Chapter 3

I stood frozen in the ceremonial hall, watching James flip through the ritual register with detached efficiency. His fingers paused briefly at our daughter's name—'Emma Mitchell'—inscribed in the flowing script of the pack record keeper. Something flickered across his face, so quick I might have missed it if I hadn't been studying him with the intensity of my grief.

For one heartbeat, I thought I saw regret in his eyes. Then it was gone, replaced by the cold mask he always wore around me.

"I apologize for your loss," he said mechanically, the words hollow and rehearsed. No emotion, no acknowledgment that it was his loss too—that the child whose name lay before him had carried his blood.

His loss. My loss. As if we weren't speaking about the same child. As if Emma had been mine alone to love, mine alone to mourn.

Lyra whimpered deep within me, our shared grief a physical ache that made it hard to breathe. *Our pup. Our baby.*

James snapped the book shut, the sound echoing in the quiet hall like a gunshot. Without meeting my eyes, he turned away, his attention already shifting back to Rebecca, who hovered at the doorway. She leaned dramatically against the frame, her bandaged ankle prominently displayed, her eyes never leaving James.

"Alpha," she called softly, her voice a practiced melody of need. "The healer said I shouldn't put weight on it for too long."

James moved to her side instantly, his hand finding the small of her back with familiar ease. The tenderness in that simple touch was more than he had shown Emma in her entire life.

"Of course," he murmured. "Let's get you seated."

I watched them leave, my fingers digging into my palms until I felt the warm trickle of blood. The ceremonial hall, with its ancient stone walls and the scent of sage and moonpetals, suddenly felt suffocating. Emma's name in that book was the final confirmation that she was truly gone, that no amount of Luna power or mother's love could bring her back.

I sank onto the stone bench, my legs no longer able to support me. The white mourning dress I wore felt too stiff, too formal to contain the raw wound of my grief. I stared at my hands, still seeing Emma's blood beneath my nails despite how many times I had scrubbed them clean.

The heavy wooden door creaked open, and I tensed, expecting James again with more cold formalities. Instead, Elder Elara's familiar scent of dried herbs and wisdom filled the space. She moved slowly to sit beside me, her aged hand covering mine.

"Child," she said softly, her voice carrying the weight of decades. "Your heart beats still, though it is broken."

"It shouldn't," I whispered. "It should have stopped with hers."

Elara's eyes, clouded with age but sharp with understanding, held mine. "A mother's heart never stops beating for her child, not even in death. Especially not in death."

From the pocket of her ceremonial robe, she withdrew something small that caught the light—a silver pin in the shape of a moonpetal, its edges delicately crafted to capture the flower's ethereal glow.

"This belonged to my mother, and her mother before her," Elara said, pressing it into my palm. "Women who knew what it meant to stand alone, even when standing beside an Alpha."

I stared at the pin, its weight in my hand both a comfort and a burden. "I failed her, Elder. I couldn't protect her."

"No." Elara's voice hardened, surprising me with its sudden strength. She placed her weathered hand over my heart, the warmth of it seeping through the fabric of my dress. "Listen well, Sarah Mitchell. A Luna's true power arises from within, not from her mate. Not from any man."

Her words settled into me, finding purchase in soil made fertile by grief and rage.

"Your daughter's spirit watches," she continued. "What will she see in the days to come? A mother who allowed herself to be diminished, or a Luna who remembered her own light?"

I closed my fingers around the moonpetal pin, feeling its edges press into my skin. The mate bond inside me, that hollow connection to James that had been fading for years, seemed to pulse with a new awareness.

"She will see justice," I whispered, the word tasting like a promise on my tongue.

Elara nodded, satisfaction in her ancient eyes. "Then let us begin."

As we left the ceremonial hall together, I caught sight of James and Rebecca through an open doorway, their heads bent close in intimate conversation. Something cold and resolute settled in my chest where grief had burned hot.

The time for tears was ending. The time for reckoning had begun.