37. Betrayal

A/N: Things are really picking up now! Here's a bit of a longer chapter for the action.

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Kiran dropped her off at her bedroom door. They were still both naked, having refused clothes from the Keep’s entrance guards. He pressed his lips to her hand and wished her sweet dreams. Seff didn’t sleep, but she certainly dreamed of something not-so-sweet.

Altan and Elio flanked her, keeping pace as they transversed the hallway bordering the grassy courtyard. They were on their way back from showing Seff the farm beyond the walls of the Keep where the employees bred cows, pigs, and other food sources. They left with a sack of bacon that they shared as they walked back to her room. Altan had the bag as Seff and Elio kept plunging their hands into it, laughing at his indignation.
They sensed Seff’s disquiet the second they entered her room, greetings dying at their lips. Taking her out was a perfect way to distract her from thinking about Kiran and his claim that she was his soulmate—which she did not tell the twins, nor did they press why she seemed so shaken. They made her happy and she liked to think she made them happy. Her heart felt lighter around them. The Moon males were the only ones who didn’t glare or threaten her. With them, she could see a wholesome reason to stay.
“I’m just saying, if I ever got the chance to race a deer in a straight line, I’d definitely win,” Elio said.
Altan snorted, yanking it away before his brother could take another fistful. “If you learn to stop gorging yourself on bacon.”
Elio offered a rude gesture before nudging Seff, who he offered his last piece. “Who do you think would win, Seff?”
She munched on the snack and said, “Me, of course.”
They turned around the last corner to her room. Seff’s smile faltered. “Why is my door open?”
She bolted to the threshold, the twins only a second behind. She dropped the bacon on the gold marble floor.
Altan whispered, “Holy shit.”
Seff’s room was vandalized.
Selene’s latest letter told Seff how Kiran and his lesser Alphas trashed her harem living space and how she’d felt powerless to protect Castle Night. Now Seff felt that heartbreak.
The couch pit was just a shallow pool of gutted pillows and cushions; the curtains were shredded to strips, her comforter on the floor. The dresser drawers were open or ripped out and her pairs of silks were flung aside. The vanity mirror was shattered and her jar of glitter was knocked over. But Seff couldn’t tear her eyes away from the word carved into the footboard with a vengeful claw.
BITCH.
It wasn’t the worst threatening word, but it hurt nonetheless—the arrow hit its mark. Seff sank to her knees and stared at the product of jealousy. The twins each rested a hand on her shoulders and the gesture triggered tears that welled over onto her cheeks.
“Who the fuck would do this?” Elio demanded. “Don’t worry, Seff, we’ll—”
A few Omegas were lounging in the courtyard, speaking quietly, but then new voices echoed in the corridor.
“Lord Kiran, please, I’ll be your pet tonight, I’ll let you have your way, just touch me, taste me, fuck me—”
Seff’s ears perked. She knew that voice. She knew the next one, too.
“You are not scheduled, Cyprus,” Kiran growled.
“It’s Cedar, my lord, but you can call me whatever you’d like—”
Seff wanted no more attention drawn to her, especially in this miserable state, *especially* with Kiran an earshot away. Altan must have known that, but he was so angry on her behalf that he wanted someone to pay.
“Lord Kiran!” he barked.
Seff whirled in time to see that he was near the center of the courtyard, Cedar Clematis clinging to his arm desperately. Kiran whipped his head toward them. Seff could see his expression change from where she was—and it made her heart stop.
He shook Cedar off with a shove that made her stumble back, and in a few space-eating strides he was looking over Seff’s kneeling form into her desecrated bedroom. She felt unadulterated *rage* radiating off his skin as if he truly was a light god. His eyes dropped to hers and in them, he saw her despair. And Seff swore their meeting of gazes carried a conversation.
Kiran draped an arm around her and drew her up, back pressed to his chest. He looked her up and down when she faced him. “Are you alright?” he asked softly.
“I’m fine.”
He did another once-over, intelligent enough to not believe her, before storming back into the courtyard and roaring, “Who did this?!”
Altan and Elio flanked Seff again to stand at the threshold of the open corridor and grass as Omegas peered out of doors and over the railing of the second floor. The mothers and fathers with pups already in the garden fled.
Seff met Cedar’s eyes and knew right then: it was her.
And when Kiran whirled on the Magnolia wolf, she had the audacity to flinch and whimper, “What happened? Is everything alright?”
Kiran whipped back to Seff, a question in his blazing eyes. Another impossible conversation; Kiran nodded and his raging energy became dangerously contained. He stalked toward Cedar. She showed no fear, only feigned confusion.
What happened, my lord?” she asked again in worry.
They were the center of attention, now surrounded by two dozen werewolves of the Sun harem.
“Have any of you lovely Magnolias committed vandalism before?” Kiran asked calmly.
