- 14 hours ago
Luna of Vengeance: Throne of the Moon EP Alpha & Luna Romance
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:03I was brought into the royal castle as my sister's bonded companion.
00:07The she-wolf a Luna Queen brings when she wants a spare.
00:10While Seraphine trained in diplomacy, horsemanship, and court etiquette under the finest tutors our father's pack could buy,
00:16I was handed to a different kind of teacher entirely.
00:19Women who knew how to enter a room and make a man forget his own name.
00:23My father said it the way alphas always do, cruelty dressed in logic.
00:27Seraphine is destined to be Luna Queen.
00:30You exist to serve her.
00:32Being allowed near her is more than you deserve.
00:35What none of them knew was that the midwife had recorded the birth times wrong.
00:38I was the one born under the full moon.
00:41The prophecy had always been mine.
00:43Alpha Uldric was known as a devoted mate.
00:46Pax across the Northern Territories admired his loyalty to his Luna Helena, as though it were a law of nature.
00:52But devotion has its limits.
00:54One night at a pack summit, drunk and dominant and unstoppable,
00:57my father cornered a she.
00:59Wolf dancer named Mara at the edge of the grounds.
01:02No one intervened.
01:03He was an alpha.
01:04Afterward, everyone braced for Helena's fury.
01:07Aluna discovering her mate had strayed that way was supposed to mean blood.
01:11The dancer, people agreed, would be lucky to survive the week.
01:14Instead, Helena smiled.
01:16She visited Mara herself, looked her over with warm appreciation, and said,
01:21What a lovely creature.
01:24No wonder Aldric couldn't help himself.
01:27She brought Mara into the estate, gave her comfortable rooms, fussed over her with genuine,
01:31seeming warmth, and performed the role of the gracious broad.
01:35Hearted Luna so convincingly that the territory praised her for months.
01:39They didn't know what Helena had planned.
01:41On the night Mara went into labor, Helena dismissed the healers.
01:45Only her own hand-picked servants went in.
01:48By morning, she emerged to present the pack with a healthy infant girl.
01:52Mara passed away unexpectedly, Helena said, head bowed with practiced sorrow.
01:57No one questioned it, because no one questioned Helena.
02:01Mara was my mother, I was the infant left behind.
02:05I always knew Helena didn't like me.
02:07I learned it from the shape of my days.
02:09Food arriving last and cold.
02:11Clothing passed down from the estate's Omega maids.
02:14Servants whose gazes slid past me without stopping.
02:16My quarters were at the far edge of the manor where the fires barely reached in winter.
02:20I had one person, Agnes.
02:22Old Agnes, who walked with a limp and had been my mother's personal attendant before Mara was ever brought to
02:27Aldric Manor.
02:28Helena kept her because it made Helena look merciful.
02:31Agnes raised me.
02:32She braided my hair every morning, sat with me through fevers,
02:36whispered stories to me in the dark when the manor felt too large and too cold.
02:39She was my mother in every way that mattered.
02:42The lower servants talked within my earshot.
02:44Your mother seduced the alpha and paid for it.
02:47Wolves like her always do.
02:49When I was small, I believed them.
02:51I would cry in Agnes' arms and ask why my mother had done something so terrible.
02:55It had made my whole life a punishment.
02:58Our win is the finest girl in all the territories.
03:02Agnes always held me tighter.
03:04She told me my name had come from Mara herself.
03:06She'd wanted me to grow up like a small, sharp-winged bird that flew over walls and never looked back.
03:11I used to ask Agnes the same question over and over.
03:14Was my mother really bad?
03:16Every time.
03:17Her face went heavy.
03:20In this world, when something goes wrong, people always find a way to blame the she-wolf.
03:27I was too young to understand.
03:29I only knew it hurt her, so I stopped asking.
03:34The summons came without warning.
03:36I was 12 when Helena called me to her private study.
03:39A room I had never once been permitted inside.
03:42My wolf went still the moment silver.
03:44Helena's head attendant dropped a slim leather booklet on the desk in front of me.
03:48This is what you'll be learning.
