Selene tasted blood and ash on the air as Luna strode away toward the west wall, cloaked in wind and firelight.
It burned worse than any wound.
The courtyard swirled into motion around her—warriors shouting, omegas rushing, pups being bundled into inner halls—but for a moment, she heard none of it.
All she saw was the slight girl she'd once pushed into the snow, now walking through Moonshadow's heart like she owned the sky.
Lightning on her skin.
Wolves parting before her.
Orion's eyes on her back.
Something inside Selene that had been lying coiled and patient for seasons reared up, hissing.
Not fear.
Hatred.
"Selene."
Orion's voice brushed the edge of her awareness.
Too close.
Too soft.
She didn't turn immediately.
If she did, the expression on her face would betray too much.
She stared at the fading shimmer of Luna's power instead, jaw tight, hands curling at her sides.
The runt had survived.
The runt had *thrived.*
The runt had come back crowned in the Goddess' touch and the pack's fragile hope.
Selene inhaled slowly through her nose.
Exhaled.
Smoothed her features into something almost serene before she faced him.
"Yes, *amor*?" she said, the endearment dry as old bones.
Orion's face was taut, eyes still half on the direction Luna had gone.
The glow in them hadn't faded.
If anything, it burned hotter, threaded through with something Selene recognized all too well.
Regret.
Longing.
Dangerous things.
"We need to reinforce the west," he said briskly, forcing his attention back to the present. "Get the elders and any unshifted wolves into the inner hall. Keep them away from the worst of the cracks."
Selene's lips thinned.
"Like lambs in a pen," she murmured. "Waiting their turn for the slaughter."
His jaw flexed.
"Safer there than under falling walls," he snapped.
Safer.
He actually believed there was a "safe" place left in Moonshadow.
Sweet.
Naïve.
Idiotic.
It had been one of the things she'd liked about him once—his refusal to see the world as cruelly as it was. It had made him easy to steer.
Now it annoyed her.
"Of course," she said smoothly. "I'll… shepherd them."
His gaze flicked to her, searching for mockery, malice.
She gave him none.
He did not have Luna's eyes, sharp enough to cut through her veils.
He nodded, already half turning to follow the storm.
"Good," he said. "And Selene—"
She waited.
"Do not interfere with Luna," he finished, each word carved out as if he'd had to wrench it from a place that still bristled at giving that kind of order.
Selene's teeth clicked together behind her closed lips.
For a heartbeat, she forgot to breathe.
He had just told her, in front of the pack, to leave the *runt* alone.
As if Selene were some pup who might pick a petty fight in the yard.
Heat prickled the back of her neck.
She curled her fingers deeper into her palms until nails bit flesh.
"What makes you think I would?" she asked, tone light, almost amused. "She clearly… has her hands full."
Her gaze flicked to the west, where faint flares of light already marked Luna's path along the wall.
Orion exhaled, some tension easing from his shoulders.
He believed her.
Of course he did.
He wanted to.
"Because I know you," he said, softer. "You don't like threats you can't measure. For now, she's… useful."
Selene swallowed the bitter laugh that wanted to claw free.
*Useful.*
Once upon a time, that had been her argument about Luna—use the runt, don't cherish her. Let her scrub and serve and stay little.
Now Orion used the same word, but it was not *hers.*
It belonged to the storm-wolf who could pull pups back from the brink and make rogues flinch.
"What you know and what is true are not always the same," she murmured.
He frowned.
"What?" he asked.
She shook her head quickly, smile smooth as ice.
"Nothing," she said. "Go. Be the Alpha they need. I'll see to the… lambs."
He hesitated a fraction of a heartbeat longer.
Then he turned away, shifting as he went.
Bones cracked, fur burst forth, and in a few strides the man was a wolf again—a massive, dark-furred Alpha with silver-threaded eyes, pounding toward the west with a howl that called warriors to his side.
Selene watched him go.
Her chest ached.
Not with love.
Not anymore.
With possessive fury.
He was hers.
She'd carved her place at his side with years of careful steps: the right word to the right elder at the right time, the right tear in the right hallway, the right smile in the right bed.
The Goddess had tried to cut her out of that picture once, shoving a runt into a space Selene had already filled.
Selene had won that battle.
Orion had stood here and said no to the moon.
She had made sure of it.
And then Luna had *left.*
Taken the threat with her.
Selene had almost forgotten, some days, how much she'd hated that small, stubborn wolf.
