Chapter 7

When he came back from this, either he'd have evidence to bring Vivienne down, or he'd be dragged into this mess alongside her, with no way out.

Gerald came back from the Pack Dungeons, his voice so hoarse it was barely audible.

"Serena. Your mother won't budge. She won't say a word, and she's been screaming at me for betraying her. Come with me. Even if it's just... to see her one last time. Find out the truth..."

I was going through the Pack Healer's injury report. It said Vera had taken twenty strokes of the punishment rod. Her flesh was torn. But she was still refusing to talk.

I sat quietly for a long time. Then I closed the report and nodded.

I did want to ask her face to face. After twenty-some years as mother and daughter, I wanted to know why she wanted me dead this badly.

The Pack Dungeons were cold and damp. The smell of mold and blood hit you as soon as the door opened.

The guard unlocked the farthest cell. I saw Vera lying in the straw, her prison clothes dark with dried blood. Her hair stuck to her face in tangles.

At the sound of movement, she raised her head sharply. The moment she saw me, her eyes filled with venom.

"Serena Colton! You heartless thing! You finally came to look at me! You're happy watching your own mother suffer in this place?!"

I stood outside the cell bars and looked at her.

"I came to ask you why."

She shoved herself upright. The pain from her wounds made her hiss through her teeth, but she kept her head up and screamed.

"Why? What did I do? I made one harmless little joke! And now you're letting them keep me locked in here, and you're still holding a grudge?! Where is your conscience?!"

Gerald paced beside her, desperate.

"Stop being stubborn! This isn't the time to call it a joke!"

I stepped closer. I cut through her pretending.

"A joke is only a joke when both people find it funny. Your joke was going to get me killed. It was going to get the entire Colton family wiped out. It was going to shake the stability of the whole Ravencroft Pack."

She faltered, then broke into frantic sobbing and screaming, calling me ungrateful and heartless, saying she'd given birth to me and raised me and now I was trying to destroy her.

I stood there and watched her fall apart. I didn't say a single soft thing. I waited until she had cried herself hoarse.

Then Gerald finally broke. With red eyes he shouted the truth at her.

"Wake up! The moment you got to the Pack Dungeons someone arranged for you to get hurt. If Serena hadn't already put people in place to watch, you'd already be dead. Vivienne used you as a weapon and threw you away the moment you were no longer useful. And you're still protecting her!"

Vera's screaming stopped. The frantic energy drained from her face. All that was left was disbelief.

After a long silence, she covered her face and broke down completely. She finally said what she had been hiding for half her life.

"It was her... Vivienne found me... She said once you had the Alpha Heir, you'd stop needing me, stop seeing me... She said you'd step on the Colton family to climb higher... But I hated you too!"

"I was an illegitimate daughter. My whole life I had to look at other people to know what I could do. Even after I married into the Colton family I was still beneath the legitimate wives. I spent my whole life being put down. And you? You were also illegitimate, but you got to rise above all of it, become the Alpha Heir's mother, have everyone bow to you?! I just wanted to knock you down a level. I wanted you to know that even if you were a She-Wolf in the Alpha's Pack, you still had to answer to your own mother!"

"But no matter what you think — I did not want you dead! I thought about pulling back! It was you who kept pushing me!"

I looked at her falling apart, and something inside me was just empty.

All those jokes over the years — the ones that ruined my name, broke my engagements, nearly kept me from entering the Pack — none of them were accidents. She just couldn't stand that I had something better than her.

Gerald looked at me. Then he broke down sobbing.

"Serena. I was wrong. I spent my whole life making excuses for her jealousy. I never once stood up for you. I let it become what it is today. I failed you."

He shook as he cried. The new grey in his hair stood out in the dim light.

I looked at him and said simply: "You did fail me."

I turned to look at Vera through the bars.

"Now. Tell everything. Every instruction Vivienne gave you. Every action she had you take. Every word. I can keep you alive. But if you stay stubborn, no one can save you."

She looked at me, then at Gerald's tear-streaked face, and finally broke completely. Sobbing, she told it all — the jewelry Vivienne had given her, the instructions to cause a scene, the garment she was given for planting, how Vivienne's people got the attendant to hide it. Every single detail.

The Pack official I had brought with me recorded every word, then had her sign the statement and press her handprint onto it in red.

When I walked out of the Pack Dungeons, the sunlight outside was blinding.

I held the signed statement in my hands. Combined with the evidence Wren had gathered — the witnesses, the physical proof — it was everything needed to bring Vivienne down.