Vera
The silence breaks. A hundred gasps, a thousand whispers erupt at once. The Great Hall is a sea of churning confusion and outrage. Bianca’s face is a twisted mask of fury. The Elder looks at me as if I have sprouted a second head. Guards straighten, their hands moving to their weapons, their eyes darting to their Alpha for a command.
And Felix. His face has gone from shocked white to a blotchy, dangerous red. The air around him crackles with raw, unrestrained power. It’s his Alpha presence, a force meant to bring lesser wolves to their knees in submission. I remember how it used to make my bones ache with fear. Now, I feel nothing. It’s like watching a storm rage behind a thick pane of glass.
“Clear the hall,” Felix’s voice is not a shout. It is far worse. A low, lethal snarl that cuts through the noise like a honed blade. “Everyone. Out. Now.”
No one needs to be told twice. Benches scrape against the stone floor as the pack scrambles to obey, a panicked exodus of shuffling feet and averted eyes. They don't want to be caught in the blast radius of his rage.
Elder Marcus takes a hesitant step forward. “Alpha, perhaps a moment to…”
“Did you not hear me, old man?” Felix snaps, his eyes never leaving my face. “Or has your age finally deafened you? Get out.”
Marcus flinches as if struck. He gives me one last look, a mixture of pity and terror, before turning and following the retreating crowd.
Bianca is one of the last to leave. She glides past me, her crimson dress whispering against the stone. She leans in close, her perfume a cloying cloud of nightshade and ambition.
“You pathetic little fool,” she hisses, her voice dripping with venom. “He will break you into a thousand pieces for this. And I will enjoy watching.”
“I’m counting on it,” I say, my voice flat and even.
Her perfect smile tightens. She expected tears or terror, not this placid defiance. It throws her off. She gives a small, frustrated scoff and sweeps out of the hall, her hips swaying with practiced arrogance.
The great oak doors boom shut, plunging the hall into a shadowed silence. We are alone. Just me and the monster I was supposed to marry.
He doesn’t move for a long moment. He just watches me, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow breaths. He is a predator, assessing his prey, trying to understand why it isn’t running.
“Do you have any idea what you have done?” he finally says, taking a slow, deliberate step down from the dais.
“I believe I was quite clear,” I reply, holding my ground. “I rejected you.”
He laughs. It’s a harsh, ugly sound with no humor in it. “Rejected me? You are nothing. You have nothing. Your family line is weak, your blood is thin. You were a charity case, a girl I was raising up from the dirt to stand beside me. And you dare to speak of rejection?”
“Is that what you told yourself?” I ask. “That you were being charitable? Not that my father’s dying wish was for our families to be joined, a promise your own father made on that same hearthstone.”
His eyes flash. A direct hit. “You will not speak of my father.”
“I’ll speak of whatever I wish,” I say calmly. “That is rather the point.”
He stalks forward until he is towering over me, close enough that I can feel the heat of his anger. He is trying to intimidate me with his size, his power. It’s a tactic that always worked before.
“You have humiliated me,” he growls, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “In front of my pack. In front of Alphas from the Silvermoon and Stonecrest packs. You have made me a laughingstock.”
“You mistake the cause for the effect,” I tell him, refusing to look away. “Your arrogance made you a laughingstock. I simply pulled back the curtain.”
His hand shoots out, grabbing my arm. His grip is like iron. In my first life, this would have been the moment I crumpled, the moment the tears began.
I don’t even blink. I just look down at his fingers digging into my leather-clad arm, then back up to his furious face. “Take your hand off me.”
“Or what?” he snarls, tightening his grip. “You will what, Vera? You have no one. No allies. No power. You are an un-mated female who has just publicly shamed her Alpha. I could have you whipped for insubordination. I could have you exiled to the barren lands. I could have you back on that executioner’s block for treason.”
The phantom pain on my neck flickers, a cold reminder. But it is not fear it brings. It is fuel.
“You could,” I agree, my voice quiet but carrying the weight of absolute certainty. “But you won’t. Not yet.”
His brow furrows in confusion. “And why is that?”