03:50Her lip curled.
03:51There are illustrations.
03:52Even someone uneducated would understand.
03:56I opened the first page.
03:57My face went hot instantly.
03:59My wolf recoiled.
04:00The illustrations were explicit.
04:02Techniques, positions.
04:03Expressions coached into something designed to resemble pleasure.
04:07Every instinct screamed to throw it into the fire.
04:10Helena's voice came from across the room.
04:12Drop it and I'll have both your hands broken.
04:15I didn't throw it away.
04:17Back in my quarters, Agnes took one look and said nothing.
04:20She sat on the edge of my bed and wept without a sound watching her.
04:24I understood for the first time that Helena had not kept me alive out of mercy.
04:28She had kept me alive to suffer slowly.
04:30Shaped into a weapon for Seraphine to use and discard.
04:33I also finally understood what Agnes had been trying to tell me all those years.
04:38My father had taken my mother by force.
04:40Drunk, dominant, unstoppable.
04:42Afterward, no one questioned him.
04:44The story the pack told was that Mara had seduced an alpha, that Helena's rage was righteous.
04:50My mother had been the victim.
04:52The world had decided she was the villain.
04:54I was her inheritance.
04:57My instruction began the following week under Madam Vos, proprietor of the city's most exclusive
05:02private house.
05:03Trainer of bonded companions now placed in three different royal households.
05:07Efficient, unsentimental, precise.
05:09I performed terribly in my first training session.
05:12Madam Vos didn't reprimand me, she watched.
05:15The next morning Helena had me dragged to the punishment hall.
05:18Don't kill her.
05:20Make sure she remembers.
05:22I endured severe punishment and passed out from the pain.
05:26I burned with fever for three days.
05:28Agnes didn't sleep.
05:29Cool cloths, water coaxed past my lips, her hands never still.
05:33On the third night, delirious with heat,
05:35I called her mother more than once without meaning to.
05:37On the fourth morning, the fever broke.
05:40I called for Agnes.
05:41She didn't answer.
05:43A passing Omega told me Helena had sent for her that morning.
05:47I ran over there as fast as I could.
05:49Pack hands were coming out of Helena's wing carrying a stretcher.
05:52The figure on it was Agnes, covered in blood, her hand already cold when I grabbed it.
05:58Seraphine stepped out behind them, unhurried attendance trailing.
06:01An Omega who forgets her status gets what she deserves.
06:04A servant reported that she let you call her mother.
06:06I handled it personally.
06:08I threw myself over Agnes and made sounds I didn't recognize as my own.
06:12Mara's blood really does show.
06:15Seraphine said and walked away.
06:17Every piece of wolf instinct I had wanted to tear up.
06:22But I was 12 years old and barely standing.
06:24And I understood with total clarity that if I moved on Seraphine, I would not survive it.
06:29That understanding was the most important thing I ever learned.
06:33In how Saldrick lives existed at Helena's pleasure.
06:36We were inventory, discarded when inconvenient, rearranged when useful.
06:40And no one outside these walls would question it.
06:43Because Helena was gracious.
06:44Helena was generous.
06:46Helena was the kind of lunar people wrote tributes to.
06:48I knelt beside Agnes and made myself a promise.
06:52I was going to destroy every single one of them.
06:54After Agnes died, I became the perfect student.
06:57I attended every session without being called.
06:59Practiced the walk.
07:01The precise shift of weight that draws a man's eye without appearing to try.
07:04Practiced expressions until I could produce any of them on demand.
07:08Warmth.
07:08Grief.
07:09Invitation.
07:10Innocents learned to read the tells of male attention draw tensions.
07:13The flicker of the gaze hands settling when a man is fighting not to reach.
07:19Within two years, Madame Vos stopped coming to the manor.
07:22You have nothing left to learn from me.
07:24She said on her last visit.
07:26She studied me for a long moment.
07:28You were born for this.
07:29It's a shame.
07:30I filed it as a weapon.
07:32By then I had been transferred into Seraphine's household as her personal attendant.
07:36She tested me constantly.
