He Humiliated Me for Her, So I Made His Twin the New Alpha

I sat on the edge of my cot with the ruined amulet in my palm. The ironwood disc was no bigger than a coin. Its carved edges had burned away, and the drop of blood at its center had dried into black ash. Last night, I had carried two amulets to the bonfire. I had spent weeks carving them in secret for the hundredth day of our bond. Callum received his first. The Elders still named him heir apparent, and he carried the title as if the pack had already crowned him. Our forced bond offended him most when other wolves could see it. He accepted my healing in private, then let Lyra hang from his arm at every gathering. I had kept hoping the hundred days would change something. When he slept through the swamp whispers because of my wards, or flexed a healed hand without pain, I told myself he had noticed. The amulet was the last thing I made from that hope. He turned it over once. “What's this?” Lyra leaned across his shoulder so the whole circle could hear her. “Did you make the little trinket yourself, healer?” She made my rank sound dirty. “It's a soul amulet. It can settle you during the rut and help with the night whispers.” Callum tossed it between his hands. “It's junk. A low-rank trinket for a low-rank bond.” He looked at Lyra. “What do you think?” “The fire might want it.” He laughed and threw it in. The ironwood landed among the coals. Sap hissed. By the time I reached the edge of the circle, the blood seal was burning. No one stopped him. Pack members stared into their cups or watched the flames. Callum slipped an arm around Lyra as if I had already left. Ronan crossed the circle. He walked straight past his brother and put his bare hand into the coals. The smell reached me before he pulled back. Blisters were rising across his palm, but the broken disc was clenched between his fingers. He pressed it into my hand. His burned fingers shook against mine. “Don't make anything else for him.” Callum's smile dropped. “Have you lost your mind?” Ronan faced him. “Humiliate my mate again, and I'll tear out your throat.” My mate. In ninety-nine days, Ronan had never used those words. He was the quieter twin, the one who watched a room before entering it and spoke only when he had something to say. Until that night, our longest conversation had concerned the dosage on a fever bottle. Now his hand was blistered because he had refused to let my work burn. Callum glanced around the circle, perhaps waiting for laughter. None came. Back in my tent, I set his ruined half of the amulet beside the one I had made for him. On the shelf stood two medicine cups. Two folded blankets lay at the foot of my cot. I had split every ward and every treatment down the middle, including those Callum accepted without thanks. Weeks earlier, a friend had asked me, *Have you ever thought that treating them equally might be unfair to the one who's actually kind to you?* I had dismissed her. The Triad Contract demanded balance, and I had treated balance as a daily count. Two cups at breakfast. Half my strength for each night ward. The same salve on a bruise whether it came from protecting the pack or striking a post in anger. The contract required fair treatment. It never required me to reward cruelty. At dawn, Ronan's blood was still dried under my nails. I emptied one of the cups, packed my best herbs into the other, and steeped a stronger potion. Then I soaked clean bandages in balm for his hand. The meal horn sounded that evening. I took the single cup and the bandages with me.