---- Chapter 17 No.17 Aria POV: The six warriors surged forward as one, a wave of righteous fury. They fell upon Lyra, their fists and feet raining down on her curled form. The sounds were brutal, sickening. They were no longer the pack's elite guard; they were a pack of wolves tearing apart a traitor. "Enough!" my father's voice boomed, amplified by his Alpha power. The Command washed over the warriors, freezing them in place, their fists still raised. "Guards! Separate them! | will not have a murder on the floor of my hall!" The loyal pack guards moved in, physically dragging the enraged warriors off Lyra's bruised and bleeding body. "She tricked me!" Ronan screamed, struggling against the guards holding him. "If it wasn't for her lies, my loyalty to Aria would have been absolute! | would have served her with my life!" He looked at my father, his face streaked with tears of rage and shame. "When we were in the orphanage, | was nothing. Alone. She found me. She made me feel... seen. She promised me a future. A family. She used my loneliness against me!" "Me too!" Jax yelled. "She preyed on all of us! We were ---- orphans, desperate for a connection, and she used it! She twisted our loyalty, turned us against our rightful Luna!" The other warriors echoed their sentiments, a chorus of betrayed, broken men. "SILENCE!" my father commanded again. "Today is about my daughter's coming of age. You will not ruin it further with your brawling." He let the silence hang for a moment, his gaze sweeping over the seven young men he had raised. The seven men who were supposed to be the future of his pack. His face was carved from stone. "The Silver Moon Pack does not harbor traitors," he announced, his voice cold and final. "We do not raise vipers in our nest." He looked at each of them in turn-Ronan, Jax, the others, and finally, Kaelen. "As of this moment," Alpha Alistair declared, his voice leaving no room for appeal, "the seven of you are banished from this territory. You are stripped of your rank, your name, and your protection. You are no longer Silver Moon. You are rogues."