The Beta Who Betrayed Her Pack For the Enemy Alpha

Chapter 11 – Ritual of Chains

The temple always smelled the same: incense, cold stone, and the faint metallic tang that now made my stomach turn.

I stood just inside the heavy doors, palms damp, watching Serapha arrange silver bowls along the low altar. Candles flickered, throwing soft, trembling light over carvings of the Moon and wolves pressed flat in reverence.

This wasn’t a public rite.

This was “clarity.”

“Come in, Lyris,” Serapha said without looking up. “We don’t wish to keep the Goddess waiting.”

Alpha Rylan leaned against one of the carved pillars, arms folded. Dark smudges bruised the skin beneath his eyes. My father sat on a bench near the wall, Maera at his side, one hand over his. Lucien lingered in the shadows by the far archway, observing like always.

Just the people who mattered most. Just the ones who could sign away my life.

Perfect audience.

“Remind me why this can’t wait until after breakfast?” I asked, stepping forward. My voice echoed too loudly in the vaulted space.

“Because certain… disruptions… must be addressed before they take root,” Serapha said, placing a final bowl and straightening. “You have been under great strain. The rites of clarity will ease the burden. Sharpen your sense of what is truly for the good of the pack.”

“I’m very clear on that already,” I muttered.

My father’s gaze caught mine. “Lyris,” he said quietly. “This doesn’t have to be a battle. Let them ease your mind. If you still object after, we talk.”

He believed that. He believed this was medicine.

They all did.

Except Lucien, whose eyes glinted with private amusement.

“This is a simple focus rite,” Serapha said. “No deep workings. You drink, you breathe, you listen. I guide your thoughts. We remind your heart where its loyalties lie.”

To the pack. Not to the Council. Not to you.

I forced a breath in, then out. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s do your simple rite.”

Her smile returned, soft and satisfied. “Kneel.”

I knelt on the round cushion in front of the altar. The stone was cool beneath my knees, the candlelight warm on my face. Serapha took one of the silver bowls and poured water from a clay jug, then added a pinch of crushed herbs from a small pouch at her belt.

Steam rose, carrying a scent that made my head swim: sweet, floral… and underneath, the same metallic bitterness I’d smelled in my father’s blend.

My wolf recoiled, teeth bared.

Don’t drink, she snarled. Don’t you dare.

“Breathe in,” Serapha murmured. “Let the Goddess enter with the smoke. Let your doubts rise and scatter.”

I inhaled shallowly, letting the top notes brush my senses without dragging them deep. My eyelids fluttered at the faint throb behind my temples.

Serapha dipped a spoon, filled a tiny cup, and held it toward me.

“Drink,” she said.

I met her eyes. “What’s in it?”

“Herbs for calm,” she replied calmly. “For focus. Nothing harmful. You have my word.”

Her word was poison.

Across the room, Lucien’s gaze sharpened, as if curious whether I’d call her a liar to her face.

I took the cup.

Every instinct screamed at me to throw it in her face, to shout, to expose. Instead, I let my hand tremble—just a little—and tipped the cup toward my lips.

As the liquid touched my mouth, I coughed deliberately, jerking my head. Most of it splashed down my chin and onto my dress; a thin ribbon hit my tongue.

Enough to taste. Not enough to drown.

The bitterness burned. My stomach clenched.

“Oh,” I said, wiping at my mouth. “Sorry. Guess I really am nervous.”

Serapha’s smile thinned, but she took the cup back, unbothered. “We try again.”

She refilled. This time, when she lifted the cup, my hand “slipped.” The edge of the bowl clipped the altar; water and herbs sloshed, half the dose spilling sizzling onto the stone.

“Clumsy tonight,” I said lightly, even as my heart pounded.

Rylan sighed. “Lyris—”

“Perhaps,” Serapha said, voice cool, “we dispense with theatrics.”

She set the cup aside and stepped closer, lifting both hands. Her fingers hovered just above my temples, cool air ghosting over my skin.

“No drink,” she said. “No smoke. Just guidance.”

My wolf tensed.

Her thumbs pressed lightly to spots just above my brows. The contact was barely there, but the effect slammed through me like cold water.