07:38Made me kneel and scrub her riding boots by hand.
07:40Once poured wine into my lap at a formal dinner purely to watch my reaction.
07:45Every time.
07:46I performed terribly.
07:47I had confirmed by then what I'd long suspected.
07:50Helena had been lacing my food with a suppression compound for years.
07:54A she-wolf who couldn't carry pups was no threat to Seraphine's position.
07:58Helena thought she had neutralized me completely.
08:01The old Lycan king died.
08:03King Caden ascended.
08:05Seraphine was named his Lunar Queen.
08:07And I, as her servant, am to accompany her into the royal castle.
08:11The night before we left, Helena summoned me one final time.
08:15My father sat beside her and looked at me the way someone looks at their greatest regret.
08:19Stay invisible.
08:21Serving Seraphina is more than you deserve.
08:24Silver brought out a vial of dark liquid.
08:26Helena's expression was flat.
08:28A suppression compound.
08:29Drink it now.
08:30I didn't hesitate.
08:32One swallow, no reaction.
08:33Helena nodded with faint satisfaction.
08:35She didn't know I had spent months sourcing the antidote through a contact Madame Vos had once let slip.
08:41Years of compound exposure had caused real damage, but not irreparable.
08:45I had been steadily reversing it.
08:47The next morning I followed Seraphine through the castle gates.
08:50The promise I had made over Agnes' body walked in with me.
08:56Seraphine's first order arrived the moment we crossed the threshold.
09:27When King Caden is here do not appear before him.
09:29When the King left the Lunar Queen's wing at dawn, the ring would be found.
09:33He would come back when he did.
09:35I would be exactly where I needed to be.
09:38Seraphine's first formal court as Lunar Queen was, by all appearances, flawless.
09:43She received the castle's she-wolves in the great hall, seated high, composed, radiant.
09:48Lady Lyra led the pack-wives and companions forward with careful deference.
09:53I moved quietly through the hall, distributing goblets of spiced mead.
09:57When I set one near Seraphine's side, her hand shifted.
10:00A small, deliberate nudge, the goblet tipped and shattered on the stone floor.
10:04I dropped to one knee instantly.
10:06Forgive me, my Lunar.
10:08Our castle has standards, Seraphine said pleasantly.
10:12One hour kneeling.
10:14On the shards.
10:15Every she-wolf in the hall went rigid.
10:17Lady Lyra's expression shifted.
10:19The message was clear.
10:21This is what disobedience costs.
10:23Seraphine's wolf preened visibly beneath her skin.
10:26Then the great hall doors opened.
10:28His Majesty, King Caden.
10:31The satisfaction drained from Seraphine's face.
10:35King Caden swept the hall.
10:37His gaze dropped to me and his wolf surfaced immediately.
10:40Jaw tight, eyes darkening at the edges, a low vibration building in his chest.
10:44What happened here?
10:46Silence pressed through the hall before Seraphine could speak.
10:49I raised my right hand, a deep gash across the palm I had quietly opened against a shard moments before.
10:54I dropped the goslet and cut myself in the fall, Your Majesty.
10:58Forgive the mess.
10:59The king looked at Seraphine she recovered, called for a healer, expressed concern, managed the surface.
11:05He accepted it.
11:06He had only returned for the missing signet ring located moments later in the Luna Queen's sitting room.
11:11He left.
11:12The moment the doors closed, Seraphine crossed the hall and struck me hard across the face.
11:16Worthless she-wolf!
11:18You nearly exposed me!
11:19I let that one land what Seraphine didn't know.
11:22I had planted the ring myself, the blood, the shards.
11:25His wolf reacting to a she-wolf bleeding on the floor of his own castle.
11:29I hadn't needed him to act on it yet.
11:31I only needed the image to stay in him.
11:34Seeds take time, I was planting.
11:37When Seraphine's temper cooled, she gave me my reassignment.
11:40You don't appear before the king.
11:42Your only duty is delivering the Dowager Luna's morning disc arches to Thornkeap Tower each day.
11:48Make yourself useful.
