Her Rebirth For Revenge

Selene's POV

The wine tasted bitter this night.

I set the cup down on the ground and watched the red liquid swirl on the silver lip. Something was not right, but I could not quite put my finger on the problem. Our harvest moon hung full and bloodred in the sky over our revel, illuminated all in bloodshades. Even the laughter of my pack sounded harsher, keener, sharper.

"Luna Selene, would you assist Mrs. Davies?"

Tommy's voice snapped young Tommy out of his daydream. "Her arthritis is playing up again."

I smiled and placed the concern on the back burner. This was why I came. This was why I came here. "Of course."

The aged woman sat slumped on a wooden bench, her contorted hands clasped with pain. I sat down beside her and put my hands on her swollen joints. Heat surrounded me, the typical hum of my ability to cure ringing through my chest to my hands.

"Better?" I asked as Mrs. Davies uncurled her fingers in wonder.

"Much better, dear. You're a blessing to the pack."

They should have warned me with their words, but on this night, they carried an air of farewell. I pushed the odd thought away and fought through the crowd, bandaging scraped knees and calming headaches. My pack grinned up at me with honest love, my Luna who adored them all.

The grounds hummed with activity. Children darted back and forth between the vendors down the booths offering food as the adults sat in cliques, exchanging tales and ale. There was music with traditional musicians who had played for centuries beneath these trees. Everything was right, as it ought to have been.

Then why did my wolf's pacing restlessness burn within my breast?

"Here's my beautiful wife." His hard arms wrapped around my waist from behind. The pine and earth smell that was Corwin closed in on me, and a little of the tension leaked out.

"Your Majesty," I snapped back quickly, dropping down onto his immense chest. "Can't you attend some event or other? Mingle with pack elders, maybe?"

"All arguing over border patrols. Again." His lips kissed my ear. "I prefer it here."

I was standing in front of him in his arms. His gray eyes were their normal warmth, but I saw concern grooves etched around them. Being an Alpha was troubling him these days, and with pressure on our borders growing.

"Dance with me," I said, needing to force both our dark thoughts away.

He brings out the real one he reserved specifically for me. "Always."

We danced out into the center of the clearing where the other couples danced to the music. Corwin's hold was strong but gentle as he took my hand during the dance. With the exuberance of my pack and my husband's love, the unnatural sense of unease dissipated.

But the blood moon watched us as we danced, and I shivered at its chill gaze as ominous.

"Corwin! There you are." Beta Kane entered, always assured. Blonde hair illuminated by firelight gave him an appearance younger than he was at twenty-eight. "The council awaits word on the new accords on trade."

I felt my husband breathe on my temple. "Can't it wait until tomorrow?"

"Watch how Elder Morrison behaves after a couple." Kane's blue eyes snapped to me with an apparent concern. "Perhaps Luna Selene needs to nap. She appears pale."

I glared. "I'm fine

"Well, you are." Kane's smile never falttered, but the edge in his voice prickled shivers on my spine. "Just checking on our Luna to make sure she's all right."

Corwin squeezed my hand. "Enjoy at the festival. I'll hurry along." I watched my husband walk away through the crowd with his second-in-command. Kane and Corwin had grown up together, good men and faithful. But why did I always get the sense that he was checking on me when he did not believe that I saw him?

"Aunt Selene!" Someone young called out. Prince Marcus came striding towards me with his rakish smile, his brown hair disheveled by all the dancing. At twenty-two, Corwin's youngest brother had twice the charm as he did courage.

"Enjoying yourself?" I inquired, jerking my chin towards his reddened face and shining eyes.

"Best! Did I arm wrestle Kane into submission? His face was classic." Marcus laughed and grabbed a new glass of wine from a passing waiter. "Though I think he gave me the victory."

"Marcus." I stopped him at his arm when he raised the glass. "Perhaps you ought to pace the wine."

"It's a celebration! Live a little, sis." He grinned and took the large gulp.

The wine was the same dark red as the moon in the sky above us. The same shade that had tasted so bitter on my own lips. My stomach tightened with instant fear.

