"They're just some worthless trophies—what do you think they're worth?" His voice dripped with disdain. "Your reputation is already destroyed. The entire howl-network knows you're nothing but a heat-mad she-wolf who'll spread her legs for any rogue. What good are those trophies to you now? You might as well let Selene use them—at least they'd serve some purpose!"
Heat-mad she-wolf.
The words drove through her chest like a poisoned blade.
Fenris didn't spare a glance at Lyra's ashen face or her trembling body. He swept Selene into his arms and strode toward the door, his voice urgent: "Don't worry, Selene. I'm taking you to the healers right now. It won't scar."
The chamber fell silent. Only the ruined broth and scattered wooden shards remained. Lyra stood frozen, the blood in her veins turned to ice, his vicious words echoing in her skull.
She was the heat-mad she-wolf?
Everything that had brought her to this point—her destroyed reputation, the hatred pouring in from every corner of the territory through the howl-network—wasn't that all Fenris's doing? He was the one who claimed Selene's leaked scry-records were hers. He was the one who publicly rejected their intended mate bond. He was the one who splashed filth on her name again and again, who pushed her into this abyss with his own hands.
And now he had the nerve to call her that?
Fenris Blackmoor, you really are something.
The pain in her chest made it hard to breathe. Only then did she notice the burning sensation in her leg. She looked down. Her clothing was soaked through with broth, the skin beneath an angry red, already blistering. At the edges, tiny beads of blood were beginning to seep through.
Lyra clenched her jaw, forcing back tears and pain alike. She bent down, gathered her travel satchel, and limped out of the chamber, making her way alone to the emergency healing rooms downstairs.
By the time her burn was treated and she returned to the Ashenvale den—that place she was supposed to call "home"—the moon had risen high in the night sky.
She had just unlocked the front entrance when her scent-tag hummed with an incoming message. The Cresthaven Territory Academy's admissions elder. The voice that reached her was warm and professional: "Lady Ashenvale? Regarding your den arrangements after enrollment—would you like the academy to arrange accommodation for you?"