Chapter 3

Halley’s POV

I woke up the next morning to Beta Ronan barging into my room. 

“Get up.” His voice was flat. When I didn’t move, he crossed the room, yanked the blanket off of me and dragged me out of bed. He threw me toward the closet hard enough that I had to catch myself on the doorframe. “Get dressed. Five minutes.”

He was back in four. I had barely pulled my shirt over my head before his hand closed around my arm again. Dragging me down the hall, down the stairs, all the way outside without another word between us. He marched us through the grounds and into the central square.

We stopped to the side of the stage. I looked into the crowd and felt my stomach drop.  

I realized there were no high-ranking wolves. No elders. No senior warriors. Not one of the faces I had grown up trusting stood before me. My wolf stirred at the back of my mind, searching for them, before coming back with nothing. 

‘They’re not here,’ she said quietly. ‘He probably has them somewhere. Or he’s spun a web of lies to them already!’

Kyle had all night. Enough time to whisper his version of things into every ear that mattered.

Kyle stopped in front of me the next minute. 

He stood over me the way he always did, close enough that I had to tip my head back to meet his eyes. Fury moved across his face. There was a bandage on his neck that covered the place I had bitten him last night. The only mark I’d managed to leave when he tried to take what wasn't his. I held his stare and refused to look away. 

He spoke low so the crowd couldn't hear. “Refuse to work with me and Whitemane will cease to exist. I will absorb it into my territory and the world will forget it was ever here.” He lowered his head. “And for you. I’ll let the men have their way with you. For as long as they want.”

My blood boiled with rage. Everything in me wanted to put a second mark on him to match the first. I curled my fingers into my palms until my nails cut skin and I swallowed the words climbing up my throat. 

Not here. Not yet. Not with my whole pack watching and no one standing beside me.

He didn't wait for an answer. He turned and climbed the steps to the stage. 

He raised one hand and the noise drained out of the square. People quieted for him the way they always had without knowing why they obeyed. 

"Whitemane! The rogues have been defeated!" His voice carried to the back of the square. "The borders are secured. Whitemane is safe!" 

The cheer that went up was real. They did not know what it had cost. 

Kyle let the sound build and then cut it off with his hand again. "But it was not without price. During the battle, Alpha Edmond was gravely injured." A shift moved through the crowd, cheers gave way to gasps and the gasps to murmurs that rippled toward the back. "We pray for his recovery.” He let the silence stretch. “Until that day comes, I will rule in his place." 

There it was. The lie, dressed up as worry. 

I couldn’t bear it another second, but just as I stepped forward to expose his lies, something sharp pressed against my back. 

"You still think he wants you?" Shirley's voice hissed into my ear. The point of the knife dug in below my ribs. "Throw yourself at him all you like. He never will."

I scoffed, my eyes still on Kyle. "I don't want him. I never did. All I care about is my pack. He can’t just steal it from me!" 

“I saw what you did to him last night.” She pushed the blade harder and my skin split. Blood began to bead beneath my shirt. My wolf snarled awake, heat racing down my spine and I had to force her back down. "You put your filthy mouth on my mate. How dare you seduce him?!”

“He forced himself on me,” I said through my teeth. “I bit him to get him off me.”

“Liar!” The knife jerked and pain flared along my back. “I smelled you on him. All over him. You think you can take what's mine? No. Never.” Her breath came ragged now. “Seducing another’s mate is punishable by death, you desperate little bitch. Give me one reason and I’ll gut you right here in front of all of them and they'll thank me for it.”

Before I could answer, Kyle's hand closed around my arm and pulled me up the steps beside him, into full view of the crowd.

"Princess Halley," he announced, "will confirm my claims." 

Hundreds of faces turned up toward me. My people. The ones I had grown up with, trained beside, and quietly sworn to protect. They looked at me waiting to be told what was true and I was the only one left who could tell them.

"Do this," Kyle said under his breath, his smile fixed for the crowd, "or your father dies in that infirmary tonight. I have men at his bedside right now. Whether they guard him or end him is up to you."

My mouth went dry. My wolf paced behind my ribs frantically and I had no way to let her out. I opened my mouth anyway. I did not know yet what would come out. The lie that bought my father one more day or the truth that might cost him everything and me along with him.

The doors at the far end of the square slammed open.

One of the guards who had been stationed at my father's side came running. He shoved through the crowd, took the stage steps two at a time and stopped in front of us with his chest heaving. His eyes found Kyle, then me, and settled on me full of pity.

"Alpha Edmond is dead."