Chapter 57

Nicholas’s POV

The smell of blood hit me first.

Not a lot, just enough to prickle the edges of my wolf sense. Down in the dungeon the air always smelled damp and metallic, but this was fresher, sharper. My claws flexed against the arms of my chair before I realized I’d stood up.

“Alpha?” Dan’s voice came across the mind-link, urgent and low. “Cellblock three. Now.”

I didn’t ask questions. Norman surged under my skin, already halfway to a snarl. Mate in danger.

By the time I reached the stairwell, two guards were already unconscious against the wall. Dan stood over a third figure, Bobby, pinning the Gamma to the stone floor with one knee between his shoulder blades. A dagger gleamed in Bobby’s fist, but Dan had bent his wrist back until the blade clattered across the stones.

Esther’s cell door stood ajar. She was crouched in the corner, arms over her head, her healer’s coat streaked with dust but no fresh blood.

“What the hell,” I growled, my voice not entirely human.

Dan looked up but didn’t release Bobby. “He came for her, Alpha. Tried to make it look like a suicide.”

Norman roared inside me. Kill him.

I crossed the distance in three strides, seized Bobby by the back of his collar and hauled him upright.

“Gamma Bobby,” I said softly, deadly. “Explain.”

Bobby’s eyes darted between us. “She—she killed the Luna’s baby—”

“She is not Luna,” I snarled. “And you do not have leave to carry out executions in my dungeon.”

He sneered despite the sweat beading on his forehead. “Someone had to clean up your mess.”

My claws pricked through my skin. Dan cleared his throat, still holding the dagger.

“Alpha, permission to search him?”

“Do it,” I snapped.

Dan yanked a folded scrap of paper from Bobby’s belt. It was Amanda’s handwriting, her perfume still clinging to the parchment.

My stomach went cold.

“Take him to the interrogation chamber,” I said. “Now.”

The interrogation room beneath the west wing was as bare as a skull with a stone floor, iron rings, one table, one chair. Bobby sat shackled to the table, eyes dull with defiance. Dan stood at my shoulder, arms crossed, waiting.

I dropped the letter on the table between us. “Recognize this?”

Bobby didn’t blink.

I leaned in, palms braced on the iron. “Amanda sent you.”

Silence.

Norman growled. Let me tear it from him.

I reached across and grabbed Bobby by the front of his shirt. “You went after a prisoner under my protection. You tried to kill a healer who saved this pack’s guards. And you think you’re walking out of here?”

Bobby’s mouth curled. “She’s poison. Amanda’s the only one who cares about this pack.”

There it was, the slip.

“Good,” I murmured. “Tell me about Amanda.”

He hesitated.

Dan moved closer, voice quiet but sharp. “Bobby, the Alpha can scent lies. You’ve already signed your death warrant. Speak now and maybe you’ll still have a future outside the walls.”

Bobby swallowed, throat bobbing. Sweat ran down his temple.

Finally he broke. “She—Amanda—she said if the healer died, the scandal would die with her. That she’d finally be Luna without interference.”

I felt my pulse in my teeth. “And you agreed?”

“She’s… we…” His eyes flicked up, ashamed and defensive all at once. “We’ve been together for years. Before you even met her. The baby—”

Dan stiffened. “The baby?”

Bobby’s face crumpled. “It was mine.”

The words dropped like stones into the room.

I drew in a slow breath through my nose. Norman went utterly still. Not yours.

Bobby pressed on, desperate now. “She said you’d never accept her if you knew. Said we could be together if she was crowned Luna, that you’d be too busy with politics to notice—”

My hand shot out, claws piercing the wood of the table an inch from his throat. “Enough.”

He shut his mouth with a click.

I straightened, turning away to keep from tearing him apart on the spot. My mind reeled: Amanda’s pregnancy, the miscarriage, the smear campaign, every step had been calculated to box me in.

Norman rumbled. She played you. Played all of us.

I looked at Dan. “Get her.”

Dan’s brows rose. “Alpha—”

“Now.”

He left without another word.

They brought Amanda in ten minutes later. She was still in one of her flowing crimson gowns, but her face was pale, her usual composure cracking around the edges.

