Chapter 2

Cast Out.

Nobody stopped Damian when he turned and walked toward the doors at the back of the hall. I stood there, hands still folded from a prayer nobody asked me to make. His back used to be warm against mine at night. I kept staring at the space where that used to matter.

“Wait.” My voice cracked on the word. “You cannot just say that and walk away. I have a right to answer this.”

He stopped walking. He did not turn around. “The council reviews the evidence in the morning. Until then you hold no authority here.”

“Damian.” I crossed the floor, past tables where nobody would look at me now, past Corwin still holding that folder like he did not know where to put it. “Six years. You owe me an actual conversation. At least that much.”

He turned then. Whatever I hoped to find on his face was not there. “I owe you nothing after this.”

Two guards flanked me, the ones I had trained myself back when the border patrols ran short-staffed. Neither one touched me.

“Your Luna privileges are suspended, effective immediately.” He said it loud, for anyone in the back who missed it the first time. “Surrender your seal and your quarters key tonight. Leave Redthorn territory before sunrise.”

Someone gasped near the front. I did not turn to see who.

Corwin finally spoke, quiet, meant only for Damian. “Alpha. Perhaps a formal hearing would be more ”

“The decision is made.” Damian did not even look at him. “You had your part in this, Corwin. Do not start doubting it now.”

Corwin closed the folder. He did not argue again.

“Before sunrise.” I repeated it because the words refused to sit together right. Six years, and he wanted me gone before the sun came up. Like I was some stranger caught trespassing. I was not the woman who ran the harvest festival three years running? Not the woman who sat with his mother through two long illnesses.

“Guards will take you to your quarters. Personal items only.”

“Damian, please.” My voice came out thin, and I hated it. “Five minutes. Alone. That is all I am asking.”

For one second I thought he might actually give it to me. His jaw shifted. Some crack opened in whatever he had been wearing on his face all night.

Then a woman stepped up beside him, shoulder almost brushing his arm, and the crack shut again.

I had seen her earlier without really seeing her. One more face among the visiting dignitaries near the head table. Dark hair pinned high. A blue gown that cost more than most Redthorn families made in a season.

“Damian.” She said his name low, easy, like she had already earned the right to say it in front of the whole pack.

He gave her one nod. Small. I knew that nod. I used to get that exact nod, back when it meant something aimed at me.

“Who is that,” I asked, even though some part of me had already started fitting the pieces together and did not want to finish the job.

“It’s not your concern anymore.” His voice went flat, the voice he used for pack business, nothing behind it. “Guards. Take her to her quarters.”

A hand closed firmly around my arm. I let them turn me toward the doors because there was nothing left to fight for in that room. Nobody in it was going to believe me over him tonight.

My quarters sat exactly how I left them that morning. The tea has gone cold on the nightstand. A stack of harvest reports still waiting on my desk. A closet full of dresses I picked because they used to make Damian smile.

“Personal items only,” the guard at the door said. He had served under me three years. He would not look at me either.

I packed fast. Two changes of clothes. What little coin I kept in the drawer. My mother’s ring, the one thing in that room that was never Redthorn’s to begin with.

My hand stopped on the dresser drawer where I kept the box Damian gave me our first anniversary, a small wooden thing carved with wolf tracks.

I opened it anyway. A pressed flower from our mating ceremony. A note in his handwriting from years back, folded soft at the creases from being read too many times. I almost took it. Then I set the box back down and closed the drawer instead.

I left the rest sitting where it was.

The walk back through the halls took forever. Every servant found a wall or a floor or a doorframe to stare at instead of me. Every door that used to open for me stayed shut.

Near the kitchens, one of the younger maids, a girl I had personally trained on the household ledgers two years back, caught my eye for half a second before her mother pulled her back around a corner. I did not blame the mother. Fear moved through a pack faster than any actual proof ever could.

The guards at my sides did not speak. Their boots hit the stone floor in a rhythm that did not match mine, and I gave up trying to match it.

Near the east entrance, where the guards would push me out into the dark to find my own way off the territory, voices carried out of the small receiving room the elders used after formal events. I slowed down. The guard beside me did not tell me to keep moving. Maybe he wanted to hear it too.

“so glad you could stay through the transition,” Damian’s mother was saying, warmer than I had heard her sound toward me in years. “Tonight was difficult for everyone. But I think you understand what comes next.”

“I do.” The other woman’s voice, calm, sure of itself. “Damian and I settled the timeline weeks ago. Once the council confirms the evidence, nothing stands in the way.”

“The pack needs a Luna who understands real political weight. Someone who can bring Redthorn the kind of alliance it needs right now.”

A small laugh, pleased with itself. “I have been preparing for this longer than you might think.”

“Then let me say it properly.” Damian’s mother’s voice climbed into something close to reverent. “Welcome, future Luna of Redthorn.”