The chandeliers catch the silver threads in Vivienne's dress as Thorne's hand slides to the small of her back, and I know—before he speaks, before the crowd falls silent, before the world tilts—that everything is about to end. "Isla." His voice carries across the ballroom, and three hundred wolves turn to look at me. "Come here." The Harvest Moon Gala is supposed to be our night. My night. I've been Luna of the Silvercrest Pack for three years, and tonight I'm wearing the MoonKissed Diadem—the crown that's been passed down through generations of Lunas, the one his mother placed on my head the day we mated. The diamonds feel suddenly heavy against my forehead. I move through the crowd because I don't know what else to do. Pack members step aside, their faces carefully blank. My best friend Maya catches my arm as I pass. "Don't," she whispers. But Thorne is my mate. The bond thrums between us, silver and ancient, marked into the skin of my neck where his wolf claimed me. Whatever this is, we'll face it together. I reach the raised platform where he stands with Vivienne—his assistant, the woman who's worked at his side for the past year. She's beautiful in a way I've never been, all sharp angles and confidence, her hand resting on the subtle swell of her stomach. "Kneel," Thorne says. The word doesn't make sense. I stare at him, at the man I've loved since I was nineteen, the Alpha who chose an orphan with no pack and no family and made her his Luna anyway. "Thorne, what—" "I said kneel." His eyes are cold, the warm brown I know replaced by something empty. "You're not my Luna anymore. You never really were." The floor seems to tilt. Around us, I hear the soft clicks of phones being raised, camera lights blinking on. Someone's going to film this. Whatever this is, it's going to be recorded. "The bond—" "The bond was a mistake." He reaches for my face, and for a moment I think he's going to touch me the way he used to, gentle and reverent. Instead, his fingers close around the diadem. "You're barren, Isla. Three years and not even a hint of a pup. What good is a Luna who can't give the pack an heir?" The words hit like silver bullets. We've tried. God, we've tried. I've seen every healer, every specialist, drunk every bitter tea and endured every humiliating examination. The problem isn't me—the healers confirmed it—but I never told him that. Never wanted to hurt his pride. "Vivienne is carrying my son," he continues, and yanks the diadem from my head. My hair catches in the diamonds, several strands tearing free. "She's proven what you couldn't. So she'll be Luna now." He places the crown on Vivienne's head, and she smiles. The crowd is utterly silent. "Kneel," Thorne says again, and this time there's Alpha command in his voice, the power that makes wolves obey whether they want to or not. My knees buckle, hitting the platform hard enough to bruise. "Show respect to your Luna." Vivienne steps forward, and there are shears in her hand. Long, ceremonial silver shears that gleam under the chandelier light. "I think," she says, her voice carrying across the ballroom, "that we should mark this transition properly. Don't you, Alpha?" My hair has always been my one vanity. Waist-length, dark as midnight, the one thing about myself I've always loved. Thorne used to bury his hands in it, used to say it reminded him of silk. Vivienne fists her hand in it now, pulling my head back. "Hold her," Thorne says, and two enforcers appear at my sides, gripping my arms. Pack wolves who've eaten at my table, who I've healed and counseled and protected. They don't meet my eyes. The first cut of the shears is loud in the silence. A thick hank of hair falls to the platform, pooling like spilled ink. Vivienne cuts again. And again. The crowd watches, phones raised, as she hacks away everything I had left. I don't cry. I won't give them that. Instead, I close my eyes and reach for something deeper than pain, deeper than humiliation. My mother's voice, a memory so old it's almost a dream: *You are more than they know. When the time comes, remember your blood.* The words come from somewhere ancient, somewhere buried. A language I shouldn't know but do, syllables that taste of copper and moonlight. The incantation spills from my lips in a whisper, each word a small act of defiance. The mark on my neck—Thorne's claiming bite—begins to burn. He gasps, hand flying to his own neck where the mate bond mirrors between us. The silver lines of the mark are glowing, visible through my skin, and they're not just glowing—they're cracking, fracturing like glass under pressure. "What did you do?" Thorne's voice is raw with something that might be fear. "What the hell did you—" The bond snaps. The pain is transcendent, world-ending, a severance so complete I can't breathe. But underneath it, as Vivienne's shears take the last of my hair and three hundred wolves watch me break, I feel something else entirely. Power.