11:50Stay out of my sight.
11:51I bowed and kept my expression neutral.
11:54This was exactly the position I had been steering toward.
11:57The Dowager Luna King Caden's mother had withdrawn to Thornkeap Tower after her mate's death.
12:03Everyone in the castle understood she wasn't truly incapacitated.
12:07She was a she-wolf who had commanded the Royal Pact's inner circle for decades,
12:11and she had no intention of surrendering that power quietly,
12:14but castle protocol gave her no formal grounds to hold it unless the new Luna Queen invited her back.
12:20Seraphine had no intention of doing that.
12:23So the Dowager waited, applied quiet pressure through Lady Lyra.
12:27Let Seraphine feel the friction of ruling without allies.
12:31And every morning, I was about to walk through her gates.
12:37For the first month I never saw her.
12:39I arrived at Thornkeap Tower each morning at the same hour with the official dispatch pouch.
12:44The Dowager's head attendant, Nora, would appear,
12:46accept the pouch without ceremony, and send me away.
12:50After two weeks even Nora stopped coming out.
12:52A junior attendant waved me off instead.
12:55I showed no frustration.
12:57Every morning correct hour, correct bow, pouch delivered, clean departure.
13:01What I changed was what I tucked alongside the dispatches.
13:05Each morning I added a small parcel smoked game preserves,
13:08stone ground barley bread, salted highland butter,
13:11prepared in the specific styles of the Dowager's home-packed territory in the Greystone Highlands.
13:15The kind that required techniques and ingredients rarely bothered with in castle kitchens.
13:21Each day different, rotating through the flavors and preparations the way someone would
13:25if they'd spent months quietly studying what a woman missed from home.
13:28I had been studying for years.
13:30Seraphine learned the Dowager refused to receive me and considered it a minor victory.
13:35She didn't think to wonder why I kept returning every single morning without fail.
13:40Five weeks in, Nora stepped outside herself and stopped.
13:44The smoked venison and heather salt preserves three days ago.
13:48Who prepared those?
13:49I did.
13:50Nora studied my face properly for the first time.
13:53Head up.
13:54A silence.
13:55Something shifted in her expression.
13:57Come inside.
13:58The Dowager has a request.
14:00The room she led me to had a dressing table, laid out cosmetics and a fresh gown.
14:05Not a kitchen.
14:06I kept my expression smooth.
14:08I had expected this.
14:10The parcels had been a signal.
14:12I spoke her language and was willing to come correctly prepared.
14:15The Dowager had been investigating me quietly for weeks.
14:19She knew exactly who I was, where I came from.
14:22And what I wanted.
14:23This was an audition.
14:24I sat at the dressing table and began to prepare.
14:28The Dowager reclined on a chaise in her inner chamber, wrapped in dark wool, sharp-eyed and
14:33unhurried despite weeks of performed retreat.
14:36She watched me cross the room with the steady attention of a woman who had spent a lifetime
14:40reading people before they knew they were being read.
14:43Head up.
14:44I raised my face.
14:45A brief flash crossed her features, quickly controlled.
14:48My looks had come entirely from my mother.
14:50You have Mara's eyes.
14:51She said quietly.
14:52She conducted a very thorough and meticulous investigation.
14:56Those parcels were deliberate.
14:58She said, not a question.
15:01Yes.
15:04And what is it you want?
15:06I met her gaze without flinching.
15:08The same thing you want.
15:09A castle that runs properly.
15:12With someone steady enough to hold it.
15:14The Dowager was quiet for a long moment.
15:17Then faint and measured.
15:19I'll be watching.
15:22That evening I added one carefully measured compound to King Caden's mead.
15:26A mild warmth enhancer.
15:28The kind that sharpens wolf instincts and loosens physical restraint.
15:32Not dangerous untraceable.
15:33Simply effective.
15:36Seraphine noticed the goblet and gave me a brief approving look.
15:39She had no idea what I'd actually added.
15:41I had also arranged through a junior stable hand who owed me a favor for the window beside the king's
15:46bed to be unlatched that night.
