Chapter 5: Rejected Before the Pack

(Daciana POV)

The guard’s words struck the prison corridor like thunder, yet I remained still because shock had finally become too familiar to fear.

Bardolph turned back to me slowly, and the suspicion in his eyes hurt less than it should have because I expected it now.

Ashina had vanished from his chamber, left blood on his bed, and written my name across another lie before I could even stand.

I lifted my chained wrists toward him, letting the iron speak louder than my tired mouth ever could.

“Tell me, Alpha Bardolph, how did I leave this cell, enter your chamber, harm your precious new Luna, and return to chains unseen?”

My voice was calm, but every word carried the broken pieces of love he had crushed before the pack.

The guard looked away first, shame coloring his face, because even a frightened warrior could hear the foolishness in Ashina’s newest trap.

Bardolph stared at the chains, the locked door, the bleeding marks on my skin, and the doubt that finally had nowhere to hide.

For one breath, I thought he would admit the truth or at least admit that he had been wrong to condemn me.

Then Hrolf’s voice came from the stairway, cold and smooth as a snake sliding over stone.

“A desperate traitor does not need freedom when she has helpers, hidden tunnels, and servants still foolish enough to pity her.”

Bardolph’s jaw tightened, and I saw his guilt fight with his pride as Hrolf stepped into the torchlight.

Farkas followed behind him, but his eyes went straight to my wrists as if he needed to know whether I still had the key.

I did not look down, because the silver file hidden beneath my robe was now the only secret keeping me alive.

Hrolf stopped beside Bardolph and looked at me with the kind of hatred men wear when they fear what you might uncover.

“The pack must see her face when the crime is announced,” Hrolf said, speaking as if my life belonged to his tongue.

Bardolph’s eyes flashed, but Hrolf continued before the Alpha could refuse or remember that he still had power.

“If we hide her now, the pack will believe the rejected Luna still controls you through your broken bond.”

The words worked because they touched the one wound Bardolph guarded most fiercely, his fear of appearing weak before his people.

I saw the moment his face hardened, and my heart did not break because there was almost nothing left inside it to break.

“Bring her,” Bardolph ordered, though his voice sounded rough enough to prove some part of him hated the command.

The guards unlocked my chains from the wall but left them around my wrists, dragging me from the cell like proof wrapped in iron.

As they pulled me past Farkas, his hand brushed mine for one quick second, and something tiny slipped into my palm.

I did not look at it, but I felt the shape of another key, smaller than the first and colder than death.

“Do not trust the eastern gate,” Farkas whispered, so low that only my wolf and my bleeding heart heard him.

Then the guards pushed me up the stairs, and every step carried me closer to another public death wearing the name of judgment.

(Bardolph POV)

I walked behind Daciana while the guards dragged her toward the courtyard, and every part of me hated the sight.

Her shoulders were straight, her wrists were bleeding, and somehow, she still looked more like a Luna than the woman missing from my bed.

That thought made shame burn through me because I had placed Ashina in Daciana’s seat and watched the pack accept a lie-shaped crown.

The message on my chamber wall had been written in blood, but the letters looked wrong, rougher than Daciana’s hand.

The blue shawl had been torn across the floor, and Ashina’s scent had been everywhere except where a frightened woman should have fled.

My wolf kept growling the same truth repeatedly, but I had silenced him too many times to trust myself quickly.

Hrolf walked beside me with his head high, while Boris hurried ahead to gather the pack before sunrise could soften their anger.

Farkas remained behind us, silent and watchful, but I knew his silence was no longer obedience.

It was waiting.

When we entered the courtyard, hundreds of wolves stood beneath the fading red moon, their faces hungry for answers and punishment.

Some had lost family in the northern attack, and grief made them ready to bite whatever throat was offered first.

Daciana was pushed onto the stone platform before them, still chained, still pale, and still refusing to bow her head.

The crowd shouted at her, calling her a traitor, a witch, and a murderer and rejecting Luna, while I felt each word strike my own chest.

She did not look at them.

She looked at me.

That was worse, because her eyes no longer begged me to believe her, love her, or save her from anything.

Her eyes only asked whether I could see the monster I had become while trying to protect my pack.

Boris raised his staff, and the courtyard grew quiet enough for the morning wind to carry the smell of smoke between us.

