"Everyone across the Six Great Packs knows the Supreme Alpha adores Lady Seraphina and no one else. You're nothing but a wretched human-born who snuck in here, and you dare call yourself the Luna Queen? Do you have a death wish?"
Seraphina's lips curled into a vicious smile.
"I assumed that since you managed to slither into the Abyssal Den using that face of yours to seduce the Supreme Alpha, you'd have at least some cunning. Turns out you're just a brainless fool."
"I've been mated into the Shadowfang Pack for ages, and I've never once heard of a so-called Luna Queen. You're a human-born without a shred of wolf blood. What could possibly qualify you for that title?"
"If you were truly the Luna Queen, why would you be living alone in the Sacred Den, where not a single soul dares to tread?"
With that, Seraphina turned to the other handmaidens and gave the order:
"Cut off this wretch's limbs. Let's see how long that sharp tongue of hers lasts."
The she-wolves drew their silver-edged blades and closed in on me.
None of them knew the real reason the Abyssal Den stood so desolate.
It was because the Supreme Alpha forbade any living creature from coming near.
Even a stray bird that wandered too close would be torn apart, its carcass left as a warning until his fury was spent.
He had kept my identity hidden because he wanted to wait until our pup was born.
Then, before the entire Six Great Packs and all the territories beyond, he would crown me Luna Queen in a grand ceremony under the Blood Moon.
And the reason he was absent today was precisely because he had sensed that this was the day our pup would arrive.
He had gone personally to summon the most powerful Alphas across the Six Great Packs, so they could witness the birth of the Prophesied Alpha.
To welcome the future sovereign of all Six Packs.
And now, every one of those precautions had become the very reasons Seraphina refused to believe me.
Watching them close in, panic seized me. I screamed, "I am the Luna Queen! If you don't believe me, go ask the Supreme Alpha yourself!"
They didn't even pause. Blades rose and fell.
Agony tore through me, bone-deep and blinding, as my limbs were severed one after another.