June 11 2026, 8:18am.
Shocked gasps rippled through the crowd followed by angry shouts as people pointed accusatory fingers at Nyx’ara. But none of that could compare to all the noise echoing through her head nor the tightness twisting at her chest. Tears burned at the corners of her eyes because this betrayal felt too much... too raw; but she refused to let them fall.
Refused to break in front of these despicable people.
That is until Berlin added; "I cannot think of any reason why she would kill the princess besides the fact that she was jealous and had hoped to pin the death on Ms Elara!"
Nyx’ara’s heart stopped when she heard that.
Her pulse slowed too.
Tears pooled in her eyes and dripped down her face. She inched closer to Berlin, so close that her fingers nearly brushed against the flowing hem of her dirty cream colored dress.
"Why?" She asked softly, her eyes watering, but Berlin wouldn’t respond. "Why are you lying against me?"
She wouldn’t even dare look at her.
’She has been threatened.’ Her tired wolf chirped in sorrowfully, mourning the loss of a friend after losing her mate as well. ’She had to have been.’
Believing that, Nyx’ara lifted her head and— and that was when she saw it!
The violent trembling in Berlin’s hands, the dried blood coating her nail beds and the cut, the poorly cleaned cut situated at the back of her ear. She may have been too distracted earlier to also see the swollen purplish bruise at the corner of Berlin’s mouth, but now, she saw it clearly.
And it made her mad and sad, and made her feel ashamed too because she thought to herself that all of these were her fault.
All Berlin has ever done is love her. All she ever did was show kindness to her... and this is what she gets in return?
Nyx’ara’s heart skidded to a halt when she saw Berlin’s bloody big toe, and finally realizing that she may not have only been ’threatened’, but may have been ’hurt’ too, she lowered her head and sighed.
"Berlin..." she cried,
"She has been talking about hurting Ms Elara and has never learned her lesson from three years ago."
For some reason, listening to her did not make Nyx’ara mad. If anything, she was only filled with agony and despair knowing that her friend must have gone through torture— enough torture to make her lie like this.
The thought made her blood boil with rage and with every bit of strength she had left, she struggled to her feet, clawing with everything she had, and glared right at Flynn.
She hissed; "I-I already told y-you I w-will take the fall. W-why did you s-still have to drag B-Berlin into it?"
At the sound of her voice, Berlin finally turned to look at Nyx’ara with widened sorrowful eyes, and just as Nyx’ara had expected, there were tears in them. Fear too and guilt. She flashed her a small smile— one which she didn’t return— and then mouthed the words: "Don’t worry," before turning back to Flynn.
Her face flushed.
His eyebrows twitched.
"T-take me," she rasped hoarsely with both of her hands shoved in front of him. "C-chain me up a-and t-take me to S-Stormborn pack."
For a moment, Flynn seemed like he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. Something akin to horror flashed across his face before it slowly disappeared, replaced with his usual mask of indifference.
Under his breath, he murmured something along the lines of: "I cannot help but think that you love her more than you ever loved me."
But Nyx’ara ignored it. She ignored him.
Goddess, she couldn’t even afford to pay attention to him with all the hopeless screams echoing in her head.
She couldn’t think straight, not when Elara stood to the side with a perfect grin on her face, and with one of her arms looped around Flynn’s while the other was looped around Tristan’s arm.
Messy.
"Your wish is my command," Flynn finally said, jolting her out of her reverie, and with a sinister smile, added; "...you will be taken away."
The words— icy and humorless— sent tremors up Nyx’ara’s spine. And it wasn’t until he said these words that she noticed the presence of two strangely large men standing behind him that she hadn’t noticed before.
They were both dressed in all-black, expensive-looking suits with black acoustic tubes curled behind their ears. Their eyes were hidden behind large sunglasses and on their holsters were guns— guns that she was sure were packed full of enough silver bullets to take out all of them standing here if the need ever arose.
Merely looking at them sent chills running through her body. Fear like none other clawed through her veins and she gulped.
As if noticing the obvious horror on her face, Flynn took a step forward, leaned so close that his breath warmed her cheeks, and snickered;
"Goodbye Nyx’ara."
She frowned.
"I hope you are always safe!" Elara added, but Nyx’ara didn’t miss the tinge of mockery lacing her tone or the way her eyes dragged over her body as if inspecting a drenched roadside animal.
She opened my mouth to respond to Elara but before the words could safely move past her lips, a stinging sensation crept up the corner of her neck.
She felt the needle sink into her flesh before she saw it and the next thing she knew, her limbs were swaying. Her vision blurred at the edges and her heart slowly came to a stuttering stop.
Panic was the last thing she felt before she crashed one more time to the floor but strangely, she never felt herself land. She never felt the forceful painful impact of her body hitting the stone floors as she had anticipated.
She only felt... peace.
A very short-lived one that only lasted for a few seconds until the words; "Now, she is a property of Stormborn pack," filtered into her ears.
—And honestly, that made her body go cold because right there and then, she instantly knew that she was up for a bumpy ride.
One that involved her proving her innocence to Alphas who were more beasts than they were men.