"Ack, Marcus

But he had already drunk half the cup, grinning at something one of his companions had called across the meadow. His pack adored Prince Lysandros – he was the best they might have wished for in a future monarch. Fit, courageous, far too free with his money.

The music swirled around us, the voices raised to some ancient battle hymn. Children yelped with joy as they darted between the dancers. Everything was just as it should have been for our most revered festival.

So why did the atmosphere become to have a flavor of death?

Marcus stumbled a little, his laughter dying on his lips. The wine cup was knocked from his hand and clattered to the ground with a sharp crack. Black liquid spread across the crowded ground like spilled blood.

"I don't feel." He touched his stomach, turned pale. "Something's not right."

The music was playing, but all I could hear was the thumping of my heartbeat in my ears. Marcus's gaze met mine, their confusion deepening, their fear increasing.

"Selene," he whispered. "Save me

Then his body jerked and he fell.

Time seemed to stop. Marcus hit the ground, his body convulsing wildly. Foam frothed on his lips, blood-tinged. The pack members closest to us screamed and retreated, their joyous excitement transformed in the blink of an eye to horror.

I got down on my knees beside him, my hands on his chest. My restorative power flowed into him, but it was as if I was flowing water through a bucket with a hole in the bottom. Whatever poison flowed through his veins was stronger than my power.

"Summon the healer!" someone called out. "Call the Alpha!"

But I knew it was too late. I could feel Marcus's life slipping away from me, howsoever tightly I clasped him. His beautiful brown eyes looked upwards at the blood-studded moon, already slipping away from my reach.

"Please," I whispered, giving it all to him. "Please not abandon us."

It shuddered in one last contorted convulsion. And then there was silence.

The music of the festival died away as the word was heard by the crowds and the news was spread through the throngs. Corwin came over to me, his face in disbelief. He fell to his knees and embraced his brother, but Marcus was past bringing back.

"No," Corwin whispered. "No, no, no

I sat back down on my heels, my hands covered in Marcus's blood. There was the pack, circling me with faces white with shock and loss. There was crying. There was shouting at the council.

And in the middle of all this, there were eyes on me. Eyes that blamed me.

Beta Kane elbowed through the crowd, his face set with determination. He dropped down next to the broken wine cup and examined it. When he looked up, his cold blue eyes locked with mine.

"Poison," he shouted for all to hear. "Prince Marcus has been poisoned."

The onlookers gasped and whispered, fear washing over them in waves. Who would dare poison their prince? Who would dare to be so cold-blooded? Slowly, Kane rose to his feet, his gaze never wavering from my face. When he spoke again, his voice echoed through the still clearing in shattering clarity. "And I knew who it was."

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.

Selene's POV

The pack dungeon was cold and dark. Iron bars kept me from the world that I used to know with my husband, and the cold stone ground gnawed at my festival dress like winter teeth. I'd been here three hours now, but it had felt like three years.

Voices and shouts echoed overhead. The pack, their fury growing by the second, closed in. A chant had begun – "Justice for Marcus" – and soon the others followed, until the chant thundered through the caves like a war drum.

They wanted my blood. My own kind, who'd embraced me this morning, now demanded my death.

The creak of the dungeon door and the crash of stone stairs beneath heralded Elder Morrison's arrival. Wine-stained gray beard and cold anger-filled eyes spoke of one who had lost someone precious. Three other councilors followed him, their faces set in the flickering light of the torches.

"Selene." Morrison's tone was no longer courteous. No longer "Luna." No respect. "The council has questions."

I stood up from the mildewed straw where I'd sat, attempting to maintain some dignity that remained. "I'll do my best."

"Where did you find the nightshade?"

"From the herb men who come by every spring. I use it for medicine, sparingly. It relieves unendurable pain when nothing else will."

Elder Catherine stepped forward, her wrinkled face twisted in outrage. "How many other individuals knew about your caches of nightshade?"

"Just the pack healer. And Corwin, of course. Maybe a few others who've witnessed me preparing medicines."

"Like Beta Kane?"

I paused, weighing. "He may have seen me handling it a couple of times. But he's not interested in healing arts."

Morrison wrote words on parchment. "Explain your relationship with Prince Marcus."

