New POV (Gracie an Omega)
I should've just left it.
It was one earring. A single moonstone stud, barely the size of my pinky nail—nothing special to anyone else. But to me, it was the last thread of a life I'd buried with trembling hands. The last gift my mama ever gave me before her shift burned out beneath the Hunter's Moon, her fur peeling away like ash until all that remained was a memory and a lullaby I still hummed to the pups when they cried at night.
She'd said the stone was carved from the first moon she ever howled at, that it carried a sliver of her voice, her strength, her spirit. I used to watch how the light would catch in it when she smiled, pale and opalescent, like a blessing caught mid-breath.
So when I realized it was gone—vanished sometime between the feast and the dance—I told myself it was nothing. It would turn up in the laundry tomorrow. Caught in the folds of a pup's blanket. Tangled in someone's cloak. Stuck beneath my cot in the omega quarters.
But something twisted in my gut. Cold. Insistent. Like a tether yanking me by the ribs. Like the Moon herself had reached down from the sky and whispered in a voice only my bones could hear:
Go. Now.
I tried to ignore it. Gods, I tried. Curled back up under the patchwork quilt I shared with Sella, buried beneath the heat of sleeping bodies and the distant thrum of howls still echoing from the ceremonial grounds. I whispered to myself—It's just an earring. Just a stupid, shiny thing. You'll find it in the morning.
But I couldn't shake it. That itch beneath the skin. That crawling, scraping whisper in the back of my skull that wouldn't stop.
So I crept out. Barefoot. Breath tight in my chest. Careful not to wake the pups snuggled against my legs, one of them drooling softly into the crook of my knee. I slipped through the shadows, out past the cracked door, into the forest air soaked in smoke and damp pine.
The scent of the feast still clung to the ground—burnt meat, spilled wine, trampled flowers. The night was soft and heavy, wrapped in the hush that came after celebration, when even the stars seemed slow and sated. But under it all was something else. Something wrong. The forest was too still. The wind too quiet. Like the world had paused to listen.
The path behind the Alpha house was slick with pine needles and the muddy imprint of dancing feet. I knew every bend of it by heart—how many steps to the old well, where the roots jutted up like bones. I'd walked it a hundred times with baskets of bread or linens clutched in my arms.
But tonight… tonight it felt different.
Empty.
Like the trees were holding their breath.
I moved slower, quieter. The hairs on my arms stood up, and my pulse thudded like a drum against my ribs. I wasn't supposed to be out this late. Omegas didn't wander. We cleaned. We cared. We stayed in our place.
I should've turned back.
Instead, I followed the tug.
It led me to the eastern corridor. The old wing no one used anymore—not since the fire that scorched half the stones black. Moss climbed the walls, and the banner of the Duskthorn crest still drooped like a forgotten prayer. I was about to turn away when I saw her.
Mera.
The Beta's mate.
Beautiful. Cold. Dagger-sharp.
The kind of woman who smiled like it was a threat. Who always looked at the rest of us like we were something she'd scraped off her boot. Who Kael—Beta Kael—had been following like a lovesick hound since she announced their pup.
She didn't see me. Thank the Moon, she didn't see me.
I dropped behind an old rain barrel so fast I scraped my palm raw on the wood. Bit my lip to keep from crying out. My breath stuttered as she slipped behind the torn tapestry that hung beside the collapsed stairwell—the one I always thought hid nothing but mildew and dust.
She knelt. Quick. Confident. Like she'd done it a dozen times before.
Then, with fingers too elegant to belong to someone so cruel, she pried up a loose tile I hadn't even known was there… and pulled out aphone.
My stomach dropped, this was dangerous.
She dialed.
I should've run but I didn't.
The phone rang once. Twice.
Then—click.
A voice answered. Male. Rough. So sharp it carved ice into my spine. "You waited long enough."
"I had to," Mera whispered. "Too many eyes."
Every instinct in me screamed. My legs were numb. My fingers dug into the mud like it could anchor me to the earth.
"Is the Beta loyal?"
"He's mine. He'll do anything for the pup I'm carrying. Stupid."
I nearly gasped.
The pup?
The voice on the other end was quiet, calculating. "You sure it's his?"
A pause.
Then, Mera laughed. Not out loud. Just a sound curled around her voice like smoke.
"I'm sure he thinks it is."
I bit down on a sob.
This wasn't an affair.
This waswar.
"The poison is ready," the voice said. "You'll have the vials within two nights."
My heart stuttered. Poison. Vials.Two nights.
"Where?" Mera asked, calm as rain. Not a tremble. Not a flicker.
"Abandoned pack clinic. Past the creek. Same place as last time. Midnight. No mistakes."
"No mistakes," she echoed. Her voice was different now. Sharper. Like flint against bone. "I don't make mistakes."
Then the voice asked:
"And the Alpha?"
She didn't answer right away.
When she did, it wasn't a whisper, it was a death sentence.
"He won't see it coming. He's too busy sniffing me out to notice what's already festering in his bones."
Something inside mesnapped.
The Alpha.
Pack Duskthorn's heart. The one who knelt with the pups and sang lullabies. The one who carried my mother's body into the pyre himself when no one else would touch her ruined shift. Who looked me in the eye and said,You are still part of this pack.
He was good, not perfect but good and she was going tokill him.
She ended the call. Slid the phone back beneath the tile. Straightened the tapestry like she was tucking in a child for bed.
And then—
"Mera?"
Kael's voice, soft, stupid and protective.
She turned. Smiled.
Not with her soul. Just her teeth.
I didn't breathe until they were gone.
Even then, it was shallow. Shaking.
The forest around me seemed alive and silent. Like the trees had heard it all and were mourning with me.
I had come out looking for a lost earring.
One tiny stud.
But instead, I found a secret that could destroy everything.
And now I was the only one who knew.