THE ALPHA'S FORBIDDEN MATE

THE ENEMY WITHIN

The second attack came at midday, in full view of half the pack, which was precisely what made it so much more terrifying than the first.

Maya was crossing the central yard toward the kitchens when the ground beneath her seemed to ripple, the air going cold in a way that had nothing to do with weather. Warriors nearby froze, scenting the change a half-second before three of the smoke-edged creatures tore into the compound from different directions at once — coordinated in a way the lone attacker at the sacred grounds had never suggested was possible.

"To arms!" The cry went up from a dozen throats at once, warriors scrambling for weapons, pack members not trained for combat scattering toward the safety of the main hall. Maya's instincts took over before conscious thought caught up, her claws darkening, the current in her blood surging to answer the threat with an ease that would have seemed impossible three weeks ago.

She fought alongside Adrian and Damon in the chaos, driving one creature back toward the eastern fence with claws that had learned, finally, to trust their own strength. But even as they gained ground against the two visible attackers, Maya's senses — sharper now than they'd ever been — caught something wrong at the edges of the fight. A warrior near the storage cellar, moving with deliberate purpose rather than combat instinct, slipping toward the compound's water supply while everyone's attention was consumed by the battle.

"Adrian!" she shouted, pointing. "Near the cellar—"

Adrian's head snapped toward the movement just as the warrior — one of Selene's allies, Maya realized with a cold jolt, a man named Ferris who'd voted for her restriction twice — pulled a small vial from his cloak and moved to empty it into the water stores.

Damon reached him first, tackling him to the ground before the vial could be opened, the two of them grappling violently while the third creature, freed of Adrian's attention, lunged toward the distracted fighters near the main hall. Maya threw herself into its path without thinking, claws raking across its shifting form, and this time when it recoiled, it didn't retreat — it dissolved entirely, screaming, as though her strike had unmade something fundamental in whatever held it together.

The remaining two creatures fled moments later, vanishing back into the tree line as abruptly as they'd arrived, leaving the compound in stunned, bleeding silence.

Damon hauled Ferris upright, the vial now secured, fury written plain across his face. "What is this?"

"Nothing," Ferris spat, though his eyes wouldn't meet anyone's. "A mistake—"

"Test it," Adrian said grimly, and one of the healers stepped forward, uncorking the vial with visible caution before her expression went ashen.

"Wolfsbane concentrate," she said. "Enough to poison the entire compound's water supply within the hour. Everyone who drank from it — pups, elders, everyone — would have been dead by nightfall."

The yard went dead silent, the full weight of what had nearly happened settling over the assembled pack. Maya felt sick, the attack suddenly reframing itself in her mind — not a random assault, but a deliberate distraction, cover for something far more devastating.

"Who gave the order," Adrian demanded, voice cold with fury Maya had never heard from him before. "Who sent you to poison your own pack's water while creatures tore through the yard as cover?"

Ferris said nothing, jaw set, and it was Damon who finally forced the answer, gripping his collar with barely restrained violence. "Answer him. Now."

"Selene," Ferris said finally, the name dropping into the silence like a stone. "She said — she said the girl's bloodline had already doomed this pack, that the attacks would only get worse the longer she stayed, that removing enough of us to force a leadership change was the only way to save what's left before the debt collects everyone."

Maya felt the words land like a physical blow, the accusation worse somehow than anything Selene had said to her face. Removing enough of us. Ferris hadn't been targeting Maya specifically. He'd been willing to kill the entire compound — pups, elders, everyone — on the theory that it would somehow prevent a worse outcome later.

"Where is she," Adrian said, voice gone terrifyingly quiet.

"Gone," Ferris said. "She left before the attack started. Said she needed to be somewhere with witnesses when it happened, in case questions were asked."

They found Selene an hour later, in the Council chamber of all places, calmly presiding over a gathering of concerned elders as though she'd spent the entire afternoon there rather than orchestrating an attempted mass poisoning. Her performance of shock at the news of the attack was seamless, practiced, entirely convincing to anyone who hadn't just heard Ferris's confession firsthand.

