Chapter 1

The banquet hall of the Blood Moon Pack smells of steak, aged wine, and suffocating tension.

I keep my chin low and my eyes fixed on the heavy tray resting against my knuckles. The metal surface is cool against my skin. Sweat trickles down my neck as I carry six crystal wine glasses toward the central table.

Alpha Garreth sits in his carved high-backed chair. His broad chest is decorated with dark leather straps and polished iron buckles.

His face is red from the wine and agitation. Next to him, his daughter Clara wears a dress made of fine shimmering thread that catches the lantern light with every movement.

She looks stunning, clean, and completely out of reach.

"Move faster, wolfless filth," Clara whispers as I step near her side to set down a glass.

She does not turn her head to look at me. She does not need to. Her words are quiet, meant only for my ears, spoken with the casual cruelty of someone stepping on a beetle.

I do not flinch, neither do I apologize. I simply tilt the glass, filling it to the exact width of two fingers from the rim before moving to the next seat.

For seven years, everyone in this hall treats my silence as weakness. They believe the constant beatings, the sleepless nights in the damp storerooms, and the lack of a wolf spirit have broken my mind. They see a girl who nods, keeps her head down, and absorbs their cruelty without fighting back.

They are wrong.

When you are treated like furniture, people forget you have ears. They talk in front of you. They leave their heavy iron-bound ledgers open on their office desks. They drop letters carelessly in waste bins.

They discuss troop movements, supply shortages, and trade agreements while you scrub the grease off their floorboards.

My silence is not broken submission. It is a shelter.

I glance toward the head of the table where Garreth is currently shouting at his chief steward, a nervous wolf named Vance.

"The northern border posts are out of grain again?" Garreth roars, slamming his heavy hand onto the wood. The plates rattle. "I gave you three hundred silver coins last month to clear the supply debt with the iron merchants! Where does the grain go?"

Vance bows so low his nose nearly touches the tablecloth. "Alpha, the prices rose because of the late winter. The merchants demand double payment for transportation through the low passes."

"Incompetent fool," Garreth spits, reaching for his wine glass.

I keep my face impassive as I fill the neighboring pitcher, but inside, my mind moves with steady clarity.

Vance is lying, but Garreth is too dense to see it. I cleaned Garreth’s private study three nights ago while he was out inspecting the perimeter guards.

On his desk sits the official manifest from the iron merchants. The winter frost has not touched the low passes this season. The transportation cost has dropped by ten percent.

The missing grain is never bought. Vance is taking fifteen percent of the supply fund and routing it through his cousin’s blacksmith shop.

He has been doing it for eight months. The total stolen sum is over four hundred silver coins.

If Garreth has half the intellect he claims to possess, he would notice the discrepancies in the inventory weight logs. Instead, he blames bad weather and hits his servants harder when his temper flares.

Blood Moon Pack is bleeding money from the inside out. The guards at the south gate are running short on iron-tipped arrows. The storage cellars are half empty.

The entire pack is built on a foundation of decaying wood and bad math, held together only by Garreth’s loud voice and heavy fist.

I move down the row of long tables, my steps soft and measured. Servants in grey dresses rush past me, their faces pale with anxiety as they try to avoid the guards who are growing rowdy from the free-flowing liquor.

I step into the narrow corridor behind the main hall, where the tall arched windows face the inner courtyard. Cold night air seeps through the glass panes. I rest my tray on a narrow shelf and look out toward the front gates.

Heavy iron lanterns flicker along the stone driveway. A crowd of guards stands near the entrance, their posture rigid. The Obsidian delegation is arriving tonight.

Garreth is terrified of them. He spends his time screaming at everyone in the castle, demanding that the carpets be beaten, the tapestries scrubbed, and the finest spirits brought out from the cellar.

The Obsidian Pack rules the Northern territories. They possess five times the land, three times the warriors, and an army that operates with frightening efficiency.

Garreth hopes to sign a defense treaty with them. He wants their protection against the rogue factions raiding the outer borders.

He is desperate.

I lean closer to the stone wall, watching two guards standing near the kitchen entrance below. They are supposed to be guarding the stairs to the vault, but they lean against the wall, sharing a smoking pipe filled with dried herbs.

"The Alpha is out of his mind," one guard mutters, his voice carrying up through the narrow window gap. "He spends fifty silver on that silk banner hanging in the main hall just to impress the visitors. Meanwhile, my unit hasn't seen new boots in six months."

"Keep your mouth shut," the second guard grumbles. "If the commander hears you, you'll be locked in the lower cellar with the girl."

"The girl doesn't talk," the first guard laughs softly. "She's an empty shell. You could tell her a secret plan to burn the castle, and she'd just blink and keep sweeping."

I close my eyes briefly, letting the cool wind settle on my warm face.

Let them think I am an empty shell. Let them believe I am harmless.

Every insult is a piece of information. Every careless whisper builds my map of this fortress. I know which stone in the west wall has loose stones.

I know which guard takes an extra hour on his shift change at midnight. I know that the keys to the archive room hang on a hook behind the head steward's desk every Tuesday when he goes to inspect the bakeries.

They think I am trapped here because I have no wolf to fight my way out. They think my lack of power makes me a prisoner.

They do not realize that I am simply waiting.

A heavy horn sounds from the front watchtower. Three long, low blasts echo through the night air, vibrating in the stone floor beneath my boots.

The Obsidian delegation crosses the gate.

I pick up my tray, straighten my apron, and step back into the bright, loud chaos of the main hall. Garreth is already standing up, smoothing his leather vest while Clara adjusts her hair in a small silver mirror.

The game is about to change. And for the first time in seven years, I have no intention of staying in the dark.

Tab 3