His grip tightened. “You’re not thinking clearly. If we resist, we die. Caia dies. This is the only way.”
“There’s always another way!” I tried to pull free. “We could run, we could fight—”
He didn't answer. Instead, his hand moved swiftly, striking the back of my neck with precision.
Pain flared white-hot. My knees buckled.
“No—” I choked out, breath shallow.
Darkness swallowed the room as I collapsed. My final thought was of Caia’s terrified scream echoing through the halls… and the betrayal that had already sealed our fates.
When I opened my eyes, an aching hollowness struck me immediately—Caia was no longer there.
I didn't stop to think. My feet hit the ground before my mind caught up, my wolf rising within me like a storm unleashed. Every instinct I had screamed for blood. I was ready to tear down the walls of the Blood Moon Pack, to obliterate anyone who dared touch my daughter.
But Kael stood in my way.
Without hesitation, I struck him. The sound of the slap echoed between us, my trembling hand falling back to my side. My vision was clouded by tears as I stared at him with a fury only a mother could know.
"You let them take her," I hissed, my voice cracking with disbelief. "How dare you do that to your own flesh and blood?"
He barely reacted. A slow breath left his lungs as he rubbed the stinging side of his face.
"Lyra, please. Just hear me out—"
"'Hear you out?'" I interrupted, my tone rising with anguish. "You traded our child away in silence, and now you want me to listen?"
His eyes lowered. "I did it for the good of the pack. We’re at risk."
My hands clenched. "So that makes it right? What about the offer they made for Celeste's kid?"
His expression hardened. "You’re suggesting I should have handed him over instead? He’s only a child too, Lyra."
I let out a cold, disbelieving laugh that cracked in my throat. "But so is Caia. She's barely out of infancy. Or is it just easier to let go of my child because the other one belongs to her?"
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
Celeste.
She had always been the shadow between us. Kael’s childhood companion, his supposed mate-to-be—until she vanished from all our lives for five years and returned with a child no one could claim.
I was the one who picked up Kael’s broken pieces when she left. I believed he’d put her behind him.
But clearly, I was wrong.
"It’s not what you think," he muttered.