15:48A greystone highland winter drives cold through any gap.
15:52The combination worked precisely as I intended.
15:55By dawn King Caden was feverish.
15:58By mid-morning, the castle was in an uproar.
16:01The Dowager emerged from Thornkeep Tower for the first time in weeks.
16:07She swept into the king's chambers with the authority of a woman who had never genuinely surrendered anything, surveyed the
16:13assembled healers in pale-faced attendance, and turned to Seraphine with the flat calm of a wolf who has been
16:18waiting patiently for exactly this.
16:20The king falls ill in your care in his second week, she said.
16:25Either you cannot manage a household, or you are not trying.
16:30Either way, it ends today.
16:33Seraphine had no defense that wouldn't make things worse.
16:37Do not approach or even attend to the king, the Empress Dowager announced.
16:40I will choose someone else to take over.
16:42For the past few weeks, she has been striving to do her best.
16:45But now, Seraphine knelt because she had no other option.
16:51In the doorway, I kept my face composed, my inner wolf settled with deep, quiet satisfaction.
16:58The Dowager moved quickly.
17:01She summoned me to Thornkeep Tower that afternoon and stated, with Nora present as witness, that she was reassigning me
17:07to King Caden's personal care.
17:09You have delivered faithfully for six weeks without complaint.
17:13You're observant and discreet.
17:16The king requires exactly that.
17:18When Seraphine received this news, her face cycled from white to rigid to carefully blank.
17:23She couldn't refuse.
17:24The Dowager had framed it as a practical household decision.
17:28Objecting openly would confirm what every she-wolf in the castle was beginning to suspect.
17:33The Moon Queen was threatened by those close to her.
17:36Fine.
17:36Seraphine said quietly.
17:38That single word cost her something visible.
17:40Good.
17:43The king's private chambers were quieter than I expected.
17:47He arrived an hour after I did, dressed simply, the formal weight of his role absent from the way he
17:52carried himself.
17:53Without the ceremonial trappings, he looked younger.
17:56Sharp-eyed, broad-shouldered, with the coiled awareness of a wolf always slightly more alert than the room required.
18:02He sat on the edge of the settee and looked at me.
18:04His predator gaze settled with patient focus.
18:07I gave him exactly what I had prepared.
18:10Steadiness, faint warmth, a carefully placed vulnerability.
18:13My inner wolf stayed calm beneath it.
18:15I had trained for this since I was twelve years old.
18:18You've been delivering dispatches to my mother.
18:20He said.
18:21Every morning for six weeks.
18:24She rarely allows that kind of consistency from anyone.
18:29No, I agreed.
18:30She doesn't.
18:31Something shifted behind his eyes.
18:33His wolf was curious.
18:35That was enough for now.
18:37The night that followed confirmed everything I had calculated.
18:40By dawn, I had been formally titled the king's consort, with dedicated quarters assigned in the castle's east wing.
18:47Seraphine arrived at my new quarters before the morning bell, her full retinue behind her.
18:52Attendants, personal guards, the full performance of rank on display.
18:55She struck me the moment I opened the door.
18:57I let that one land.
18:59Then before she could hit me a second time, I hit her first.
19:02How dare you treat me like this?
19:05Thornhick Tower is close enough that the Dowsha's sentries will have heard your escort arrive.
19:10I said evenly.
19:11If she comes to investigate and finds the king's newly titled consort hurt in her own doorway,
19:17how does that conversation end for you?
19:20Seraphine went very still.
19:22You're using this to threaten me.
19:25I'm just reminding you.
19:27She stared at me.
19:28You won't last.
19:30She said.
19:30Fury coiled behind her eyes, her wolf bristling beneath her skin.
19:34Perhaps I smiled.
19:36But I'll outlast this conversation.
19:39She left.
19:41I pressed my fingers to my split lip and let myself feel, just briefly, the particular satisfaction
19:47of a move landing exactly as planned.
19:50The following morning I attended formal court as the king's new consort, a castle tradition
19:56requiring newly elevated she-wolves to present themselves before the Lunar Queen.
