Episode Three
1091 Words
Part 5: The High Table
I didn’t sleep.
The lodge was a cage—cold stone walls and the overwhelming scent of its master. I tried the cot Draven had set out, but it was hard, unyielding. Every gust of wind from beneath the door carried his scent—wild pine, smoke, and steel. It made my wolf pace restlessly beneath my skin.
After an hour, I gave up and stood by the cold hearth, staring into the dark. Luna. Queen. The words felt like a costume someone else had stitched onto me.
The bed—his bed—loomed in the shadows, fur-draped and far too inviting. The bond inside me pulled toward it, raw and insistent. My wolf begged to sink into the warmth, to wait for him there.
I wrapped my arms around myself, nails digging into my skin. “No,” I whispered into the empty room. I would not be ruled by instinct. Not his. Not mine.
When the first gray light of dawn filtered through the high windows, I was hollow-eyed and shaking. Hunger gnawed at my stomach—familiar, grounding. Hunger I knew how to survive.
Draven’s words from the night before echoed like a dare.
> “They will challenge you. They see a rogue. I suggest you show them what I see.”
Hiding would prove them right. Stealing food would prove them wrong in all the wrong ways.
I straightened, jaw tight. The tattered furs and leathers clinging to my body would have to do. Let them see the rogue. Let them see what he saw.
I unbarred the heavy door and stepped into the crisp, cutting air of morning. The stronghold pulsed with life—warriors sparring in the courtyard, blacksmiths hammering, the scent of metal and wolf thick on the wind.
Then the sounds began to die.
Conversation faltered. Movements stilled. Eyes turned.
One by one, every wolf in sight stopped to watch me walk the long path down from the Alpha’s lodge. Their gazes were knives—cold, assessing, hungry for weakness. Beta Kaelen’s contempt lived in every one of them.
I lifted my chin and kept walking. Steady pace, eyes forward. Show no fear. Show no weakness.
The great hall loomed ahead—massive doors, the heartbeat of the stronghold. I pushed them open.
Noise. Heat. The smell of roasting meat. Long tables lined the cavernous space, alive with voices—until I stepped inside. Then silence fell again, sharp and total.
I ignored it. I found the serving line and joined it. When I reached the front, the young omega holding the ladle froze. Her hand trembled as she looked past me, toward the high table.
I followed her gaze.
Beta Kaelen sat in the Alpha’s seat’s shadow, poised and waiting. Her icy eyes gleamed like a blade.
I took the bowl of stew, turned—and found her blocking my way.
“We don’t allow strays in the hall,” she said, her voice loud and clear. “Rogues eat in the kennels. Or perhaps you’d prefer the scraps behind the gate?”
Laughter rippled through the room. My pulse pounded against my ribs, but I didn’t move. The old Lyra would have run. The rogue would have lunged.
I did neither.
I studied her, my gaze deliberate and slow—the same way Draven had looked at his warriors when he wanted them to feel small.
“I’m not a rogue,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands.
Kaelen’s lip curled. “You wear rags. You reek of the wild. You are what you are.”
“I am,” I said, letting my voice carry, “what my Alpha declared me to be.”
Her smile faltered.
“And Luna,” I continued, taking a deliberate step forward, “eats at the high table.”
A challenge. Public. Unmistakable.
For one frozen heartbeat, Kaelen didn’t move. Then, with a low snarl of fury, she stepped aside.
The hall gasped as I walked past her.
My hands shook so violently I nearly spilled the bowl, but I kept my back straight and my steps slow. The hall parted like a tide as I climbed the dais and sat in the carved chair to the left of the Alpha’s empty seat.
The silence pressed against my skin.
Then the doors opened.
Draven entered.
He stopped, golden eyes sweeping the room. In one glance, he saw everything: me, pale but upright in the Luna’s chair; Kaelen, rigid with humiliation at the center of the hall; the entire pack, stunned into silence.
He moved without speaking. Took his food. Climbed the dais. Sat beside me.
The scrape of his chair echoed like thunder.
The pack rose as one. “Alpha.”
Draven ignored them. He leaned in, his shoulder brushing mine. The heat of him was dizzying. The bond between us flared, bright and sharp.
“Well done, my queen,” he murmured.
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Part 6: The Weight of Authority
Draven’s quiet words sent a rush of heat through me that had nothing to do with embarrassment—or pride. The entire hall was frozen, waiting for his next move.
He took a slow bite of his meal before lifting his gaze to the crowd. When he spoke, his voice was no longer a murmur. It was the steady, lethal calm of an Alpha.
“Beta Kaelen.”
She flinched, straightening. “Alpha.”
“My Luna found your management of the morning meal lacking,” he said, tone deceptively mild. “She was forced to correct you. See that it doesn’t happen again. Her authority here is my authority.”
A visible ripple moved through the room. Kaelen’s jaw tightened, fury barely leashed behind her expression. The reprimand was deliberate, public, and absolute.
“Yes, Alpha,” she managed through gritted teeth. Her eyes cut to me—cold, venomous. That look was a promise. I hadn’t just made an enemy; I had earned a rival.
“Good,” Draven said, turning back to his meal as if the moment had never happened. “Eat.”
The hall exhaled at once, noise rushing back into the space—muted, uneasy. Conversations started again, but they were all about me. I could feel the weight of every whisper, every glance.
I picked up my spoon, hands still trembling, and took a bite of the stew. It was hot, grounding. Necessary.
I had won the battle.
But I had just declared a war.
- Writer
