“Selene—!” Damien snapped. His voice cracked like a whip. “Enough. You’re humiliating yourself.”
“No,” I said. “I’m revealing you.”
He took a step forward, face pale. “Change her clothes,” he told Elara, barely holding onto his Alpha composure. “Take her inside. Quietly. Before this gets worse.”
I saw it then—the fear behind his fury. Not of me. Of exposure.
Good.
I adjusted Ayla’s weight in my arms and smiled. “You buried us once, Damien. But we’ve clawed our way out. This time, the Pack will see the truth with their own eyes.”
And the first howl of war had begun.
Chapter four
Damien hesitated, as if caught in the jaws of his own guilt. His gaze lingered on me a second too long—too soft, too haunted—before he stepped forward and forced neutrality back into his features.
“Elara is like a sister to me,” he said, his voice low and urgent. “She’s the only wolf I could rely on after the war. That’s all this is. We’re... absolutely innocent.”
Innocent.
The word hung in the air like a cruel joke.
I said nothing.
Because if I opened my mouth, I might howl.
My silence made him shift uncomfortably. His amber eyes searched mine, growing increasingly uneasy with each second I didn’t speak.
But my mind had already left the present.
I was back in the storm of my first death—blood, lies, betrayal.
Elara had stood before the Council of Elders, tears glistening like dew on her lashes. She’d accused me of sabotaging the food stores during the famine, claiming Ayla and I had stolen mooncakes laced with wolfsbane.
She said we’d poisoned ourselves.
Damien hadn’t questioned it. Hadn’t blinked. He’d wrapped her in his arms, whispering comforts meant for a grieving mate.
From the shadowed veil of the spirit realm, I watched as he mourned the lie.
“She was a mistake,” he’d said. “If she had lived, I would’ve cast her out. Elara, you and your pups are my future. I won’t let her ghost threaten that.”
That was the moment I died.
Not from poison, but from the truth.
That was when Selene Stormfang ceased to exist.
Now, Elara stood in front of me again, swathed in ivory silk, her pregnant belly cradled like a trophy. She smiled, ever gentle. “Sister, you’ve traveled far. Come, let’s get you changed into something warm. The feast is still going.”
She reached for Ayla.
But Ayla flinched, darting behind my leg and clutching the worn hem of my tunic.