Chapter 2

The cup slipped from my hands.

It shattered on the floor between us. Tea splashed across Celeste’s white shoe. She jumped back with a little cry.

“Elara,” Dorian said. His voice had gone flat.

I let my hands shake harder. “I’m sorry. I thought someone touched me.”

Moira bent to gather the pieces. “I’ll make another.”

Dorian’s hand closed around my elbow. “Not now. The guests are waiting.” Then he leaned close enough for only me to hear. “Bring it upstairs when the party ends. I want the cup empty by morning.”

He led me into the great room. The talking dropped to a hush.

“Poor thing,” a woman whispered. “She cooked for an anniversary.”

“And he is honoring Celeste instead,” another answered. “Perhaps it is kinder. Elara cannot even sit at the council table anymore.”

I recognized both voices. They had braided flowers into my hair before my wedding. Now one of them moved my chair away from Dorian’s place at the head of the table and set it beside the wall, where a servant would sit.

“Careful,” she said brightly. “Wouldn’t want our poor Luna to stumble.”

Their pity was worse than cruelty. It made my replacement seem practical, almost merciful.

Dorian raised his glass. “To Celeste. The strongest she-wolf this pack has seen in a generation. Silver blood. The old line. Everything a Luna should be.”

Glasses lifted all around me. Dorian did not look my way.

Then a small, cool hand closed around my wrist. Helena, Dorian’s mother, pulled me beneath the stairs.

“Listen to me,” she whispered. “I never believed the rogues. Not for one night.”

She pressed a crescent-moon pendant into my palm. “It was your mother’s. Hide it. Dorian is afraid of what you might remember if you ever stop drinking Moira’s tea.”

“What am I supposed to remember?”

“Not here. Stay alive long enough to ask.” Her gaze flicked to the pocket where I had hidden my phone. “You heard him, then.”

My breath caught.

“I copied that recording from his council phone after he drank too much at the winter meeting,” she whispered. “I could not send it while your wolf was asleep. Tonight, I felt the pack-link move around you for the first time in years. I took my chance.”

Before I could thank her, she was gone, smiling at the guests like an old woman who had said nothing at all.

Celeste found me a moment later.

“You should sit,” she said loudly. Then she bent close. “He never marked you, you know. Three years of marriage, and the Goddess never sealed a thing between you.”

She lifted her wrist near my face. His mark was there, fresh and real. I also saw the silver contact lifting at the corner of her eye.

Around her throat sat the moonstone collar Helena had given me on my wedding day. The Luna collar they claimed had been lost in the attack.

“It looks better on a real wolf,” Celeste whispered, touching it. “Don’t worry. You will not remember any of this tomorrow. Moira is making you a stronger tea.”

Near midnight, Moira found me beside the stairs with a fresh white cup. Dorian watched from across the room.

“Upstairs,” he said. “Bring me that empty cup before sunrise.”

I nodded. In the bathroom, I poured the tea down the sink, rinsed the cup, and dried its rim. Then I paused beside the open medicine cabinet. Behind a row of linens lay a leather ledger I had once heard Moira lock away.

I could not take it without exposing myself. But I saw the red wax seal on its cover: the Crescent medical mark. I memorized the crack through its center.

Across the hall, Dorian bent to the healer’s ear.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “double her dose. I want her wolf so far down she forgets she ever had one.”

I stood there with the empty cup in my hand.

By morning, Dorian wanted my wolf gone forever.