20:00Seraphine had composed herself overnight into something colder and more deliberate than fury.
20:05She found fault with my entrance, summoned an attendant with a training rod found fault with my stance.
20:12Each correction came with a sharp strike across my legs, designed to humiliate more than injure,
20:17to remind every she-wolf in the hall exactly where I stood regardless of my new title.
20:49I knelt through each strike without expression.
20:51Silent instantly.
20:52Then.
20:55She's been poisoned.
20:56I lay still and listened to Seraphine's carefully constructed morning fall apart around her.
21:02King Caden arrived within minutes.
21:04The Tao charge was close behind.
21:06One look.
21:07The wolf's bait purge spreading black across the floor.
21:09The rod wilts visible across my legs.
21:11The split lip from the previous day still unhealed.
21:14And his wolf's cool surface to fall.
21:15The growl that moved through his chest was low enough to vibrate in the stonework.
21:21Who did this?
21:22Cephalina stepped forward to defend herself.
21:24The Dowger cut her off cleanly.
21:26Have the healers test the consort's blood for compounds.
21:30And search the Lunar Queen's private quarters while they're there.
21:33Cephalina's face went the color of ash.
21:35There is nothing in my quarters.
21:37Then you have nothing to worry about.
21:39The Dowger said.
21:40The search found nothing.
21:42I had ensured it.
21:43The wolfbane dose had been precisely calibrated.
21:46Theatrical, temporary, already clearing my system.
21:49But the visible evidence needed no elaboration.
21:52The king, voice flat as iron.
21:54The Lunar Queen is confined to her chambers.
21:57The Dowgery Luna will resume management of castle affairs until further notice.
22:03Cephalina collapsed to her knees.
22:05Her wolf howled in her chest.
22:07The king stepped around her and walked out.
22:10The Dowgery met my eyes across the room.
22:13Her look was brief and entirely approving.
22:17I spent two weeks in recovery.
22:19Or the appearance of it.
22:21King Caden visited daily.
22:22Each visit I showed him something slightly different.
22:26Stillness one day.
22:27Careful laughter the next.
22:29A vulnerability I let surface just far enough to seem unguarded.
22:33He was a wolf who had spent his entire ascension being managed by everyone around him.
22:38Someone who simply existed.
22:40Without a visible agenda.
22:42Was irresistible to him.
22:44I was not without an agenda.
22:46I had simply learned to keep it below the surface.
22:49By the end of the second week he elevated my title from king's consort to senior consort.
22:54Formal recognition.
22:56Formal protections.
22:57Formal standing within the pack hierarchy.
22:59Letters from House Aldrich began arriving at my new door.
23:04I burnt them without reading past the first line.
23:10The letters kept coming.
23:12My father's early messages were pure alpha command.
23:15Orders to use my position to free Seraphine from confinement.
23:19Demands I remember where my loyalty belonged.
23:22When those produced nothing.
23:23His tone shifted.
23:24Appeals to pack bonds.
23:26Shared blood.
23:28Sisterhood.
23:29I found the appeals to sisterhood particularly creative.
23:32Given that Seraphine had ordered Agnes killed.
23:36I burned every letter.
23:38Eventually they stopped arriving at my door.
23:40And began going directly to Seraphine's chambers instead.
23:43Whatever counsel my father gave.
23:45She acted on within days.
23:47Flooding King Caden with written apologies.
23:49Performing contrition through intermediaries.
23:51Letting rumors spread that she knelt in the castle chapel every evening.
23:55Praying for forgiveness.
23:56The king began softening.
23:58He was, underneath the crown, a decent man.
24:01Decent men forgive.
24:02I had accounted for this.
24:03The morning I confirmed what I had suspected for weeks.
24:06That I had conceived.
24:08I allowed myself one full minute of stillness before I began calculating exactly how to use it.
24:16When Seraphine's confinement was lifted.
24:19I was standing at Caden's side.
24:21She walked out composed.
24:23Eyes bright with rehearsed warmth.
24:26And took my hands the moment she reached me.
24:30I've thought of nothing but making this right.
