Chapter 7

If you have this much time, you should be worrying about your Council seat."

Caius's brow drew tight. "What does that mean?"

I gave him a smile and didn't bother to explain. I lifted my chin toward the door. "Get out. Don't keep me from being Marked."

The two slaps felt good. Then I remembered I was supposed to be a proper Alpha's daughter on my Marking Day, and I looked over at Rhys, a little embarrassed — only to find him staring at me with shining eyes, looking half in awe.

"Those two slaps were clean, Luna. That felt good to watch."

He startled a laugh out of me and lifted the mood. I was about to tell him we should hurry before we missed the hour when a flash of silver cut across the air.

My pupils narrowed. Mina had slipped to my side somehow, and she was lunging at my stomach with that silver dagger.

Mina was only five, a small thing with no real strength — but I knew that dagger. It was silver. It would cut clean through.

I tried to move aside, but the blade was already coming at my waist. At the last second, Rhys's hand shot out and struck the inside of Mina's wrist, hard.

"Ah —!" Clang.

The pup screamed. The dagger hit the floor.

"Mina!" Rhea rushed forward and grabbed her. Mina's wrist was bent the wrong way, her hand hanging loose.

"Rhys Thorne! Mina is a pup! How could you?!"

Caius shouted at him.

Rhys looked me over, tense, and only relaxed once he saw I wasn't hurt.

His face went flat. He turned to Caius. "A pup? I've never heard of a five-year-old pup trying to kill someone with a silver dagger."

Caius had no answer for that.

Rhea started to cry. "Mina didn't mean anything. She's just small. She wouldn't really have hurt Miss Ashford."

"That's right. Miss Ashford comes from a great Pack. How could a commoner like us ever compare?"

"My poor Mina is only five and she's suffered like this."

She was trying to flip the story and stir sympathy. It was the same trick she always used. But this courtyard was full of pack women who had seen every trick.

Every face in the yard went cold.

Rhys spoke before anyone else. "I don't care how you raise your pup. Every person here saw her attack my Luna with a silver dagger. And two days ago I went before the Alpha Council and invoked three generations of Thorne war honors to secure my Luna's Council Seal — the highest Luna rank the Council grants."

"Harming a Council-Sealed Luna is a capital crime."

"Under Pack law, a pup's crime falls on its mother. Rhea, you'll be executed at the next Blood Moon. I'll be there to watch."

Rhea's knees buckled and she dropped to the ground.

Caius went pale. Thorne Pack had fought for the throne for three generations — they were the Alpha King's closest. No one in the courtyard doubted Rhys could make it happen.

"Alpha Thorne… for my sake, could you spare the mother and the pup, just this once?"

Rhys sneered. "Your sake? What are you, that I'd spare anyone for your sake?"

Caius flushed — and right then, Harlan Merrick, the Langford Beta, came rushing in with a scroll in his hand. His voice was thick. "Alpha, the Council Enforcers — the Council Enforcers are coming for you!"

"What?! I'm on the Alpha Council. No one would dare!"

Harlan handed him the scroll. I almost smiled.

I had sent that scroll to the Council myself.

With it had gone everything my father had gathered — proof of the rumors Caius had spread to ruin my name, proof of what he'd allowed Rhea and Mina to do to my Marking gown, and more than that, proof that he'd skimmed from the Pack treasury.

Caius lived cleanly. His stipend and his holdings mostly went to appearances. Langford Pack had been tight on funds for years. That settlement he'd promised me for the gown — he'd have to sell off his ancestral manor to pay it.

And a Council Alpha caught slandering a She-Wolf of another Pack behind her back — his rivals on the Council would push until he was stripped and banished.

I watched his eyes fill with real fear at last.

Maybe because we'd known each other so long, Caius had forgotten I had also grown up inside an Alpha's Manor, and I had seen every kind of maneuvering.

By the time he realized, it was already too late.

I'd only struck once, and I'd struck for a blow he could never recover from.

Caius dropped to his knees. He clutched at my hem, face twisted with desperation. "Selene, I was wrong. I was really wrong. Please, let this go."

The moonstones on my veil swayed in front of my eyes. I looked down at the man who had just been so arrogant, now on his knees and broken, and said quietly, "When you did those things, did you ever stop to spare me? I'm only doing to you what you did to me."