Whispers started, glances exchanged. Seff tried to covertly scan the crowd for familiar faces, but too many were looking at her.
“It is a crime I do not tolerate in my Keep,” continued Kiran, speaking to said Keep but pinning his glare solely on Cedar. “My pack is my family. I expect that family to respect one another.”
“Whatever happened,” Cedar said, “I’m sure everyone is okay, right?”
Cedar’s eyes flicked somewhere else. She wasn’t subtle and she wasn’t looking for someone intentionally. But Seff followed the glance—to Endine Flax.
“Those backstabbing bitches,” Elio muttered, having pieced it together as well.
“Oh, everyone is fine,” Kiran confirmed, still fixed on Cedar, whose confidence began to wan. She—and Endine—hadn’t thought this through. “Until confessions have been made…” Kiran looked up. “Sienna, dear?”
The new Delta was perched on the railing, swinging her legs as if enjoying the scene. Her smile was nothing short of wicked. “Yes, my lord?”
“What do we do to *traitors* in the Sun pack?”
Cedar stiffened in terror. Endine did the same, poised to flee.
Sienna’s smile widened. “There are a few choices, Lord Kiran,” she drawled. The tension was already thick in the air; she was just setting up gunpowder and her words were the match. “My personal favorite is *castration*.”
Endine’s face blanched white. Cedar’s whimper was not so fake anymore.
Kiran was a predator locked on his prey. “And for females?”
Sienna ran her tongue over her teeth. “Banishment is the kinder route. Not satisfying her heats is pretty damning. Or, you know, castration still works—no womb, no pups.”
Cedar shook like a leaf in wind. Then she glared at Seff unabashedly. “Lord, you wish to punish me so cruelly when all I’ve done is tear up a few pillows?”
By now the news had traveled of what happened after someone glimpsed inside Seff’s room.
Kiran’s growled was deep in his throat. Cedar shrank back. “You *insulted* her honor. You disrespected a member of my pack. I select you exclusively, to join the Sun, and this is how you repay my gift of choice? Where do your loyalties lie, Cedar?”
Each word was a blow. “With—with *you*, of course, my lord.”
Kiran spread his arms. “Clearly not,” he said loudly, “if you disrespect me and my house rules so.”
“But—”
“Patience is a virtue, Magnolia she-wolf,” he interrupted. “Banishment back to your pack might teach you it.”
Cedar cried out and collapsed onto her knees. “No! No, please, Lord Kiran,” she begged, voice cracking.
Around her, the wolves were turning against her at their Alpha’s choice. How the tables had turned; now Cedar felt exactly how Seff felt—alone, prosecuted. “Please, I only want to bear your pups! I swear my loyalty!”
When Kiran wasn’t impressed, she shouted, “It wasn’t just me! It was Endine Flax too!”
Everyone whirled on the male. Seff knew he was popular, making friends with everyone easily. The crowd parted from him, not wanting to be near a traitor. He was stricken mute, his terror outweighing any anger at Cedar’s betrayal.
Kiran turned slowly to appraise him, eyebrow raising equally slow. “Endine,” he mused, hiding any emotion but faint bemusement. “You betray me after I bed you?”
Shock rocked the harem like a lightning strike. Cedar’s eyes went huge.
Altan and Elio whispered, “Oh fuck.”
*Kiran bedded a new Omega Chosen without announcing it?*
“I—” Endine looked ready to die on the spot.
“Banishment,” declared Kiran casually, signaling to Sienna, who dropped down from the second floor. “Pack up your silks, Cedar Clematis and Endine Flax. You no longer are a member of the Sun pack.”
“Hand over your silks,” Sienna ordered, arms out toward each wolf. “Now.”
No one moved.
Sienna demanded, “Silks! Now!”
Then all hell broke loose.
Endine snarled, “You bitch!” and the ripping-of-flesh sound of the Shift echoed in the courtyard.
It ignited a chain reaction—Cedar Shifted to protect herself, sienna Shifted to protect her Alpha, Seff out of reflex, and Kiran to shield Seff.
Endine launched himself at Cedar and they licked in a thrashing mass of teeth and fur. The harem split in the chaos of them rolling and snapping. Altan and Elio Shifted tops Seff back into the hallway when Kiran growled, “This is fucking stupid.”
No one expected Endine to break from his jaws locked on Cedar’s neck to leap onto Kiran’s back. “You liar!”
Kiran roared and rolled immediately, crushing Endine under his massive weight. His yelp was cut short by the crunch of his bones.
The courtyard was utterly quiet as the lingering wolves took in Endine’s prone fo wolf body.
Cedar yowled, Shifting to fall to her knees at his side. She was naked and streaked with blood, her neck bruised. She checked Endine’s pulse and after a moment collapsed on top of him to weep.
