Esme's POV
My own voice still echoed in my head.
The lies I had spoken. The sins Nolan forced down my throat. The shame I never earned but had been painted with so deeply that my own skin felt foreign to me.
I stood trembling, my hands empty now that my confession had been spat out before thousands. Empty hands… and an emptier heart.
Lior shifted gently against me, trying to find comfort in my arms—comfort I was barely holding onto myself.
When Nolan stepped forward after my final words, smiling down at me like I had performed a trick for him, something inside me cracked and bled.
“It’s a good thing she owned up to her sins,” he said, projecting his voice across the hall with an almost celebratory calm. “And henceforth, Esmeray is hereby no longer an Alpha. She’ll be pardoned becaus