A hum started behind my eyes, low and insistent. Thoughts blurred at the edges, like ink bleeding on damp paper. Images flickered—my father, Eryx, the pack gathered under the Moon. All suffused with a haze of warmth, of rightness.

Trust, a soft voice whispered at the back of my skull. Not mine. Not my wolf’s.

Trust Eryx.

Trust the rites.

Trust the chain.

No.

My spine stiffened. I dug my nails into my own thighs where no one could see.

This was how it worked. No strange lights. No chanting in tongues. Just a subtle, insistent nudge on the part of you that wanted to stop being tired. Stop fighting. Let someone else steer.

“Breathe,” Serapha murmured. “Let go. You are loved. You are safe. You do not have to hold the pack alone. We will guide you. We will—”

Something else pushed back.

Not my will. Not exactly.

A cool, silvery pressure rose from somewhere deep in my chest, where my wolf curled. The hum in my skull hit resistance and skittered sideways.

Lines of light flashed behind my closed lids—circles and sigils, crisscrossing like a web. For a split second, I saw the same cracked ritual floor from the burning temple in my nightmares.

No more, another voice—not a word, just a feeling—echoed through me.

Serapha’s fingers twitched against my skin.

Her breath hitched.

“What was that?” Lucien asked, too smoothly casual.

“Nothing,” she snapped, then smoothed her tone. “Her mind is… resistant. Expected, after recent strain.”

The pressure increased. The hum became a drill, searching for cracks.

Memories surged up, sharp and bright: Eryx’s calm face as fire fell. My father’s shaking hands. Green liquid glinting in a stranger’s grasp. Cassian’s gaze in the dark.

Protect, my wolf snarled. Not them. Not her. The pack.

The silvery pressure surged again, meeting Serapha’s touch like two currents crashing.

Pain stabbed through my skull. I bit down on a cry.

“Lyris?” My mother’s voice, tight with worry. “Is this… is that supposed to happen?”

Serapha’s breath came faster. Her fingers dug in harder.

“Obstruction,” she ground out. “Some… interference. The rite will clear it.”

No, it won’t.

I forced my eyes open. Light exploded, then narrowed into focus. Serapha’s face hovered inches from mine, perfect and composed—except for the fine sheen of sweat at her hairline and the strain at the corners of her mouth.

For the first time, I saw not a serene priestess, but a wolf accustomed to getting exactly the response she wanted—and furious that she wasn’t.

“You’re not touching my mind again,” I said hoarsely.

Her eyes flashed. “You do not command—”

I reached up and closed my fingers around her wrists.

The hum spiked, then cut off as I wrenched her hands away from my head.

The room snapped into sharp relief. The candles, the altar, the worried crease between my mother’s brows, the stunned look on my father’s face.

The cold fury on Serapha’s.

She held herself very still. I realized belatedly that I was squeezing hard enough to bruise.

“Let go, Lyris,” she said softly. There was no silk now. Only steel. “You do not understand what you are resisting.”

“Oh, I understand just fine,” I said, heartbeat hammering. “You tried to wrap my instincts in cotton so I’d stop seeing what you’re doing to this pack.”

Rylan straightened from his pillar. “Enough,” he snapped. “This is getting us nowhere.”

Serapha’s gaze slid to him, then back to me. “On the contrary,” she murmured. “It tells me exactly what I needed to know.”

A chill skated down my spine. “And what’s that?”

She smiled. It didn’t touch her eyes.

“That whatever is wrong with you, little Beta,” she said, voice so gentle it made my skin crawl, “is no longer going to be fixed with herbs and kind words.”

Her hands flexed in my grip, and for a heartbeat I thought she might strike me.

She didn’t.

She simply withdrew, smoothing her sleeves as if I’d never touched her.

“Alpha,” she said, tone all temple again, “for the safety of Mistveil, I recommend we consider the possibility that Lyris is… compromised.”

My mother sucked in a breath. “Compromised how?”

“Influenced,” Serapha said. “By something beyond our borders. Or beyond this world.”

Her gaze cut to Lucien, who watched me with bright, razor interest.

“Until we determine what that is,” she went on, “we should be prepared to remove her from any position of decision-making.”

Remove.

My father surged to his feet, color rising in his face. “Over my dead body,” he snarled.

Serapha’s smile returned, thin and chilling. “Let us hope it does not come to that.”