24:33Can you forgive me, sister?
24:35The king watched with barely concealed relief.
24:37He wanted this resolved.
24:38There's nothing to forgive.
24:40I smiled warmly.
24:41And, you should know, I've been waiting to share good news.
24:46A brief pause.
24:48I'm carrying an air.
24:49Seraphine's composure cracked for half a second.
24:52That's impossible.
24:53The king's expression went cold instantly.
24:56She recovered.
24:57Barely.
24:58I only mean, what wonderful news.
25:00The words came through her teeth.
25:01I'm so happy for you.
25:03I let her hold that moment.
25:05Then I made it worse.
25:06Oh.
25:07And Lady Lyra is also expecting.
25:09I thought you'd want to be the first to know.
25:10Seraphine said nothing.
25:12She simply looked at me with a hatred so total and so contained it had nowhere left to go.
25:19After her release, Seraphine moved carefully.
25:21She paid her respects to the dowager.
25:23Offered to assist with castle administration.
25:25Accepted every minor task assigned to her without visible complaint.
25:28She was performing rehabilitation.
25:30She was very good at it.
25:32Helena had trained her well.
25:33What she was actually doing was sending riders to House Aldrich.
25:38Two days after her letters went out, she invited Lady I'd Lyla to her chambers privately.
25:43Lady Lyra emerged an hour later visibly shaken and went directly to Thornmictower, bypassing
25:49my wing entirely, which she never did.
25:51Seraphine's approach had been standard pack politics.
25:54The new senior consort will target your pup.
25:56We must stand together.
25:58Seed fear.
25:59Isolate the threat.
26:00Rebuild alliances through shared vulnerability.
26:03I gave Lady Lyra one day.
26:05Then I went to the dowager.
26:09The dowager was expecting me.
26:11Lady Lyra, she said before I sat down.
26:14Yes.
26:15What do you need me to know?
26:16I looked at her directly.
26:17I will swear on anything you name that I will never move against Lady Lyra or her pup.
26:22I have no interest in the succession line.
26:24My body has been compromised by years of suppression compounds.
26:28I know what I can and cannot carry.
26:30I am not a threat to this bloodline.
26:32The dowager studied me.
26:34You don't love him, she said finally.
26:36No.
26:37And you're not afraid to die within these walls.
26:40I grew up in House Aldrich, I said.
26:43I stopped being afraid of dying a long time ago.
26:45She looked at me for a long moment, recalibrating something behind her eyes.
26:50Then she nodded.
26:51Once.
26:52I'll speak to Lady Lyra.
26:53That evening.
26:54Lady Lyra appeared at my door.
26:56I don't entirely trust you, she said plainly.
26:59But I trust the dowager.
27:01So I suppose that makes us allies.
27:04That's enough, I said.
27:07Helena requested entry to the royal castle.
27:10Three days later, she arrived in House Aldrich's formal colors.
27:14Small escort, the bearing of a woman accustomed to being the most powerful presence in any room.
27:19She spent two hours in Seraphine's chambers and emerged in visibly good spirits.
27:24I was already waiting in the castle's east garden.
27:26When they spotted me, both faces closed simultaneously.
27:29I looked at Helena directly for the first time since we had both entered these gates.
27:34She looked back with the flat, predatory stillness of a wolf who had survived by being more dangerous than she
27:39appeared.
27:40You should bow, I said pleasantly.
27:42I outrank you here.
27:44Her lip curved.
27:45She bowed, controlled.
27:46A chest moved.
27:47How lovely to find you thriving.
27:49I imagine it isn't lovely at all, I said.
27:52I glanced at Seraphine.
27:54Would you like to know why you haven't conceived?
27:57After all this time, it must be genuinely confusing.
28:02Seraphine went rigid, I held Helena's gaze.
28:05Your suppression compound.
28:07The one you fed me for years.
28:09I've been adding it to her food instead.
28:13Seraphine lunged.
28:14Helena caught her arm, fast practiced.
28:16But Seraphine was already shaking loose.
28:19Her wolf half surfaced, her composure entirely gone.