The runt had become a ghost, a cautionary tale.
Now the ghost had come back with teeth.
And fire.
And the Goddess' favor dripping from her like water.
Hatred reignited in Selene's veins, hot and bright, as if someone had poured oil on embers she'd carefully banked.
Luna had not just returned alive.
She had returned *needed.*
By the pack.
By the Goddess.
By Orion.
A low, ugly sound rumbled in Selene's throat, too quiet for anyone but herself to hear.
"Come," she snapped to the nearest omega. "Gather the elders. Into the inner hall. Now."
The girl flinched, eyes wide, then scurried to obey, calling to others in a breathless voice.
Selene swept toward the main archway, cloak swirling behind her.
Wolves parted instinctively.
They always had.
They still did.
Power moved through this pack more ways than one.
Alpha command.
Elders' scheming.
Fear.
Desire.
Selene understood all of them.
She slipped into the inner hall and let the din of the courtyard dim behind her.
The corridor beyond was dimly lit, torches spaced thin to save fuel.
Cracks marred the plastered walls here, too, though finer than those outside.
Shadow-mist seeped from them in slow tendrils, tasting the air like tongues.
Selene's nose wrinkled, but she didn't shy away.
She walked through it.
For a moment, the cold of it licked at her ankles, her calves.
Like icy fingers.
Then it slithered away, sliding back into the walls.
She smiled.
The shadow knew her.
Not as it knew the pliant, the weak, the ones who stumbled eagerly into its grasp.
As it knew a… collaborator.
Once, when the first crack had appeared in the moon-stone above the gate, she had stood in this very hall and reached for the dark mist, offering it a different kind of path.
Not surrender.
Use.
*We want the same things,* she had whispered then, fingers brushing the unnatural chill. *Power shifted. Old rules broken. The weak culled. The strong—* *my* strong—*raised.*
The curse had not spoken in words.
But it had watched.
Listened.
Learned.
She had watched it in turn, picking up its patterns.
Who it favored.
Who it devoured quickly.
Who it lingered in.
It picked at cracks already in wolves' souls.
Fear.
Guilt.
Pride.
Selene had guided a few of those cracks, nudged a few choices, so the shadow would find more willing hosts.
It had made things… easier.
For a while.
Now it was getting greedy.
Now it rolled through Moonshadow like a river in flood, spilling over banks she hadn't meant to breach.
And into that chaos stepped Luna, all righteous intent and wild power, ready to… what? Heal? Redeem? Tear out rot Selene had very carefully cultivated?
No.
Selene would not allow it.
She slipped into the council chamber, its heavy door hanging slightly askew, one hinge warped from some unseen strain.
The room was empty of wolves.
Dust lay thick on the long table, except in a few places where recent hands had brushed it aside in tense meetings.
The carved symbols of the founding families glared down from the walls, their painted eyes dulled by smoke and time.
Fine fissures ran through some of them, splitting proud faces in two.
Selene crossed to the far wall, to a darker patch of stone behind the high-backed chair traditionally reserved for the Alpha.
Here, the crack was deeper.
It pulsed faintly, like a slow heartbeat.
Shadows gathered there, thicker.
She pressed her palm flat against the cold rock.
"Did you miss me?" she murmured.
The darkness shivered under her fingers.
A tendril of mist curled up, brushing her skin.
It was not affectionate.
It tested.
Probed.
Once, she had flinched at that touch.
Now she held still.
"If you could do what you wanted," she mused softly, "you'd eat them all, wouldn't you? Wolves. Stone. Oaths. Leave nothing but ash and echoes."
The shadow flicked, restless.
Of course it would.
That was its nature.
Devour.
Spread.
But it had needed help to get this far.
Cracks to slip into.
Choices to twist.
Her.
She dragged her fingers down the wall.
Cold bit into her nails.
"You've been… sloppy," she chided. "Going after pups like that? Oh, I see the appeal. Easy souls. Soft. But you know wolves—they *hate* to see their future die early. It turns even the dullest elder into a would-be hero."
The pulsing mist stilled.
Listened.
"They'll let you have the old ones, you know," she went on. "The sick. The inconvenient. The ones they already write off in their minds. They'll call it 'mercy.' 'The Goddess' will.' But pups…" She shook her head. "That's where their stubbornness wakes up. That's where *she* wakes up."
She spat the last word out.
Luna.
Storm-runt.
Moon-touched little upstart.