“Blackfang has suffered treason, border bloodshed, poisoned witnesses, and now the disappearance of the acting Luna from the Alpha’s chamber,” Boris declared.

The pack roared with anger, and I saw Daciana flinch only when someone threw a stone that struck near her bare feet.

My wolf lunged inside me so violently that my claws broke through my palms, but I did not move fast enough to stop the next stone.

It hit her shoulder.

Daciana staggered, then straightened slowly, and the quiet strength in that movement made the shouting fade inside my head.

“Enough,” I growled, and the whole courtyard bent beneath the force of my Alpha command.

The silence that followed was heavy, frightened, and full of questions I did not want anyone to ask.

Hrolf leaned close to me, his mouth barely moving as he spoke words meant to guide my next mistake.

“Reject her before them again, Alpha, not as a mate this time, but as a member of Blackfang forever.”

I turned my head toward him, and for the first time, I wondered how long he had been waiting to remove her completely.

“She has already been rejected,” I said, though my voice sounded too low and dangerous to belong to doubt.

“Then finish what mercy left undone,” Hrolf answered, looking toward the crowd as if my hesitation disgusted him.

Daciana heard enough to understand, because her lips curved into a smile that held more pain than any scream could carry.

(Daciana POV)

I stood before the pack that once called me mother, healer, shield, and Luna while they waited to see how low I would fall.

Bardolph looked at me with guilt burning behind his golden eyes, but guilt was useless when chained to cowardice.

Hrolf wanted him to reject me from the pack forever, because exile would make my silence easier than imprisonment.

That was when I understood Farkas’s warning about the eastern gate, because my planned exile route had already become a grave path.

Ashina had disappeared, but her lie still moved through the courtyard, wearing other people’s mouths like stolen skin.

Boris stepped forward with another scroll, and I almost laughed because paper had become Blackfang’s favorite weapon against truth.

“Daciana, daughter of no noble house and rejected mate of Alpha Bardolph, you are accused of attacking the new Luna,” Boris shouted.

The title "daughter of no noble house" cut through the crowd, reminding everyone that I had risen by moon bond instead of bloodline.

I lifted my chin because shame was another chain, and I was already wearing enough iron for one morning.

“I was chained beneath your feet when Ashina vanished, yet you still call my name because truth frightens you more than lies.”

The crowd murmured, and I saw several faces change, not fully with belief, but with the first small wound of doubt.

Boris opened his mouth again, but Bardolph raised his hand, silencing him with a sharpness that surprised even Hrolf.

“Daciana,” Bardolph said, and hearing my name in his voice nearly pulled blood from the wound where our bond had been.

I looked at him carefully, refusing to give him tears when he had already used my love as evidence against me.

“Before the pack, answer one question,” he said, his voice rough beneath the weight of every eye upon us.

“If you did not take Ashina, then who did?”

A bitter laugh rose in my throat because even now he asked me to solve the trap he had helped build around me.

I stepped as far forward as my chains allowed, letting the whole pack see my bruises, my blood, and my unbroken eyes.

“The same people who forged my letters, poisoned Louve, opened your border, and placed a maid in my chair before your body grew cold from rejecting me.”

Hrolf’s face tightened.

Boris swallowed.

Farkas looked almost proud.

Bardolph went still.

The crowd whispered louder, and I felt the lie shake beneath us for the first time since Ashina entered my hallway with false tears.

Then a scream came from the back of the courtyard.

A young warrior pushed through the crowd, carrying something wrapped in the torn blue shawl Ashina had stolen from my room.

He dropped it at Bardolph’s feet, then stepped back as if the cloth itself carried a curse.

Bardolph bent slowly and opened the shawl, revealing a small silver knife, a lock of Ashina’s hair, and a black feather.

My heart stopped.

It was the same kind of black feather the hidden woman had passed to me through the prison wall.

Before anyone could speak, the young warrior lifted a shaking hand and pointed at me with terror in his eyes.

“I found this near the lower cells, Alpha, beside the old tunnel stones where the former Luna was kept.”

The crowd exploded again, and Hrolf smiled like a man watching a bridge burn exactly when he needed it destroyed.

I realized then that Ashina’s disappearance was not meant only to blame me.

It was meant to expose the tunnel before I could use it.

Bardolph looked at me, and something like heartbreak crossed his face because the proof had arrived, wearing my only chance of escape.