Seff Shifted back into her human form and shoved past the twins, dodging Kiran’s bark of protest. She knelt beside her Magnolia pack mates. She knew these wolves since she was born. There was a love between them all, connected if by nothing else but pride for their blood. She had to make sure Endine’s heart was still beating, she had to—
It happened so fast.
Endine rolled. Cedar Shifted.
Seff screamed when Endine clamped his teeth down on her calf and Cedar hovered her maw around Seff’s throat. Saliva and blood dripped onto her face, onto her lips, sour and hot.
Kiran roared again and Seff felt in her bones that he would do anything to protect her.
She tried to see him, but she could not see past Cedar’s bloody fur. Her body was one heartbeat; it was all she could hear pounding in her ears; she felt it—*her*—bleeding from her punctured limb.
*So this is how I die?*
“Why does this bitch mean so much to you,” Cedar demanded, “and the rest of us so little?!”
“Release her,” Kiran snarled. He wasn’t using his Alpha voice. Endine and Cedar were too far gone to obey sense.
“Tell us! Or I bite!” Cedar’s teeth pressed into Seff’s neck.
“No,” Kiran snarled.
Seff was pinned. If she moved, there was no way she could get out unscathed. She’d rather not lose a chunk of a calf muscle.
“I saw you two in the orchard! Why don’t you look at the rest of us like that? Why don’t you *love* us like you do her?!”
A pause from the rapid questions, and then Cedar rasped, “Do you think she’s your mate?”
Seff froze, and she knew Kiran did too. Her heartbeat stopped. *“Seff, I think you are mine.”*
There was a tense stalemate—until Cedar got tired of waiting and applied more pressure, and Kiran asked huskily, “What do you want in exchange for releasing her?”
That was what Cedar had been waiting for. “Fuck me, Kiran Cyrus.”
Seff did the unexpected—she growled. Deep in her throat, it was a thing of unexpected *possessiveness*.
Cedar closed her jaws further. “*Don’t*, Seff. Do we have a deal?”
Seff’s growl was no competition against Kiran’s. “Fine. Deal. Now *release her*.”
Too many seconds passed before Cedar complied, lifting her grip a moment before Endine let go of her leg. His head thumped onto the grass.
Seff saw his eyes close, broken body heaving for breath, as she scrambled to her feet, grasping at the throbbing pain in her right calf. Altan and Elio rushed to catch and support her on either side before she lost her strength to stand.
Cedar wasted no time. She was already clinging to Kiran as if she owned him, hands roving his chest and torso, purring at his exposed lower half. His arms were stiff at his sides, his face a contained storm, but he was already staring at Seff when her gaze met his.
They softened. *Are you okay?* they seemed to ask.
She nodded imperceptibly, though it was mostly a lie. Her leg was gushing blood, of course she wasn’t okay. She knitted her brows. *Are you going to do it?* she willed him to understand.
Just as subtle, Kiran shrugged one shoulder. Seff took it as a *Maybe.*
A very dangerous answer. *Don’t kill her.*
*Why not?*
Seff clenched her jaw. It was an answer that required actual words.
Outside of their new little world, Seff recognized Flora Harebell’s voice cry out, “Someone help him, he’s dying!”
Cedar got what she wanted—Kiran’s praise to fuck her; she no longer cared about her friend.
“Medic!” Sienna shouted, kneeling beside Endine, who had painfully Shifted back to his human form. Not only did he suffer from deep bite marks, but it was too easy to see that Kiran really had crushed most of his bones.
Seff’s glare at Kiran turned to anger.
He cocked his head. *What?* he seemed to ask innocently.
*You fatally injured a member of my pack!* she wanted to scream at him, but medic Betas arrived and with the help of lesser Alpha strength, lifted Endine onto a stretcher to get him to the clinic building.
Seff, the twins, Kiran and Cedar, remained still as Sienna went to work emptying the courtyard. “Get out, all of you! Go mind your own business!”
Seff couldn’t watch anything but Kiran—and Cedar fawning as if she hadn’t left Endine for dead. So this was what an Omega would do to fulfill their “duty” to the Sun Alpha. This was the repayment of the *gift* of being Chosen.
“Shall we?” Cedar purred.
*Fine*, Kiran thought at Seff with a conveying look, *I won’t kill her.*
“Yes, *dear*, we shall.” He spoke through sharpened teeth.
Cedar didn’t seem to pick up on the sarcasm. She just tittered and jumped into his arms. “Hurry, before evening comes! This is the second-to-last day of my heat cycle! I will bear you perfect offspring,” she crooned.
Kiran grunted, and with one last look toward Seff, carried Cedar toward the harem. She watched him retreat until they disappeared out of sight.
Then Seff’s legs gave out. The twins became her strength “Let’s get you to the clinic, too,” said Altan.
“Just don’t think about how you’re starting to actually like Kiran but now he’s fucking the female who tried to kill you a few minutes ago,” Elio said.