored Marcus as a brother. I would die rather than hurt him."

My husband's gray eyes hurt with agony and confusion. He looked at me, at Kane, to his brother's unresponsive body, and I saw something break in him.

"It's the nightshade," he whispered. "Where did it originate?"

"Corwin, no. You wouldn't believe this."

"Tell me." His voice was little more than a whisper, but it pierced me through the heart. "Where did the nightshade originate?"

I felt the ground give beneath me, all that I believed disintegrating to nothing. "I. I use it occasionally. To relieve pains, in minuscule amounts. But kept locked away. No one else has access-"

"Except you." His words dropped like stones on quieted water, disturbing the waves of outrage through the crowd. "You had means, opportunity, and."

"Well, why?" I snarled, indignation overcoming my stutter at last. "What reason on earth would I have for murdering Marcus?"

Kane's smile was colder than winter. "Succession."

The word hit me like a physical blow. Around us, the pack began to murmur louder, their voices rising in anger and disbelief.

"With Prince Marcus dead," Kane continued, his voice carrying over the tumult, "any children you would bear to Alpha Corwin would next ascend the throne. No competition. No danger to their eventual rise."

"That's revolting," I whispered. "Marcus was family. He was-"

"In your way." Kane opened his hands as though the issue was settled. "A Luna's primary obligation is to insure the power in her blood. Everyone understands this."

"No." I moved one step closer to him, fisting my hands. "You're lying. You're distorting everything. I didn't want power or blood or the rest. I wanted Marcus. We all did."

But I could see it in their faces -- the pack was already accepting him. The seed of doubt had been planted and was taking root fast, fed by loss and fear and the need to blame somebody for this terrible loss.

"Tell me the evidence," shouted Elder Morrison, his words blurred with drunkenness but his gaze gimlet-tough with mistrust. "The poison came from your stores. There is the smell of you on the cup of wine. You had no witness for how you spent the day."

"My smell?" I spun to confront him. "How could you even-"

"I checked," said Kane in flat tones. "Your odor is all over the serving area. Recent. Fresh."

"Since I attend at each festival!" My voice broke on the words. "I always assist with preparing the ceremonial wine. My odor would be present anyway."

"Would it?" His eyebrows rose. "Because the servants report to me that you weren't helping out tonight. You personally requested the servants to handle the wine service by themselves. Informed them you had other duties to attend to."

The world was revolving on its axis. I looked at him, my lips drier than dust. "That's not true. I never said that."

"Ask them yourselves." Kane pointed toward a pack of young wolves close to where the tables were laid for the food. "Sarah, did not Luna Selene promise not to assist with the wine this night?"

A girl I'd known since she was a pup came forward, face drawn but set. "She did, Beta Kane. Told her she had urgent Luna business to attend to and to see the pack through."

"No." The word was torn from my voice. "Sarah, you know that's not true. I would never-"

"I'm sorry, Luna," Sarah whispered but not courage enough to look at me. "I heard what I heard."

The pack's attitude shifted immediately from skepticism to outrage. Accusing words were heard, as well as angry ones. Someone demanded justice. Another called me a murderer.

All the while, Corwin sat by his brother's body in silence, his face contorted in an anguish and mounting fury. When he finally looked up at me, I saw a stranger with my husband's face.

"The poison," he stated in the voice that sounded as broken glass. "Show me the stores."

"Corwin, please-"

"Show me." HisAlpha demand struck me as a physical force, and my wolf whimpered with submission. "Now."

Kane was already on the move, leading a group of pack warriors toward our home. I stumbled after on stammering legs, stunned. This could not be. This was some terrible dream I would wake up from at any moment.

But the chill air was real and cold on my skin, and the furious voices of my pack came after us like hunting dogs.

In my house, Kane headed directly to my herb storage room. He knew where to look, which cabinet to check. Even the latch dangled broken, the door swung wide open.

"There," he said, gesturing toward an empty space on one shelf. "The nightshade was stored there. This vial I found is an identical reproduction with the others in your collection."

I stared at the empty space, my mind not registering what I was seeing. "It was someone else. Someone planted the evidence."

"Who?" Kane opened his hands. "Who besides has access to your secret stores? Who besides knows your procedures and your travels enough to implicate you so neatly?"

The questions hung in the room like charges. I had no responses. There was too much evidence, too unarguable. Everything led back to me, and I did not comprehend how or why.

"Maybe," said Kane in an undertone, "you simply can't recall doing it. Grief and stress sometimes precipitate. episodes. Blackouts during which people act on things they wouldn't even think about."

"I am not crazy." But saying that, I felt the doubt creeping in. Had I acted strangely recently? Were there periods where I could not remember?

"Not at all," Kane reassured. "Just. troubled. It is understandable, considering the stress you have been under. Expectations of the pack, the obligation to provide an heir, the speculations regarding your adequacy as Luna."

"What whispers?" The words came out sharp with surprise.

Kane shifted uncomfortably, as though he had said too much. "Nothing serious. Just. certain pack members have wondered aloud if an Alpha with no blood is really fit to lead. Whether the children you bear would have the power to rule."

But one more hit, one more twist in my foundation. I always knew there were doubts among the pack members over my normal birth, but figured we had moved on. I figured I had proven myself.

"Marcus has never asked where I belong," I whispered.

"No," said Kane. "He didn't. And that's why his death is so convenient for you."

The charge swung between me and the others like a sword. Before us, the pack warriors and elders sat with stone-faced faces. Even the servants who had worked for me for years looked at me with contempt and fear.

"I did not do this," I said again, with all my force. "I swear on the very moon goddess, I did not poison Marcus."

But it didn't seem to matter. Evidence was too compelling, too complete. The narrative was too tidy.

Kane took a step closer, his voice stern now. Formal. "Luna Selene of Crescent Pack, by the authority of pack law and for the cause of justice for Prince Marcus, I arrest you for murder."

The men moved on ahead before I could react, strong hands on my arms. I did not struggle -- why? My world was finished anyway.

As they pulled me out, I met Corwin's gaze for the last time. The affection I had seen there for three years was vanquished, its place taken by something hard and irreversible. "I trusted you," he breathed. "I loved you more than I would love my own life, and you killed my brother."

The words hurt worse than the worst physical blow. I lifted my lips to object again, to beg him to hear me, but the look on his face immobilized me. He was already determining my future. And with the hatred blazing in his eyes, I knew exactly where my future would lead.