Selene's lip curled.
"When I told you about her," she whispered to the wall, "you should have ended her while she still slept in these halls. Before she learned to wear Your tricks. Before the Goddess shoved more of Herself into that scrawny body."
The crack's pulse fluttered faster.
Memories swirled at its edge—faint images of a frightened girl praying in empty kitchens, of grief given to the moon when no one else would listen.
The curse had tasted Luna's despair once.
It had liked it.
Selene's fingers dug into the stone.
"You had your chance," she hissed. "Now she comes back with thunder in her hands and wolves in her wake. You let her grow."
She leaned closer, breath fogging slightly in the cold radiating from the fracture.
"Fix it," she murmured. "Help me fix it. And I'll help *you.*"
The shadow stirred, wary.
She smiled, slow and sharp.
"Don't look at me like that," she crooned. "We have worked together before, haven't we? You wanted inside this pack. I opened doors. You wanted fear. I fed it. You wanted souls with cracks. I made sure they shattered in just the right places."
Gently, she tapped her temple against the wall.
The chill seeped into her skin.
She welcomed it.
"You're hungry," she said. "So am I. She wants to starve you. Heal them. Close you back in like some misbehaving pup in a closet. I…" Her eyes flashed. "I want to aim you."
The darkness coiled.
Interested.
"Think," Selene whispered. "She is strong now. Too strong for simple claws and teeth. Warriors will fall at her side if they challenge her openly. The rogues? Hah. They'll either die or bend the knee once they see what sings in her blood. But no one is strong *everywhere.* Not even your precious goddess' favorite."
Her voice dropped, cold and certain.
"Everyone has a weak point."
Images rose unbidden: Luna on her knees in the snow. Luna flinching under Selene's hand. Luna's eyes when she'd realized her mate had chosen status over her.
A rejected child.
An abandoned lover.
A runt who had taught herself to stop begging—but whose heart still ached when she heard Orion's name.
"You felt it, didn't you?" Selene murmured to the crack. "When he looked at her. When she looked back and tried so hard not to *feel.* That tug between them. That bond they both keep shredding and stitching and shredding again."
The curse pulsed.
Of course it had felt it.
The mate-bond was a bright, taut thread in the web that wrapped this pack.
Frayed.
Not fully broken.
"Pull there," Selene suggested gently. "Not on hers. On *his.* You've got your fingers in him already. Nudge. Twist. Make him see her as the danger she is. Make him fear that she's here to unmake him. You know how fear warps love. You've been feasting on that for moons."
She stroked the stone, as if soothing a temperamental beast.
"Turn the Alpha against the storm," she said. "Make him your knife. She'll hesitate to cut him down. That's what good little mates do. Even rejected ones."
Her smile sharpened to a knifepoint.
"They all like to pretend they're beyond such binds," she sneered. "But when it comes down to it, they will still put their throats in reach of familiar teeth. She is no different."
The darkness thickened, swirling with half-formed images—Orion's face, Luna's, the silver between their eyes.
"Of course," she mused, "we can't be too obvious. He's stubborn. Proud. If he *knows* you're tugging, he'll fight—just to spite you. So…" She tapped her bottom lip thoughtfully. "We make it look like his idea."
Her mind moved quickly, flipping through memories, patterns.
Orion's soft spots.
Luna's.
The pack's.
Jealousy, once, had been her main fuel.
Now it was a tool.
"He blames himself," she said quietly, half to the wall, half to herself. "For the cracks. For the pups. For throwing her out. Guilt is a wonderful lever. He will cling to any story that tells him he can fix it. Be the hero. If we make *her* the one thing he *can't* fix…"
She trailed off, the shape of the plan crystallizing.
She pulled her hand from the wall.
The stone clung, reluctant, a brief suction before letting her go.
Cold lingered in her palm.
It made her feel sharper.
Cleaner.
"Stay close," she whispered to the crack. "Listen. When I speak, you press. When I point, you seep. Together, we can break her without ever laying a claw."
The shadow settled.
Not in agreement exactly.
In… anticipation.
She straightened, smoothing her cloak, rolling her shoulders back.
Her heart had stopped racing.
Her mind no longer felt like a jar of bees.
This was familiar ground.
Whispers.
Half-truths.
Carefully placed words at the right ear.
Open attack would get her teeth broken on Luna's storm.
This way, Luna might never see the knife until it was already between her ribs.
