A few pack members exchanged looks, anticipation sparking in their eyes. They were waiting for the dismissal, the lecture, the quiet escort back to the “proper” place for a human Luna.
I straightened slowly.
Every muscle in me wanted to sag. I apologize. To shrink.
I didn’t.
“I told you,” I said clearly, for everyone within earshot. “I’m trying to be less of a burden to you and the pack, Alpha.”
A ripple went through the ring.
That line cut both ways.
I saw it land behind his eyes.
The reminder that I’d been treated as little more than dead weight. That the only way I’d survived this long was by bending until I broke. II saw myself as useless not because I wanted to, but because that was the role everyone had pushed me into.
His jaw flexed once.
“Rhea,” he said, voice still too c
