Lyra did not obey him immediately; she only stared at him, holding on to her last string of defiance.
"Kneel!" he barked.
She dropped to her knees so quickly, she nearly broke her bones. The stone was cold, and she could feel the heat draining out of her legs, but she stayed perfectly still. She folded her hands and looked at the floor. He circled behind her, slowly. She felt his breath at her temple.
"Tell me, Lyra. Do you think about your brother when you do this? When you serve me? Do you imagine him standing behind me with a blade to my back?"
"No, Alpha," she whispered.
"Perhaps, you wish to murder me just the way he murdered my family, the way he betrayed his pack. Is that not what your bloodline does best?"
She kept her mouth closed as her teeth dug into the inside of her cheek. He wanted her to break so he could punish her remains. But she was already broken. Five years of this continuous torture would break anyone. In the beginning, she used to fight so hard, but she was very tired of fighting. All she did now was bite down her fury and hope to remain invisible and out of problem.
"Lyra," he said, dropping his hand to rest on the back of her neck. "You do realize you are only alive because the council thought execution was too quick. They wanted your suffering to mean something. Even a nothing like you should be able to grasp that."
His thumb pressed into the bone at the base of her skull. She did not whimper. Yes, she was only eight when everything crashed. The council thought she should be kept alive to bear the brunt of her brother's betrayal.
"Let me tell you what I hate even more than traitors," he continued, his voice low with the pleasure of a private confession. "I hate incompetence. I hate mistakes. I hate when things are not the way I want them." The pressure increased, and she sensed every vertebra in her spine remembering its place.
"Get up," he said, and stepped back as if her presence was merely an inconvenience.
She stood. He stared hard at her, and his eyes raked over her face, her hands, and the brown stain soaking through her uniform.
"Tea duty is obviously too much for you. So you will be reassigned."
He stared at her, as if he was weighing something. She knew a punishment was coming. "You are done with kitchen work for now. From now until the Blood Moon Ceremony, you will report to the vineyard. Every evening, you will pick the grapes for fermentation. Alone. Out in the parkland, east of the stables. Three days, starting tonight. Understood?"
She nodded.
"That should be enough for you to learn some respect for the house you serve." He said it like he was inventing the word 'respect' just for her. "Now get out of my sight."
She backed toward the door, keeping her eyes low and her body bent in the perfect arc of submission he expected. The cup on the desk trembled in its saucer, and she thought how easily it could tip, how easily the dark tea could stain his desk, his rug, and his reputation. But she did not look back.
Only when the door was shut behind her did she breathe. There was a little alcove under the stairs, the one that stank of mouse shit, and she let herself slide against the wall and sink until her knees pressed to her chin. She buried her face in her skirt, wrapped her arms around her legs, and let the tea and blood and shame run together until the cloth was wet and sticky against her cheeks.
Her shoulders shook as she sobbed; she hated that. She hated that she was weak enough to care.
She wanted to hate her brother. She wanted to hate him so much for every moment of her life that was a small death, for every time she was made to kneel and eat the dust of their boots, for every disdainful look from the Blackwood heirs and their pretty, perfect girls. But when she tried to summon it, all she found was a hollow ache.
She remembered when the Thorne name was something. When Elias would run the hills with the Blackwood boys, his tunic was always untied, and his hands were always dirty. She tried to picture him as a traitor and a monster. But all she saw was the boy who taught her how to climb the old orchard wall, how to hold her breath so long she would scare the other pups until she gasped alive again, and who told her stories of wolves who loved too deeply. He was never cruel, not to her, not even when he should have been. She remembered his mouth, always full of stories and secrets, and the strange patience he had with her questions.
Sometimes, Kade came with him. The Kade before the war, before the ceremonial armor, before the royal regalia, and the stone-cold silence. The three of them would sneak down to the river and throw stones at the moon's reflection, betting on which one of them could strike it first. Kade always won, but sometimes she thought Elias let him, just to see him smile.
When she thought of Elias, she remembered the sun and the sound of him singing her name like a song only he knew. That was the brother she loved, the brother they said betrayed the entire pack. She did not believe it. Not fully. But she was eight years old, and no one asked her to testify, and she was not grown up enough to see if Elias was only wearing a beautiful façade.