28:22I stepped back once, then I pressed my hand to my abdomen and went down hard onto the garden path.
28:27The impact was real.
28:28What followed was also real, and had always been coming.
28:31The compound damage ran too deep, accumulated over too many years.
28:35I had known for weeks this pregnancy would not hold.
28:38I had simply chosen where and when.
28:41Something came out of me that I hadn't planned.
28:43A sound that wasn't performance roar from somewhere I had been carrying without knowing.
28:47She pushed me.
28:48I whispered as the blood began.
28:50She pushed me.
28:51King Caden came through the garden gate at a run.
28:54Helena and Seraphine stood over me.
28:56Blood on the pale stone between us.
28:58And the king's wolf was fully surfaced, eyes black.
29:00Chest heaving.
29:01A snarl building that made the nearest guard step backward instinctively.
29:05They had walked into it perfectly.
29:07And yet something in me for the first time in years was not entirely performing.
29:12I lost the pup that afternoon.
29:14King Caden sat outside my door in silence for a full hour before the dowager gently redirected him.
29:20Seraphine was arrested before nightfall.
29:22Helena within the hour after that.
29:24The charge assault resulting in the loss of a royal heir.
29:27The king's tribunal confirmed it required immediate action regardless of intent.
29:32Helena precise and controlled under questioning.
29:35Attempted to redirect blame.
29:37It didn't matter.
29:38The king had been present.
29:39He had witnessed.
29:40The dowager gave testimony.
29:42Lady Lyra gave testimony.
29:43The tribunal deliberated for less than three days.
29:47My father read the outcome clearly.
29:49He resigned his alpha status and requested permission to retire before Helena's sentence was carried out.
29:55The tribunal permitted it.
29:56He walked out of house Aldrich's gates without looking back.
29:59I felt almost nothing when I received word of his departure.
30:03He had never been a father.
30:04He was simply a man whose choices had finally caught up with him.
30:08Helena's sentence was set for dawn.
30:11Seraphine was confined to the dungeon keep beneath the east tower.
30:14Within days reports came back that she was pacing the stone walls.
30:18Speaking to no one.
30:19Insisting on her version of events to torchlight and silence.
30:24And on the morning of Helena's execution, Lady Lyra came to my chambers before dawn.
30:29She didn't speak at first.
30:30She simply sat across from me in the low firelight and let the quiet settle between us.
30:36It's over.
30:37She said finally.
30:38Yes.
30:40How do you feel?
30:41I considered that honestly.
30:42It's pretty much what I expected.
30:44She nodded slowly.
30:45The down just says you're protected here.
30:47The king won't let anything happen to you.
30:50And I...
30:51A brief pause.
30:52I hope you can take good care of yourself from now on.
30:55Don't worry.
30:56I will live the rest of my life well, I said and meant it.
31:00She left before the morning bell rang.
31:03I stood at the window and watched the sky shift.
31:06Black to pale silver to cold, uncertain gold.
31:09The castle was quiet.
31:10The long machinery I had set in motion had finally completely stopped.
31:14I would not leave these walls.
31:15I had always known that.
31:17But I had walked in as a spare she-wolf.
31:19A piece to be positioned and discarded.
31:21And I had dismantled the entire board before anyone understood what I was doing.
31:25Agnes had wanted me to fly over walls.
31:27I had done something better.
31:29I had brought them down.
31:34The end of the day.
31:35I had 10 years old.
31:36My wife had made a couple hundred perj extracts of the air.
31:38My wife had washed it all over the country.
31:39My son had a good meal.
31:42My son had to pay.
31:43My son had to buy one of my shoes.
31:45My son had been dressed for me.
31:45My son had a large clothes of tears.
31:46My son had to get two bottles.
31:47My son had to take care of two bottles.
31:48My son had to give me two bottles of me.
31:49I checked her out in the name.
31:50My son had not to have a brother and my body.
31:51My son had to give me back home.
31:52My son had to go home home.
31:54My son had just left the loft in the morning.
31:55She left me and he left my son!
31:55天丈冷
Comments