“Because any of those actions would make you look weak,” I explain, as if to a child. “It would prove I was right to reject you. A strong Alpha is not threatened by a lone woman. A strong Alpha is not brought to heel by whispers and gossip. Killing me now would be an admission of your own fragility. And you cannot stand to look fragile.”
His grip falters. I see the truth of my words hit him. He is a creature of pride and public perception above all else. I know his playbook because I have already read the last page.
“You think you are so clever,” he spits, though some of the fire has left his voice, replaced by a grudging confusion.
“I think you are predictable,” I correct him. “You need my compliance now more than ever. You need to spin this. You will tell everyone I had a hysterical fit. A moment of female weakness. You will try to coax me back, to convince me to go through with the ceremony in a more private setting. You will try to salvage your pride.”
He stares at me, his jaw working silently. He looks at me like he has never seen me before. He is right. He hasn’t.
I pull my arm from his loosened grasp. “So, no. You will not whip me. You will not exile me. You will not kill me. You will watch me. And you will wait. And you will wonder what I am going to do next.”
I turn my back on him, a gesture of ultimate dismissal.
“Where do you think you are going?” he demands, his voice raw with disbelief.
“To my cabin,” I say without looking back.
“The hunter’s shack at the edge of the woods? That hovel is for Omegas and outcasts.”
“Then it seems I will be in good company,” I say, and start walking toward the great oak doors.
Each step feels a lifetime long. I can feel his rage burning into my back. I expect him to roar, to charge, to drag me back. He does nothing. He just stands there, silenced by a power he cannot comprehend: the power of a woman with nothing left to lose.
I push the heavy doors open and step out into the sunlight. The crowd of pack members has not fully dispersed. They linger in the courtyard, gathered in hushed, anxious groups. As I emerge, a wave of silence falls. Every eye turns to me.
I see it all. The shock. The fear. The pity. The scorn. I lift my chin and walk through them as if they are nothing more than stones in my path. I hear the whispers start up again behind me, a rustle of leaves in my wake.
"Madness."
"He will kill her for this."
"Did you see his face?"
I ignore them. Their opinions are irrelevant. They are sheep, loyal only to the strongest wolf. Soon, they will see where the true strength lies.
My path takes me away from the grand stone buildings of the pack center, past the training grounds and the communal longhouses. I walk toward the forest, where the territory becomes wilder, less tamed.
The cabin is just as I remember it. Small, made of rough-hewn logs, with a sagging porch and a single window. Smoke curls lazily from its stone chimney, meaning someone has at least kept the hearth lit. It is a place of exile, a physical manifestation of being unwanted. To me, it is a fortress. A sanctuary.
I push open the heavy, unadorned door. The inside is sparse. A simple cot, a small wooden table with two chairs, a stone fireplace, and a few empty shelves. It smells of dust and old woodsmoke. It is perfect.
I walk to the single window and look out, not at the pack lands, but deeper into the forest. The chaos of the ceremony feels a world away. The adrenaline begins to fade, and in its place is not exhaustion, but a cold, clear focus.
Felix thinks he has time. He thinks he can manage this, control the narrative, and eventually bend me back to his will. He is wrong. The clock is ticking, but it is my clock, not his.
My first life taught me all of his weaknesses, all of his blind spots. His patrols are sloppy, especially on the western border. He relies too heavily on the same routes, the same schedules. Arrogance makes a man careless.
I close my eyes, and the memory comes sharp and clear. A flash of snarling jaws, the screams of young warriors, the sight of Lena, her shield split, standing over the fallen body of a boy no older than sixteen. An ambush by a pack of feral wolves. A patrol slaughtered because Felix dismissed the rumors of feral activity as beneath his notice. It happens in three days.
Three days.
I open my eyes. My new life has been bought in blood. I will not waste a second of it. Lena was demoted and shunned for defending me when I was accused of treason. She suffered for her loyalty.
This time, loyalty will be her reward.
This time, I will be the one standing over her, shield raised.
My plan begins now. Not with a grand declaration, but with a quiet, deadly purpose. I will save a patrol. I will gain an ally. I will forge the first crack in the armor of Alpha Felix’s power.
He is in the Great Hall, reeling from a public rejection. He thinks the game is about his pride. He has no idea that I am already on a different board entirely, playing for stakes he cannot even imagine. And I am about to make my first move.
