Caspian's POV
The pack house hall was silent when I entered with the Luna and Alpha Alfred. The air shifted instantly, heavy, oppressive, a weight that pressed down on every wolf present. The mistresses stood in a line before me, their children behind them, trembling as my power rolled through the room like a storm building.
They used to walk these halls with their chins lifted, smirking at anyone beneath them.
Now, not a single one of them and their children could meet my eyes.
"On your knees," I commanded, my voice deep and absolute.
The women dropped instantly. Their children stiffened, fear clawing up their throats as the pack warriors closed in behind them.
My cold gaze swept over them.
These were the ones who tormented my mate.
These were the ones who fed the traitorous Alpha's ego.
These were the ones who laughed while the true Luna suffered unseen.
Today, their reign ended.
"Bring me the crest," I ordered.
A warrior stepped forward, carrying a velvet tray. On it lay the crest pendants that marked the Alpha's household, and this was also the symbols the mistresses had worn proudly for years.
My voice was sharp enough to cut stone.
"You are no longer connected to the Alpha line. You are no longer the privileged women of this pack."
His gamma ripped the pendants from their necks.
The red haired lady whom from my stay here I heard was the first woman whimpered.
Another let out a broken sob.
And the other arrogant mistress clutched at the empty space on her throat as if the absence of that symbol burned.
"You will live as ordinary pack members from this day forward," I continued. "Your titles, your privileges, your protections, they are gone."
A ripple of gasps flowed through the crowd.
I stepped closer, towering over them.
"You took pleasure in humiliating my mate. You mocked her, harmed her, treated her as less than you."
My voice grew quieter, more dangerous.
"So now you will learn what it means to earn your place."
I turned to the new head Omega named Anna.
The other one who tormented my mate was banished along side the alpha, I was only planning on giving her a little punishment, but seeing that she wasn't feeling remorseful for all the atrocities she did to my mate, I decided to give her a bigger punishment, banished from the pack, she's now a rogue.
"Assign them labor duties. Kitchens. Laundry halls. Public cleaning. Whatever the pack requires."
The head Omega bowed.
"Yes, my King."
The mistresses shook, horror dawning in their eyes.
They had spent years being served.
Now they would scrub floors beside the wolves they once sneered at.
Their children swallowed hard, the first sting of reality hitting.
"Stand," I ordered.
The women rose shakily, eyes red, shoulders hunched.
"You will address this pack," I declared.
"You will speak every truth you hid.
Every lie you told.
Every cruelty you committed."
The room buzzed. Shame crawled up their skin as dozens of eyes bored into them.
One by one, the mistresses confessed. The insults, The bullying, The whispered rumors. The deliberate attempts to break the future queen.
Tears streamed down their faces, their dignity stripped bare. The pack listened in disgust. "That is the weight of your own actions," I said when they finished. "And you will carry it."
"For years," I continued, "you took what wasn't yours. Luxury. Attention. Power. None of it was earned."
I then gestured toward the Luna and my mate who were standing quietly beside me, glowing with the authority she had been denied for so long.
"You will watch her take her rightful place," I said softly, but within the softness there was something deadly.
"And you will remember that the sit you pretended to sit beside was never yours."
The mistresses bowed their heads, unable to look at the woman they had tried to crush.
"For your children," turning to the frightened young wolves, "your punishment is discipline."
They tensed.
"You will train with the warrior instructors. No special treatment. No privileges. You will earn your respect or you will have none."
My voice deepened, carrying through every corner of the hall. "Hear my final decree,From this moment, you are all demoted to the lowest rank.
You will obey the new Alpha's rule.
You will obey the Luna.
You will obey this pack's laws."
I stepped back.
"And if any one of you attempts to reclaim the status you stole…"
my eyes burned gold,
"…you will be exiled. Without mercy."
Silence fell like a final verdict.
And in that silence, the mistresses finally understood that their fall was permanent, And their humiliation complete, and that their power was gone forever.
The hall stayed silent after the my decree, but the silence didn't last long.
One of the older children, a boy who had once strutted around the pack house like a prince then suddenly broke. His voice cracked as he stepped forward.
"Please… please don't do this," he whispered, eyes filling with tears he had never allowed anyone to see. "I didn't know. I didn't know they were hurting her. I thought… I thought we were the family of the Alpha."
His mother tried to pull him back, but he shook her off, tears streaking down his face.
Another child, a girl around fourteen, dropped to her knees.
"We didn't choose this life," she cried. "We only did what our mothers told us. We thought she was nothing, we didn't know she was the Queen. We didn't know she mattered."
Their younger siblings began crying too, small, frantic sobs that echoed painfully in the room.
It wasn't just fear.
It was the shattering of entitlement.
The collapse of a world that had been built on their mothers' lies.
A little boy clung to his mother's arm.
"Mama, I don't want to be Omega," he sobbed. "Why are they taking our house? Why are we leaving our rooms?"
He didn't understand the politics.
He didn't understand rank.
He only understood loss.
Wolves in the room shifted uncomfortably.
Some pitied them. Others felt they deserved every tear. But the children's cries filled the hall until it throbbed with raw emotion.
while the children were crying, Alfred stepped forward. He had been silent the entire time, standing behind the me with his jaw tight and his posture straight.
He had no pride yet, no confidence, but there was strength in the way he held himself.
When he spoke, his voice was calm but carried the weight of everything he had suffered. "I know what it feels like," he said quietly, "to grow up believing lies."
The hall stilled again.
"I know what it feels like to be ignored. To be treated as if you don't exist. To watch everyone walk past you as if you're invisible."
His eyes flicked to the children of the mistresses who are also his half-siblings.
"You lived a life I wasn't allowed to touch," he said.
"You ate meals I was never offered. You wore clothes I could only dream of. You had a father who smiled at you, while I had one who forgot my name."
Whispers rippled, heavy with guilt and truth.
"But hear me," he continued, voice firming.
"This punishment is not cruelty. It is justice."
The children sobbed harder.
"You are not being cast out. You are not being denied a future. You are being given the chance to build one the right way."
His eyes softened, but just slightly that one wouldn't be able to notice unless they looked carefull.
"You will answer to me now, Not my father, Not your mothers, but Me."
The authority in his voice vibrated through the room, his Alpha aura slowly awakening, it was powerful, steady, earned.
"And if you prove yourselves, if you work, if you learn humility, if you show respect, then you will rise."
He paused.
"But if you repeat the sins of your mothers, I will have no choice but to finish what the King started."
His final words came out cold, resolute. "This pack will not fall into corruption again." Even the warriors shivered. Indeed I made the right choice, he would make a great alpha.