Iris Thorne POV
Iris didn't go into the cottage with the strange woman.
She ran past her, deeper into the Shadowlands, because staying anywhere near the temple meant staying near them. It meant staying where people could see her as the girl Kael rejected. The girl all five Alphas said no to. The girl everyone was already pitying.
The darkness swallowed her whole.
She crashed through twisted branches and poisoned undergrowth. Her feet bled. Her dress got caught on thorns and ripped completely. She didn't care. Pain was nothing compared to the hollowness in her chest where her heart used to be.
How long did she run? Hours maybe. Maybe just minutes that felt like hours.
Eventually her legs gave out and she collapsed against a dead tree. Her whole body shook. Not from cold. From the inside breaking apart.
The rejection pain had faded to a dull ache by then, but the humiliation was fresh and burning. It wrapped around her like poison. She could still see Kael's face. Could still hear his voice saying unworthy. Could still feel the way his golden eyes looked at her like she was nothing.
Worst part was the one moment. That single heartbeat when she thought he would claim her. When she felt his wolf recognize her. When the entire universe seemed to pause and hold its breath.
Then he destroyed it.
And he made sure everyone saw him destroy it.
Footsteps crashed through the forest behind her.
Iris's head snapped up. Her body tensed even though she knew she couldn't fight. She couldn't shift. She couldn't do anything a real wolf could do.
Sable emerged through the darkness like something from a nightmare.
Her aunt's face was twisted with fury and something worse. Disappointment. The kind of disappointment that made Sable look at Iris like she was a stain on their family honor.
"You stupid, pathetic girl." Sable's hand shot out and grabbed Iris's arm, yanking her up. "Did you really think an Alpha would want you? Did you actually believe you deserved to stand with Kings?"
Iris tried to pull away but Sable was stronger. Of course she was. Sable had a wolf. Sable had power. Sable had everything that Iris would never have.
"Let me go." Iris's voice came out broken and small.
"Come." Sable dragged her back toward the kingdoms. Back toward the temple where people were still gathered. Back toward the eyes that had seen her destroyed and would keep seeing it forever. "You're going to face what you are. You're going to stop running and accept your place."
But Iris's place was gone. It had never existed. That was the real horror of it.
The Thorne pack house loomed against the night sky when they arrived. The entire pack was gathered outside, summoned by their Alpha. Hundreds of wolves in human form, all staring at Iris like she was something to be examined and found lacking.
Sable walked her to the center of the gathering and released her arm with a shove that sent Iris stumbling forward.
Everyone was watching.
Everyone would remember this.
"Pack of Thorne." Sable's voice rang out clear and powerful. "I stand before you to remove a shame from our name. Iris Thorne is no longer welcome here. She is defective. Broken. Unworthy of carrying the Thorne bloodline."
Iris opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out.
"She went to the Moonrise Ceremony with false hope and embarrassed us all. The Alphas rejected her because she is exactly what I say she is. Pathetic. Weak. Not worthy of any pack, let alone ours."
Around her, wolves nodded. Some looked sorry for her. Most just looked uncomfortable, like her failure was contagious and might spread to them if they stood too close.
"From this moment forward, Iris Thorne is banished. If you return to these lands, you will be hunted as a rogue. You will have no pack, no protection, no family. You are dead to us."
The words hit harder than any physical blow could have.
Dead to us.
That was the moment Iris understood. She had nothing left. No home. No family. No future. The five Alphas had made sure of that when they rejected her. Sable had just finished the job.
"Go." Sable pointed toward the darkness. "Leave before I change my mind about letting you walk out of here alive."
Iris walked. She didn't run. Didn't cry. Didn't feel anything at all anymore. There was no point in feeling. Feelings belonged to people with futures. Iris didn't have one of those.
The darkness of the Shadowlands embraced her again when she crossed the border.
This time she didn't stop. Didn't hesitate. Didn't think about going back or changing her mind or hoping for something better. Those were things the old Iris did. The girl wearing the borrowed dress and believing in fated mates.
That girl was dead now too.
The night got colder as she went deeper into the twisted forest. The air smelled wrong, like poison and decay and things that shouldn't exist. The ground beneath her feet was hard and cracked. Trees grew at strange angles, their branches reaching like skeletal fingers.
Wolves came sometimes. Rogues. She could smell them hunting nearby.
She didn't hide from them.
Let them find her. Let them do what they wanted. It would be easier than this. Easier than existing as nothing. Easier than surviving as a girl nobody wanted.
She walked until her feet couldn't carry her anymore and then she collapsed on the ground and waited for death to come.
But death didn't come.
Instead, a voice cut through the darkness like a blade.
"You again."
The woman from before stood over her, silhouetted against the twisted trees. The strange woman with the violet eyes and the ancient voice. In the moonlight, Iris could see more clearly now. The woman was scarred. Powerful. Like she didn't belong to the normal world anymore.
"I told you not yet." The woman crouched down beside her. "You don't get to give up so easily."
"I have nothing." Iris's voice was barely a whisper. "No pack. No family. No wolf. No future."
The woman smiled, and it wasn't kind. "You have something far more dangerous than any of that, child. You just don't know it yet."
Iris wanted to tell her she was wrong. Wanted to say that being dangerous didn't matter when no one would ever look at you the same way again. When five of the most powerful Alphas in existence had made it clear you were unworthy.
But the woman was already pulling her up, supporting her weight, dragging her toward that cottage hidden in the twisted trees.
"Come inside." The woman said it like a command. Like Iris didn't have a choice. "I'm Lyanna. I'm a witch. And I'm about to teach you something that will terrify you far more than any rogue ever could."
Iris didn't ask what.
She followed Lyanna into the darkness because darkness was all that was left.
The cottage door closed behind them with a sound like finality.
Outside, the blood moon continued its rise, and Iris Thorne became something new. Not a girl anymore. Not really alive anymore either.
Just a broken thing waiting to be rebuilt into something that would make them all regret what they'd done.