"This is monstrous," she said, when Adrian laid out what had happened, her expression arranged into perfect horror. "Ferris acted alone, clearly, driven to some kind of breaking point by his fear of the ongoing threat. I certainly never sanctioned—"

"He named you," Adrian said, cutting through the performance with brutal directness. "Specifically. Told the entire Council you'd argued that poisoning our own water supply was justified to remove enough of the pack to force a leadership change."

"And you believe the word of a man caught committing attempted mass murder over mine?" Selene's voice sharpened, indignation replacing shock with practiced smoothness. "A man clearly desperate to shift blame onto someone else the moment he was caught?"

"I believe," Corwin said, his ancient voice cutting through the chamber with unexpected weight, "that this Council has spent three weeks watching you escalate every grievance you have against this bloodline through increasingly extreme channels. First formal accusation. Then quiet recruitment of our Beta to spy on his own Alpha. Now, apparently, mass poisoning disguised as supernatural attack. I am no longer inclined to extend you the benefit of the doubt, Selene, regardless of how convincingly you perform innocence."

"You have no proof beyond a desperate man's accusation," Selene said, though something had shifted in her voice now, the first genuine crack in her composure.

"We have proof enough to formally investigate," Renata said, surprising Adrian by siding with Corwin rather than her earlier sympathy toward Selene's cause. "And I would remind you, Selene, that attempted mass murder of pack members — including elders, including pups — is not a crime this Council treats lightly regardless of the political grievance behind it. You will submit to full questioning, under compulsion if necessary, until this matter is resolved fully."

Selene's mask finally slipped entirely, fury and fear both visible beneath the careful composure she'd maintained for three weeks. "You would take the word of that girl's presence in this pack over the loyalty I've shown this Council my entire life? She isn't even fully pack, Corwin. Whatever she is, whatever her mother bargained for, it was never meant to include the right to destroy everything the rest of us have built."

"No one is destroying anything," Maya said quietly, stepping forward despite the exhaustion and horror of the afternoon still sitting heavy in her chest. "I've spent three weeks trying to survive a debt I didn't choose, a bond I didn't ask for, and a Council that's spent most of that time deciding whether I deserved to exist at all. I never asked anyone to poison themselves on my behalf, Selene. That was entirely your choice, and you don't get to make it mine to carry."

Something in Selene's expression cracked further, fury giving way to something rawer and more desperate. "You have no idea what you've already cost this pack. What you will cost it before whatever's coming finishes collecting."

"Then help us stop it instead of making it worse," Adrian said. "If you genuinely believe Maya's presence endangers this pack, prove it through honest investigation, not through poisoned water and secret recruitment. But that choice is no longer yours to make alone, Selene. It's this Council's, and they've made clear they're done extending you unquestioned trust."

Selene was led away for formal questioning within the hour, her allies among the Council scrambling to distance themselves from association with her now that Ferris's confession had made her position politically untenable. Whatever came of the investigation, Maya understood with grim certainty that the fight for the pack's trust had just shifted decisively — not fully in her favor, not yet, but enough that Selene's open campaign against her had effectively ended tonight, even if the danger beneath it hadn't.

"This isn't over," Adrian said quietly later, finding Maya alone in the aftermath, exhaustion and adrenaline both finally draining from both of them. "Selene's removed from active influence, but whoever — whatever — sent those creatures is still out there. And we still don't know what the debt actually wants, or when it plans to finish collecting."

"I know." Maya leaned into him, letting herself feel the fear she'd kept carefully controlled through the entire confrontation. "But today, for the first time since this started, the pack saw the danger clearly instead of just seeing me as the danger. That has to count for something."

"It counts for everything," Adrian said, pressing a kiss to her temple. "You didn't just survive today, Maya. You made this pack finally understand what they should have seen from the beginning — that you're not the threat circling them. You're the one who keeps fighting it back."

Outside, the compound was settling into an uneasy quiet, wounded but intact, one immediate danger removed even as the larger mystery of the debt remained unresolved — waiting, patient as ever, for whatever came next.