Chapter 3: Kill Her
Something in Rhea’s voice made the room go still. Even Kaleb stiffened slightly.
The pack members looked toward him silently, waiting, wondering whether their Alpha would allow such a threat to stand.
Rhea didn’t wait for his answer. She turned toward the exit, her trembling legs barely steady beneath her as she forced herself to walk away.
"You do not get to walk away from your Alpha." Kaleb’s voice cracked through the hall like thunder.
Rhea stopped. Slowly, she turned back toward him, her brows drawing together.
Then Kaleb moved. He crossed the distance between them in seconds, fury radiating off him in suffocating waves. "How dare you threaten your Alpha?" he snarled directly into her face.
His wolf pushed violently to the surface, a deep growl rumbling through his chest as his eyes flashed gold. The pressure of his Alpha aura slammed against the room hard enough to make weaker wolves lower their heads instinctively.
"Treason has consequences," he barked. "And you of all people know that."
For a split second, Rhea’s own wolf answered him. A weak growl tore from her throat as her eyes flashed gold in return before the strength vanished again almost immediately.
Still, she refused to back down. "You won’t dare," she said through clenched teeth, meeting his gaze head-on.
Suddenly, a voice sliced through the air.
"Kill her!" someone shouted from the crowd.
Rhea’s head snapped toward the voice, but the sea of faces blurred together beneath the ceremonial lights. Her heartbeat slammed against her ribs hard enough to make her dizzy.
Then another voice rose from somewhere to her left. "You threatened the Alpha. You deserve to die!"
This time, Rhea found the speaker. A man stared directly at her without hesitation, cold and unfeeling. Recognition hit her immediately. She knew him. She had once saved him from exile after he betrayed the pack during a border dispute. She had fought for him when no one else would, and now he wanted her dead.
Rhea’s eyes swept across the front row of the crowd, desperately searching for an ally. She locked eyes with Beta Thomas, a man who had sworn an oath to protect her lineage. He looked away, crossing his arms. Beside him stood Delta Sarah, whose life Rhea had saved during the winter famine by giving up her own rations.
Sarah didn’t look away. Instead, her lip curled into a sneer as she joined the chant. "Kill her!"
The words from people she considered family hit harder than physical blows. One by one, more voices joined in.
"Kill her!"
"Kill her!"
The chant spread through the hall like wildfire.
Rhea felt her stomach drop as the sound closed in around her from every direction.
For five years, she had served this pack as Luna. She had helped build Ironfang beside Kaleb piece by piece, sacrificing sleep, blood, and pride to make their territory strong.
She had bled for these people, nearly died for them, and still, they wanted her dead.
Each chant felt like another blade sinking into her chest.
"Don’t do this, Kaleb," Rhea whispered desperately, turning toward him. Her voice trembled now despite every effort to steady it. "Don’t listen to them." Her eyes searched his face frantically. "You won’t do it, will you?"
For a moment, Kaleb simply stared at her. Then something dark settled fully into his expression. "You’re about to find out." The words landed like a death sentence.
Rhea searched his face desperately for hesitation, for guilt, for the man who once swore he would die before letting anyone hurt her. But she found nothing.
Instead, he reached down and pulled the knife from the sheath strapped to his ankle. The blade flashed silver beneath the ceremonial firelight. Kaleb lunged forward, but Rhea’s instincts, forged in a dozen bloody territory wars, took over before her mind could process the danger.
Her hand shot out, wrapping around his wrist with more force than she thought she could muster. Kaleb grunted in surprise, his golden eyes flashing in shock. For a fleeting second, the alpha looked vulnerable in front of his discarded Luna.
But it was short-lived. Her damaged lungs seized up, a violent cough racking her frame and breaking her focus. Kaleb seized the moment of weakness, snarling as he recovered his footing and slammed his forearm against her throat, pinning her down.
Rhea did not let go of his hand. "After everything I built for you?" Her voice broke. "This is how you repay me?"
Her fingers tightened desperately around his arm, as though she could still pull the man she loved back to the surface, but Kaleb’s jaw only hardened further.
"An Alpha who tolerates threats loses control of his pack," he growled. "You should have stayed quiet." His strength overwhelmed hers easily.
Rhea’s trembling hand slipped as Kaleb forced the blade forward. The blade pierced through her flesh, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe.
"Kaleb." The gasp tore weakly from her lips as her eyes widened in shock.
"This is your fault." His voice sounded terrifyingly calm. Then he twisted the knife deeper, and agony ripped through her.
Her knees hit the ground first. Then she realized she was bleeding. Blood spilled from her lips, warm and metallic against her tongue. She stared at him in disbelief. Even now, she still couldn’t understand how the man she loved could look at her like this.
The hall had gone deathly silent around them now.
"I loved all of you." Her voice cracked violently. "And you stood there and watched."
Still no one moved toward her. Not one person.
Uncertainty flickered in Kaleb’s eyes then. Just for a second. Then it vanished and he shoved the knife deeper anyway. Rhea gasped sharply, pain tearing through her again.
"I won’t forget this," she whispered weakly. A cough wracked through her, spraying blood down the front of her dress. "Any of it. I promi—"
The words died unfinished as darkness crashed over her completely. Far away, voices still echoed faintly around her.
"Throw her body into the forest."
"She doesn’t deserve a Luna’s burial."
The words sounded distant now, muffled and warped, as though spoken from beneath deep water. Death wrapped around her slowly, pulling her under inch by inch.
Darkness swallowed her slowly.
The chants faded first. Then the pain. Then Kaleb’s face. But somehow, that hurt the most.
The last thing Rhea remembered was reaching for him, and him letting her fall.