But I was done waiting for him to be wise.

I closed my fist around the small key Farkas had given me and pressed it hard into the hidden lock beneath my wrist chain.

The cuff opened with a soft click that only my wolf heard beneath the roar of the pack.

Bardolph’s eyes widened.

Farkas moved first, striking the nearest guard so hard that the man fell before anyone understood what had happened.

“Run, Luna!” Farkas shouted, and the word "Luna" split the courtyard like lightning.

I tore the second cuff open, shifted my weight, and kicked Boris in the knee before he could raise his staff against me.

The pack screamed as I jumped from the platform, pain tearing through my rejected body while my wolf surged toward freedom.

Bardolph reached for me, and for one mad heartbeat, I thought he meant to stop the guards instead of me.

Then Hrolf shouted, “Catch the traitor before she reaches the gate, or Blackfang will burn because of your weakness!”

Weakness.

The word struck Bardolph like a whip, and I watched his face close again beneath the cruel mask of Alpha pride.

“Stop her,” Bardolph commanded, and the order ripped through the courtyard with enough power to make weaker wolves fall.

I stumbled beneath the command, but the broken bond no longer had enough claim over me to make my knees touch the ground.

That frightened him.

I saw it in his eyes as I rose again.

I was no longer his Luna, no longer his mate, and no longer a woman his voice could fully command.

So, I ran.

(Bardolph POV)

Daciana ran through the courtyard like a wounded star refusing to fall, and my wolf howled because every warrior turned against her.

Farkas fought three guards at once, old but deadly, buying her seconds with blood, bone, and years of hidden loyalty.

I should have stopped him.

I should have stopped her.

Instead, I stood frozen because the sight of Daciana breaking my command had shaken something ancient inside me.

A rejected mate should weaken.

A shamed Luna should fall.

A guilty traitor should run like prey.

But Daciana moved like a queen escaping a burning throne, and every step told me I had never known her full strength.

Hrolf grabbed my arm, and the touch nearly made my wolf tear his hand from his body.

“Alpha, she must not reach the western woods,” he said, and fear finally cracked through his smooth voice.

I turned toward him slowly because Farkas had warned her about the eastern gate, yet Hrolf feared the western woods.

That mistake was small.

It was also everything.

“Why the western woods?” I asked, and my voice came out quiet enough to make him release my arm.

Hrolf’s eyes flickered.

Only once.

But I saw it.

Before he could answer, a horn sounded from beyond the walls, deep and strange, carrying a call no Blackfang warrior used.

The crowd froze.

The guards froze.

Even Daciana stopped at the edge of the courtyard, her hair loose, her wrists bleeding, her chest rising with hard breaths.

A line of riders appeared beyond the western trees, dressed in black armor marked with the broken royal seal of Northridge.

At their front sat a tall man on a dark horse, his silver hair tied back and his eyes fixed only on Daciana.

Conri.

The wolf king Ashina had used as a shadow in every lie was standing before my gates like a truth I had refused to meet.

Daciana turned toward him, and something passed between them that struck my chest harder than rejection ever had.

Recognition.

Not love.

Not yet.

But recognition.

Conri lifted one hand, and his voice carried over my courtyard with calm power that made every wolf listen.

“Daciana of Blackfang, your mother’s bloodline calls you home, and Northridge offers protection from the pack that betrayed its own queen.”

The world stopped.

Daciana stared at him, her face pale with shock, while Hrolf cursed under his breath behind me.

My blood turned cold because Conri had not called her traitor, lover, servant, or rejected mate.

He had called her queen.

Then Daciana looked back at me one final time, and whatever I saw in her eyes cut deeper than hatred.

It was goodbye.

Before I could move, Conri’s warriors loosed smoke arrows into the courtyard, and the world vanished behind a wall of gray fire.

I heard Bardolph’s voice shouting my name, but I ran toward the only hand reaching for me through the smoke.

Conri pulled me onto his horse with one strong arm, and the last thing I saw was Bardolph breaking through the smoke too late.

His face was filled with horror, rage, and the first true knowledge of what he had lost.

Then Conri leaned close enough for only me to hear him, and his next words turned every lie into a deeper mystery.

“Your mother did not die serving Blackfang. Daciana and Ashina are not the first maids sent to destroy your bloodline.”