"He was my brother-in-law. I loved him." My voice trembled even as I tried to be strong. "He treated me kindly when others doubted my right to be called Luna. He stood up for me."

"Perhaps so?" Elder Catherine's eyes flashed. "Perhaps you tired of being the second choice? The common-born Luna who needed to be safeguarded?"

"That is not true."

"Isn't it?" Morrison stepped closer. "We have records of fights between you and Marcus. Witnesses report you were angry with him last week."

My heart fell. "He was being irresponsible all over again. Drinking with other pack scouts in the neighborhood, getting drunk, sleeping till midnight. I was worried about him. I tried to make him think clearly."

"By threatening him?"

"I never threatened him!"

"Sarah overheard you tell him that you warned him that he'd 'regret his decisions one day.'"

Catherine's voice was as cold as shattered glass. "Those are your very words."

The memory struck me like a body blow. I had spoken the words, but not just as they were twisting them. Marcus had been drunk, babbling about infiltrating enemy lines to show his courage. I'd been afraid he'd get himself killed.

"I was keeping him out of stupidity," I panted. "I was fearing he'd be irresponsible."

"Or were you sick of his interference in pack business?" Morrison questioned. "Sick of him questioning your judgment? Making you appear weak?"

"Marcus never made me appear weak. He stood by my side."

"Did he?" Catherine drew out another sheet of parchment. "What about the trade agreement with the Silver Moon Pack? Marcus openly disagreed with you. Called it 'short-sighted' in front of the entire council."

I recalled that too. Marcus had urged us to be harder in our bargaining, and I'd insisted on a softer line. But it was just a difference of opinion.

"We sometimes disagreed. That happens. It isn't an indication that I wished him dead."

"Is it?" Morrison's gaze was cold. "A Luna who can't keep her own relatives in line is a Luna who looks weak. And weak leaders don't last long."

They continued to question, bending every recollection to some sinister end. Every quarrel was proof of some grudge. Every explosion of anger was proof of intent to kill. When they finished with me, I was adrift on my own testimony.

"The council will confer," Morrison stated, rising to leave. "But I imagine we all have an idea what the decision will be."

As I stepped out, I fell back onto the straw and buried my face in my palms. How had it gone so terribly wrong so fast? Today I had been a respected Luna, a loved and admired woman among my pack. This evening I was a killer.

The door creaked open once more, and in walked Kane. He balanced a tray of water and food in his hands and deposited them just outside my door as if I were some wild beast that would bite him.

"Figured you might be hungry," he muttered, his voice almost soft.

"I'm not."

"You should eat. You'll need your strength tomorrow."

Tomorrow. My trial. And what happened after. I shivered.

Kane regarded me over the bars, his blue eyes inscrutable. "I want you to know this pains me not, Selene. You were a good Luna. Mostly."

"You made mistakes?"

"Yes. The pack saw them, even if Corwin was so besotted by love he didn't notice them."

I gazed up at him, my confusion entwined with my despair. "What mistakes?"

"Little things at first. Favoring some families over others. Ruling without council approval. That business with the rogue wolves last month – you were near bringing on a war with your foolishness."

"I was defending our land."

"You were showing off. Attempting to prove that you were capable of being Luna when you were born of common stock." Kane shook his head sadly. "Pride, Selene. It's a killer thing."

His words stung because there was a little bit of truth to them. I'd been working harder in recent months to prove myself. The rumors about my bloodlines had grown louder the last few months, and I'd felt the need to prove I was capable.

"But Marcus?" Kane continued. "That was going too far. Even for you."

"I didn't kill him."

Kane remained silent for an extremely long time, just staring at me with those frigid blue eyes. When he finally spoke, he was soft. Almost too soft.

"Really believe that?"

The words slammed into me like a body punch. "What do you mean?"

"I've been reconsidering what I said. The blackouts. Stress making you do things you wouldn't do otherwise." He leaned in closer to the bars. "You've been under an awful lot of pressure yourself lately. The pack challenging your leadership, fights with neighboring territories, pressure to have an heir."

"I would remember killing someone."