“Alpha,” she began, her voice sweet and trembling. “What is—”

I cut her off. “Sit.”

She did, her eyes flicking to Bobby, who sat shackled with his head in his hands.

“I know,” I said simply.

Her lips parted. “Know… what?”

“That you lied. That the baby was not mine. That you sent this man to murder a prisoner under my protection.”

Color drained from her cheeks. “Alpha, you can’t—”

I slammed my claws into the table hard enough to splinter the edge. “Do not lie to me again.”

She flinched, but still tried to rally. “You need me. The elders—”

“The elders,” I said softly, “are finished.”

Her eyes darted. “Nicholas—”

“You used my trust,” I went on, each word like a blade. “You used my pack. You used my wolves. You tried to kill a woman who saved our guards, who saved me. You framed her. You lied about a child to chain me to you.”

Amanda’s breath came in ragged gasps. “I did it for us—”

“There is no us.”

Bobby lifted his head weakly. “Amanda…”

I rose to my full height. Norman pressed at the edges of my vision, golden and furious. Banish them, he whispered. Make them rogues. They’ve forfeited the pack.

Amanda reached for me across the table, eyes wet. “Alpha, please. I loved you—”

“No,” I said. “You loved power.”

I pronounced judgment in the old way, the way my father had taught me, no flowery language, no ceremony, just the truth.

“Amanda of the Blood Moon Pack,” I said. “Gamma Bobby of the Blood Moon Pack. For betrayal, attempted murder, and conspiracy against your Alpha, I strip you of all rank, title, and territory. You are rogues now. You leave at dawn. If you return, you die.”

Amanda made a sound somewhere between a sob and a snarl. “You can’t—”

“I can.”

Bobby surged to his feet but Dan shoved him back down.

I leaned forward, voice low. “You should pray that the healer you tried to kill lives. Because if she dies, this pack will hunt you to the ends of the earth.”

Amanda’s eyes went wide with a flash of pure hatred.

“She’s ruined you,” she spat. “She’s ruined everything.”

“No,” I said. “You did that yourself.”

I signaled the guards. “Remove them.”

The hall outside the interrogation room buzzed with murmurs as Amanda and Bobby were marched through in shackles. The news would spread before sunset: the once-untouchable mistress and the Gamma cast out as rogues.

I stayed behind, palms braced on the edge of the splintered table, trying to steady my breathing. Norman prowled just beneath my skin, still seething.

We should have killed them, he said.

“We don’t kill unless we have to,” I muttered.

She tried to kill our mate.

I closed my eyes. “She’s not—”

She is.

Later, in my private quarters, I poured a drink and stared out at the moonlight spilling across the courtyard. The glass trembled slightly in my hand.

Down in the dungeon, Esther would have heard the commotion. Maybe Dan had already told her what happened. Maybe not.

I pictured her in that cell—her eyes rimmed with exhaustion, her healer’s coat rumpled but her chin still lifted. I had put her there. I had listened to the elders, to Amanda, to my own damn pride, and put her there.

Now Amanda and Bobby were gone, their lies exposed, and still Esther sat behind bars because of me.

Norman’s voice was softer now, but no less insistent. Go to her.

“She wouldn’t want to see me,” I said aloud.

Then at least open the door.

I rubbed my eyes. The whiskey burned down my throat but did nothing to ease the hollow ache. “What if it’s too late?”

Norman didn’t answer.

I thought of the first time I’d seen her years ago, trembling in a healer’s apron too big for her, eyes already defiant. I’d thought I could control her. Then I’d thought I could trade with her. Then I’d thought I could hate her.

Every time she’d surprised me.

Still, I’d failed her.

I set the glass down and leaned my forehead against the cool window. Below, the pack yard stretched silent and silver under the moon. Somewhere in the west wing, Dan was arranging transport for Amanda and Bobby’s exile. Somewhere below, Esther waited in the dark.

I should go to her. I should release her. I should fall on my knees and apologize.

Instead I stood there, paralyzed by my own pride, until the moon slipped behind a cloud and the courtyard went dark.

When at last I moved, it was only to lock the window and pull the curtains closed.

Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow I would make it right.

But even as I said it, I felt the truth settle like a stone in my gut.

Tomorrow might already be too late.