Selene left the council room, footsteps light on the stone.
The corridor outside had filled quickly.
Elders shuffled nervously toward the inner hall under the brisk commands of omegas.
Pups clung to their mothers' skirts, eyes wide, ears flattened at each distant boom from the walls.
"Selene," Maera breathed, spotting her. "The Alpha—he's letting *her*—"
"She saved a pup from the curse," Selene cut in, voice calm but pitched just loud enough for those nearby to hear. "He'd have been a fool to shove her out before using that… gift."
Maera's lips pursed.
"But the Goddess—"
"The Goddess," Selene said crisply, "has made Her opinions painfully clear. This—" she gestured at the cracks, the trembling stone, "is Her tantrum. We don't get to ignore Her tools when She throws them at our heads."
Murmurs rippled.
Respect for the Goddess ran deep here.
Convenient.
She stepped closer to Maera, dropping her voice.
"Of course," she added, soft and confiding, "we must be careful. Power that strong? Wild. Untested. Who knows what else it might pull in with it? One pup saved tonight… what if three die tomorrow when she overreaches?"
Maera paled slightly.
"You think—" she began.
"I think," Selene said, eyes wide and earnest, "that we must not tie our whole survival to one little lightning rod the Goddess threw back at us. Especially not one with such… complicated ties to our Alpha."
Her lashes swept down.
Maera's eyes sharpened.
"Complicated," she repeated, tasting the word.
Selene let a shadow cross her face—something like hurt, carefully curated.
"You saw," she whispered. "The way he looked at her. After everything. After choosing the pack, choosing *us.*"
She let a tremor into her voice.
"I would never question the Goddess openly," she said, the denial structured exactly so it would plant the idea. "But… doesn't it seem a bit… cruel, to drop her back into his path *now*? When he is weakest? When the pack is frayed?"
Maera's gaze flicked toward the courtyard.
Her mouth drew into a thin line.
"Or a test," she murmured. "Of his… loyalty. To us. To the pack."
Selene nearly smiled.
Hook.
Line.
"Yes," she breathed. "Exactly. He is only a wolf, Maera. Flesh. Blood. Heart. He has… regrets." She let that word hang. "She is the living embodiment of one."
A few nearby wolves, pretending not to listen, shifted closer.
"Can you imagine," Selene went on, voice barely more than a sigh, "if, in his pain, he begins to… favor her? To trust her more than his own? To let her pull him where she wills? The Goddess might be… pleased. But what of *Moonshadow*?"
The corridor seemed to tighten around them as the implications sank in.
An Alpha with divided loyalties.
A cursed pack hanging on that frayed thread.
"And if," Selene added softly, "she is not as controlled as she looks? If a storm like that breaks in the *wrong* way, in the *wrong* place? One misjudged flash, one flinch, and half this hall could crumble. With pups inside."
Gasps.
Hands pressing protectively to small shoulders.
Selene raised both hands, palms out, as if to calm.
"I am not saying she will," she soothed. "She seems… sincere. In her own way. But good intentions don't stop lightning. Or shadow."
Maera's lips were thin enough to disappear.
"What are you suggesting?" she asked.
Selene lowered her hands.
Let her shoulders sag a fraction.
"I'm suggesting," she said, "that while we… accept her help, we must also have… safeguards. Watch. Listen. Make sure our Alpha is not… swayed into forgetting who he leads, who he owes."
She met Maera's eyes.
"An Alpha under a curse is vulnerable," she whispered. "An Alpha under a curse *and* under the sway of a powerful, rejected mate? That's a sword hanging over all our heads."
Maera's gaze darkened.
"Yes," she said slowly. "Yes. We must… counsel him. Remind him."
"And if he doesn't listen?" Selene murmured.
Maera's jaw clenched.
She didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
Selene dipped her head, as if in deference.
Inside, the cold in her palm pulsed in time with a savage little thrill.
The seed was planted.
Doubt.
Fear.
Not of Luna's power alone.
Of what it might do to Orion.
To their "beloved Alpha."
Now, every time he looked at Luna too long, every order he gave that aligned with her suggestions, every hesitation when Selene pushed in the other direction, the elders would see not strategy, not growth—
Compromise.
Weakness.
The shadow in the walls would feed on that.
Selene slipped away before Maera could press further, leaving the elder stewing in her own anxious thoughts.
In a side passage, she nearly collided with a young warrior barreling around the corner, fur half-risen, eyes wide.
