Chapter 16 got back in my car with hands that wouldn't stop trembling, claws threatening to break skin, the wheel slick with sweat and the ghost of blood that wasn't there. I drove like a specter on autopilot, the city unraveling in a blur of lights, each one an accusing eye of my ancestors, glowing like the spirits of Alphas past. By the time I crossed the gates of the Ravenshade Pack House, the weight in my chest was thick enough to choke both man and wolf. .ydia was waiting. Pacing the marble floors in nothing but her nightgown, hair disheveled, nascara streaked like claw marks down her face. She froze when she saw me, golden wolf-eyes lazing with a panic I had never seen in her before, fear not of man, but of lineage. Mark," she rasped, throat raw as if her wolf had howled until it bled. "Tell me this isn't real. Tell ne it's a pack prank, some twisted play staged for the clans. She... She was Vale. Blood of the trongest wolf all along." She hugged herself, trembling, as if even her wolf refused to shield her. Her words twisted in me like silver buried deep in bone. I told the boys to treat her like a ghost," she whispered, voice breaking like a pup's. "I laughed at er gifts. I told them their grandmother was a stray who'd forgotten her place. Moon above, Mark... what have we done?" couldn't answer. My throat was stone, my wolf a caged thing pacing inside me. I walked past er to the balcony, gripping the iron rail until it groaned beneath my strength, as if it could inchor me to this crumbling world. The truth coiled in my gut like a living blade, burning hotter vith every heartbeat. Ve mocked her, Stella Vale. And all along, she had carried not only her silence... but her bloodline. Magnus Vale. The most powerful and wealthiest Wolf King of every wolf pack's lands. Alpha, my ather spent a decade trying to flatter, whose word made packs bow. And his daughter had lived n our house, and I spat at her. mocked my mother. The daughter of the King. The alliance was dead. Our pack was dead. And maybe we were too. remembered it too clearly. That night, suitcase at her feet, shoulders squared, voice calm as carved marble: One day, I will leave this house and never return, not even if you beg with your blood on the marble. Treasure me while I am still here, Mark." And I? I scoffed. "Spare me the drama, Ma. You're not in some wolf-tale opera." threw the bottle in my hand. It cracked against her cheek, alcohol staining her scarf. 'Go then! Go play pitiful maid in another pack's den!" She stumbled but didn't cry. My sons laughed. "Grandma got bowled like a deer," Kurt howled. "She's gonna cry" Ken sneered, "old mutt-maid with her ugly scarves." 313 283% 6:49 pm But she hadn't cried. She lifted her suitcase and walked out like a wolf who'd remembered her blood. She never came back. Now I sat on the balcony, whiskey burning in me, no ice, no mercy, while my sons laughed inside, blind to the doom rolling over our house. They had no idea what we had lost. Who we had spat "She's gone," I whispered. "And I think... she meant it." I pushed open my father's study door. Alpha Shawn was pacing, phone to his ear, voice. bellowing like an enraged wolf Alpha trying to hold a pack already gone. 'I told you to contain the press! I don't care who she claims to be, she was ours! She was our property-" 'She's not ours," I said. My voice was low, but it carried.. He froze. His eyes narrowed. 'We killed the alliance," I told him. "And now she will kill us next." Because Stella had her name, her bloodline, her right to claim what we denied her. And worse, she had nothing left to lose. STELLA'S POV Hospitals always smelled wrong to wolves, too sterile, too clean, too drowned in bleach. No earth, no blood, only the silence of prey in cages. My heels clicked like claws on the tile, and every wolf turned as I passed, sensing heavy power on my shoulders. Room 407. Marga. The mistress. The parasite. The she-wolf who thought herself queen while she warmed Alpha Shawn's bed and poisoned my children against me. She had collapsed at the gala the night Magnus Vale named me his daughter, his heir. At his words, it should be enough to get her knees to buckle and crumple like ash before fire. knocked once, not for permission, but punctuation, and walked in. She was propped against thin pillows, IV in her arm, mascara streaked with shame. A wolf stripped of her pelt. She flinched when she saw me. "Why are you here?" entered with the unhurried grace of a predator. "To see if you survived. I thought you'd choose poison before shame." Her jaw trembled. She spat, "You were just a maid. How did you become Vale's heir? You low-bred whore. Alpha Shawn told me, You were dull, predictable, weak." I stood tall, unflinching, my dress gleaming white as moonlight. "And yet here you are" I said. "In a hospital bed. While I walk the world as Vale blood." She broke, snatched a cup, and hurled it. It clattered weakly. "You were nothing but the maid!" she screamed. Chapter 16 6:49 pm I turned for the door, adjusting the pearl pin in my hair, movements precise, dismissive. "And now," I murmured, each word a claw, "I hold the keys to your cage." Then, I walked away. The door shut on her cries like a blade through flesh.