Even with Alaric defending her at every turn, I refused to yield my ground. For three days, Lily scrubbed and swept like the servant she had always pretended to be.
When the punishment concluded, Alaric acted as though nothing significant had occurred. He merely released a soft sigh—light, dismissive.
"That fierce temper of yours, Lyra. When will you learn to let such trivial matters pass? It was merely a painting."
"You have had your vengeance. Let us move forward."
I was naive enough to believe we had.
Several days later, devastating news spread through the territories that Alaric's pack had suffered a catastrophic collapse. Ancient alliances crumbled overnight.
He was taken into Council custody shortly after, leaving me alone to face the destruction.
At first, worry did not consume me. Even if the Blackthorn pack fell into ruin, I still had my parents, my birth pack.
I sent urgent scent-messages immediately.
Both trails had gone cold, severed completely.
Panic clawed at my throat like a feral beast.
I raced back to the Nightveil estate, only to have Cedric meet me at the entrance, his weathered face pale as bone.
The day they received word of Alaric's capture, my parents had rushed back to offer their aid. A mountain storm had caught their carriage on the treacherous pass.
Neither survived the fall.
In a single night, my entire world crumbled to ash.
No mate. No parents. No pack left to shelter me.
I sold everything I possessed and retreated to a damp underground den at the edge of unclaimed territory, hiding from the rogue hunters who had purchased Alaric's blood debts.
Sleep became an impossibility. I would lie awake through endless nights, flinching at every rustle, every distant howl.
Eventually, they tracked my scent.
A group of rogues kicked down my door, armed with silver-tipped clubs.
They shattered two of my ribs. Broke my wrist so badly that I could never hold a brush again, could never create the moon-blessed art that had once defined me.
It took three years to accept my fate.
I surrendered everything—my art, my pride, my dreams of finding my true mate—just to survive another day.
And now I was being told it had all been an elaborate deception.
Alaric's "penance" had stripped me raw, peeled away every layer of who I once was, and rebuilt me into someone I could no longer recognize.
My message stone hummed with incoming energy.
A scent-message from Alaric.