"Would you? Memory is an odd thing, Selene. Our brains have a tendency to shield us from such bitter truths we cannot endure."

What he said seeded in my mind seeds of uncertainty. Had I indeed been behaving strangely? There were nights that I had not slept, walking up and down on our bedchamber floor while Corwin slept beside me. Sometimes when I woke up somewhere and could not recall how I had arrived.

"You're attempting to make me question myself."

"I'm trying to tell you what occurred. So that you can talk tomorrow with peace."

"By taking blame for something that isn't mine?"

Kane exhaled. "The facts are not lies, Selene. And I believe, in your heart, you know this."

He headed for the door, then stopped there. "For what it's worth, I'll intercede on your behalf tomorrow. Plead for mercy. A swift death rather than. the standard punishment for killing an heir."

The ancient punishment. I'd heard the stories, the blood and terror written on the old laws. Traitors weren't just killed – they were made examples of. Tortured. Hung on the streets to die. Left to die, inch by inch, so the entire pack could see and learn.

"Kane." My breath was barely audible. "If I actually did this. if somehow I killed Marcus and don't even know I did it. why would I do something like this?"

He glanced at me over his shoulder with something that could have been pity. "Because you're human, Selene. And humans do horrible things when they're desperate."

I remained in the darkness after he had gone, trying to sort it out. The evidence was too great. The witnesses were credible. Even my own memories seemed suspect now, full of gaps and doubt.

But somehow, it felt a little off. Something I couldn't quite place.

I recalled closing my eyes and trying to recreate the moment Marcus had fallen. His shock-white face. The pain-dulled expression in his eyes. The confusion that he'd looked at me with instead of accusation. If I'd poisoned him, wouldn't he've questioned it? Wouldn't he have accused me?

And the timing – why tonight to attack? The harvest festival was treated holy by our pack. To kill Marcus during the festivities would be the greatest sacrilege.

Unless that was precisely the idea. Unless someone wanted it to appear I'd lost my mind.

The idea flashed into my mind like a bolt of lightning, quick and brutal and shocking. What if I was innocent after all? What if someone had orchestrated it all, being clever enough to set me up so that even I would begin doubting my own sanity?

But who? Who despised me that much to ruin my life in such a total way?

I was still conjecturing on this when again the sound of footsteps on the stairs reverberated through the castle. The heavy boots. Several pairs. My heart racing as the voices rang off the stonework.

"Bring shackles. And the silver chains – we don't want her changing and breaking free."

"Is the pyre ready?"

"Kane told us to wait until the trial, but the pack's getting restless. They want justice now."

"They are summoning blood. Can't blame them. To kill the prince on harvest moon. abominable."

The voices closed in and I understood with increasing horror that they were not to take me in for trial. They were to carry me off to die.

The door closed with a bang, and six pack warriors entered, their faces set in determination. I knew them all – men I'd saved, children I'd blessed, loyalty I'd once demanded.

"No," I gasped, standing in the back of my cell. "Tomorrow's the trial."

Derek, the lead warrior, who'd been a member of my family for years, would not look at me. "Plans changed. Alpha's instructions."

"Corwin wouldn't-"

"Alpha Corwin declares justice delayed is justice denied. The pack must be appeased."

They opened my cell with silver keys that burned my skin where they touched. The handcuffs were cold and heavy, meant to dampen the strength of a werewolf. I was bound, helpless, subject to those who had vowed to guard me.

As they pulled me down the stairs, I saw a face I recognized in the gloom at the top of the steps. Kane stood there, his face serious but mundane.

He did not rescue me. He came to watch.

And then, in crystal clear sight that pierced all my confusion and uncertainty, I finally understood the truth.

It had all been planned by Kane. The proof, the witnesses, even my own skeptical thoughts – all in his design.

Why? What could my husband's closest friend have against me?

I parted my lips to shout out the accusation, to reveal him before they could make me shut up for good. But Kane pulled out his belt, and moonlight reflected off the gleam of a silver blade.

His smile was as chilly as winter as he placed one finger on his lips.

The message was unmistakable: blame him, and he'd make death even more agonizing than intended.