Banished

No. No.

This isn't happening.

Except it was. It was happening and I was standing in the middle of it completely alone, with no one standing up for me and everyone lying against me, out to destroy what's left of my sanity.

“The council has heard sufficient testimony,” the elder said.

“No,” I cut in quickly. “You haven’t heard mine.”

Nobody responded, and that was when I stopped fighting.

 I finally understood that this room had never been about the truth. It had been about the story, and someone else had written it long before I walked through that door.

I pressed my hand against my stomach.They weren’t listening because they never intended to.

The elder continued. "Reylap Stark, the council finds sufficient grounds for —"

"I'm pregnant."

The room froze.

Even Farida stopped breathing for half a second. But, she recovered immediately, not looking surprised as she grabbed a glass of water.

I kept my eyes on Malik. Only Malik. "Three months pregnant. I found out three weeks ago, but.. Malik, you marked me three months ago. Do the math." My voice cracked but I held his gaze. "I was going to tell you tonight, after the ceremony, because I wanted it to be right, I wanted everything to be right —" I stopped, swallowed hard. "You marked me carrying your child, Malik. And now you're standing there letting them do this." My hand pressed flat against my stomach without permission. "So I need you to stop this. Right now. Please.”

The room waited.

Malik looked at me for a long, terrible moment, before looking away. 

"Don't." I gasped. "Don't you dare look away from me right now."

Farida's voice came in soft and perfectly timed. "She'll say anything. People cornered always reach for sympathy.”

I turned to her sharply. “Stay out of this.”

She smiled faintly. “I already am in it. Unlike you, I don’t have to announce my place.”

"I am carrying your child!" The words tore out of me, louder than I intended, echoing off every wall in that chamber, and I didn't care, didn't care about composure or dignity or any of it anymore because he was standing there looking through me like I was nothing. "Malik. Look at me. Please."

He turned back slowly. "You're using this," he said quietly. "Just like you used Maya's trust. Just like you used your position." He shook his head. "I don't know who you became. But you are not the woman I chose."

Something inside me died quietly at that sentence.

Farida leaned toward him and murmured something, her hand resting on his arm with a familiarity that made my stomach turn, and he listened, and he nodded, and I watched the last door close.

An older elder near the back cleared his throat. "If the pregnancy claim holds any truth, imprisonment risks both lives." He looked around carefully. "Banishment is the more — measured response."

Farida's eyes cut to him sharply but she said nothing.

Malik was quiet for a moment. "Fine. Banishment."

They didn't give me time to breathe before the elder was already reading the sentence, stripping everything from me in that flat, administrative voice. 

Healer status. Revoked.

Pack privileges. Dissolved.

Alpha Princess claim. Nullified.

I stood there and took each one because what else could I do, and then Malik was walking toward me.

He stopped in front of me.

"Don't," I whispered.

He lifted his hand toward my neck anyway.

The first touch of his fingers against the mate mark sent a shock through my entire body.

I heard ripples of discomfort fron everyone present in that room, because they could see the mark now. A private marking.

One elder leaned toward another and murmured. "Is that —"

"He already marked her," someone said quietly. "Privately."

The atmosphere changed completely. Private markings were sacred and more binding than public ones in many ways, because they weren't performed for the pack or for ceremony, but for truth.You didn't privately mark someone you weren't certain of.

And, you didn't break one publicly unless you wanted everyone to know exactly what kind of man you were.

Roman looked at the floor.

Even the elder who had been reading the sentence stopped speaking for just a moment.

Then, finally, Malik pressed down, and it began.

It wasn't like I expected. It was agonizingly slow like something being unwound thread by thread from the center of my chest, each one snapping individually, each one taking something with it that I would never be able to replace. 

My vision blurred, and my hands shook. I felt the bond thinning, fraying, pulling apart at the seams while I stood there and felt every single second of it because I had no choice, because this was what it felt like to be unmated, to be unclaimed, to be reduced from someone's everything to nobody in real time.

"Stop." The word tore out of me without permission. "Malik, stop, please —"

He didn't stop and then, the last thread snapped.

My legs gave out completely, and I hit the floor immediately.

I tasted copper and didn't understand it at first, reached up slowly and touched my upper lip and looked at my fingers and saw red, and somewhere far away I heard someone in the room draw a sharp breath because a broken bond that drew blood meant something, it meant the severance was fighting the body's will to survive it.

Farida's voice drifted down to me. "Is she — "

"She's fine," Malik said.

I pressed my palm against the cold floor and looked up at him from the ground. "I hope she was worth it. I hope you remember this moment," I said quietly. "When the truth comes out. I hope you remember exactly where you were standing."

I wiped the blood from my lip, pushed myself to my feet, and walked out.

Nobody stopped me, but Farida did. “I wanted to say goodbye." 

Her hand closed around my arm just before the doors, and she leaned in close enough that her breath touched my ear.

"The wolfsbane in Elder Koran's system?" she whispered. "It was never meant for him."

I went completely still.

Her voice was sweet. “The dose was meant for the pup — and yes, I knew. I've known longer than you think." She tilted her head. "But you never take your own medicine, do you Rey? Eight years of healing everyone else and you can't even remember to drink your own tonic.”

My whole body stopped functioning.

"The elder was unfortunate," She released my arm and smoothed my sleeve like she was tidying me up. "That sick old man saw me switching the bag. I couldn't let that stand, so I had to do something about him." She sighed softly. "You were always the real target. You and that baby. I just needed everyone looking at you long enough to stop looking at me."

She met my eyes one final time and what I saw was terrifying madness and hate.

"Now go," she said sweetly. "Before the bleeding gets worse."