A Misadventure

Chapter 3 The Public Shaming

Before sunrise, two guards pulled me from my small chamber and marched me into the cold. The entire Winter Moon Pack filled the cobbled central square, shoulder to shoulder between the great hall and the outer gates.

Heads turned. Growls moved through the crowd.

Fiona stood on the steps of the great hall, crying where everyone could see her.

She held a torn piece of dark cloth in one shaking hand. It came from Kael's tunic, though I had not seen her take it from the hall. Fiona pressed the scrap to her chest. The pack waited through several broken sobs.

“I loved her as my own. I gave her a home, a name, and a future. She repaid us by bringing a banished traitor onto our sacred altar. She let his feral scent defile the heart of this pack.”

Fiona raised the cloth. Wolves shoved toward me until the guards lowered their spears across the front row. Growls turned into accusations. Some shouted that bringing an exile through our defenses had endangered every family in the territory.

Derrick joined her on the steps.

He looked at me. I remembered summer nights, the mating vow he had whispered under the moon, and the future he had asked me to trust him with. His jaw worked. One foot moved forward.

“Derrick,” Fiona whispered.

His foot went back. He turned toward the crowd.

“A betrothal requires loyalty,” he announced. “Elara broke that promise. As your future Alpha, I will have no bond with a traitor. Our betrothal is dissolved.”

The pack cheered. Derrick crossed to Selena, Fiona's daughter, took her hand, and held it up before everyone.

Selena slipped away from him and hurried toward me with tears on her cheeks. The guards allowed her through.

“Oh, Elara.” She took my hand. “How could you?”

The pull began as soon as our palms met.

Cold ran through my fingers as strength drained into Selena. Her comforting hugs had left me with the same weakness for years. After each one, I was exhausted and slow to heal. I had blamed myself because no other young wolf suffered that way.

Fiona's tonics weakened me for days. The herbs in my room dragged me into sleep. After Selena held my hands, her celebrated healing improved while mine failed.

For ten years, Fiona had kept me within her daughter's reach.

I pulled my hand from Selena's.

The pack elders stepped forward to give their verdict.

“You will be taken to the dungeons. At dawn, the ritual of purification will sacrifice you and cleanse the altar you tainted.”

The guards seized my arms. Selena wiped her cheeks, but her eyes stayed on my hands with open hunger.

I let them take me toward the dungeons. Fighting a square full of guards and angry wolves would give Fiona the corpse she wanted before I learned why she had kept me alive for ten years.

Inside my tunic, my fingers closed around Kael's dagger. The folds of cloth hid the steel from the guards holding my arms. Neither guard noticed my hand tighten around it.