She prowled closer, her voice dripping with venom like poison from a fang. "Do you truly believe your dead sire's little sacrifice—using his own life to bind Kael through guilt—will keep him at your side forever?"
My sire's death remains a wound no healer can touch.
"Speak those words again." My voice emerged low. Dangerous. A growl building beneath the surface.
Raven didn't flinch. "Your sire, that pathetic shade, deserved to be crushed beneath those wheels."
"If he hadn't thrust himself where he didn't belong, Kael and I would have completed our mating bond years ago. He traded his worthless existence to chain Kael to you—to force him into a guilt-bound mating, to torment his wolf's conscience for eternity!"
Crack.
I was on my feet before conscious thought caught up, my palm connecting with her face hard enough to snap her head sideways.
Raven clutched her cheek, eyes wide with disbelief. "You struck me?"
I backhanded her across the other cheek.
"You're damn right I did."
"Raven, five years ago you killed my sire. Now you stand here in my den and spit on his memory." I advanced toward her, feeling my wolf surge against my skin. "Did you truly believe pack law couldn't touch you?"
Hatred flickered in her pale eyes. "Nothing happened to me five years ago at the Tribunal. What can anyone do now? Kael will protect me. He would never allow me to face iron-bound confinement."
Then—like a wolf shifting between forms—her expression crumbled completely. Tears welled up as she dropped to her knees at my feet, baring her throat in false submission.
"Heir Ashvale, it's all my fault. I should never have fallen in love with Kael."
"You've already won everything. This position as his scent-partner is all I have left to survive. Why won't you simply let me go?"
The commotion drew other pack members from nearby dens. Whispers rippled through the gathering wolves.
"Isn't striking a lower-rank a bit excessive...?"
"She's already showing throat. Show some mercy."
Someone raised a communication device to record the scene.
Raven knelt there, trembling artfully, tears streaming down her face. "Heir Ashvale, please... I'm begging you..."
The den door burst open with enough force to rattle the frame.
Kael shoved me aside without so much as a glance in my direction.
My stomach slammed into the corner of the heavy oak table. Pain shot through my ribs, doubling me over as I gasped for breath.