He skidded to a halt, almost tripping over his own paws as he shifted back to human form mid-stumble out of sheer habit when confronted with her.
"Sorry, Selene," he blurted, breathless. "West wall—Alpha called—"
"Go," she said sharply, stepping aside.
He bolted past, bare feet slapping stone, shifting again before he hit the courtyard.
Selene watched him go.
Her mind ticked on.
Luna would be at the west wall now, storm-coiling, eyes bright, hands bleeding power.
Orion would be at her flank, half-trusting, half-afraid, pulled toward her like a moth to flame.
The pack would see.
Would whisper.
Would *wonder.*
Good.
Let them.
Selene turned down another corridor, deeper into the inner den.
She needed one more piece.
The elders could be turned slowly.
The shadow nudged.
But to truly cut Luna, she needed someone *close* to the storm.
An anchor she could loosen.
A support she could kick out from under.
A face Luna wouldn't be able to harden herself against.
Her feet carried her, almost without conscious thought, toward the small chamber off the main sleeping hall where she knew a certain old she-wolf kept her few treasures.
Elia.
The omega with the sharp tongue and the inconvenient conscience.
The one who had slipped Luna scraps and comfort when Selene had twisted the knife.
The one who had just stood at Luna's side in the courtyard, fingers laced with hers in front of everyone.
Elia was a crack, too.
Not in the walls.
In Luna.
Selene paused outside the older woman's door.
Listened.
Empty.
Of course.
Elia would be at Luna's heels for as long as she could manage.
She'd leave this den behind gladly if the runt just crooked a finger.
Selene smiled without warmth.
Perfect.
She didn't need Elia *here.*
She needed what Elia *left.*
She slipped inside the small chamber.
It smelled faintly of herbs, old smoke, and that specific, indefinable scent of long years lived in the same four walls.
The pallet was neat.
The single shelf lined with carefully folded cloth and a few trinkets—a smooth river stone shaped like a heart, a twist of faded ribbon, a chipped wooden carving of a wolf pup.
Beneath the pallet, pushed half into shadow, something gleamed faintly.
Selene knelt, dragging it out.
A small, battered tin box.
She flipped the lid.
Inside, wrapped in a strip of old cloth, lay a simple pendant: a crescent moon carved from bone, its edges worn smooth by countless fingers over the years.
Luna's.
Selene recognized it with a sharp jab of memory.
She'd ripped it from the girl's neck once, years ago, in a fit of casual cruelty, tossing it onto a kitchen shelf with a dismissive laugh.
Elia must have saved it.
Kept it.
Hidden it here.
As if storing away a piece of the runt's heart.
Selene's fingers closed around the pendant.
It was warm from the den's air.
Faintly, annoyingly warm.
She brought it to her nose, inhaling.
Under Elia's scent, under old wood and tin, a whisper of Luna clung still.
Old Luna.
Fearful.
Hopeful.
She slid the pendant into her palm, closing her fingers around it until the edges bit.
Perfect.
An anchor to an old self.
A reminder of who Luna had been when she'd lived under these ceilings—small, unsure, desperate for scraps of affection.
Selene straightened, tucking the pendant into the hidden pocket inside her cloak.
As she did, a faint tremor ran through the stone under her feet.
Distant, muffled, like a growl through a thick door.
West wall.
Luna's storm, or the curse, or both, flexing.
Selene smiled to herself, sharp as a blade in the dark.
"Burn bright, little moon," she murmured. "Burn so bright they can't look away. Then we'll see what shatters first—your storm, his heart, or this cursed old pack."
She left Elia's chamber as if she'd never been there, cloak falling smooth around her.
By the time she stepped back into the main hall, the noise from the west had swelled—shouts, howls, the low thunder of something heavy meeting stone.
Wolves rushed past her, some toward the fight, some away from new fractures.
Selene moved through them like a ghost, untouched.
Her jealousy, no longer banked, burned steady in her veins, fueling each calculated step.
Luna had returned more powerful than ever.
But Selene had not survived this long on looks and spite alone.
She had weapons of her own—whispers, shadow, hearts still tangled in old bonds.
And she had no intention of letting the storm-runt rewrite the story Selene had spent her life crafting.
Not without a fight.
Not without drawing blood.
And if she had to stand shoulder to shoulder with the very darkness eating her home to do it?
So be it.
Better to rule over ruin than to kneel in someone else's shining new world.