"Take it back!"
The Head Shaman’s voice cracked from an hour of desperate weeping. He was flat on his stomach, his forehead slammed against the freezing stone altar, begging the ceiling.
"We beseech you, Great Mother! Revoke the mistake! Purge the lie from our pack!"
Lena could feel her ears bleeding. A thin, warm trickle of crimson was winding its way down her neck, staining the collar of her shirt.
They had dragged her to the inner sanctum the moment the sun dipped below the tree line. Now, she was forced to kneel at the exact center of the ritual floor, a circle of six shamans pacing around her like starving crows.
Throwing salt at her body. And every single time she shifted her weight on the cold stone, the nearest shaman would tilt his head back and unleash a deafening, sonic howl directly into her eardrums.
"Oh, Great Mother of the Night, hear our cries!" the Head Shaman wailed. "Look upon this anomaly! Look upon this wolfless orphan who dares to bear your sacred brand! We plead with you... revoke the mistake!"
"Revoke it!" the other shamans chanted in unison. "Purge the lie from our pack!"
Keeping her chin down, Lena slowly tilted her head just enough to scan the room through the gaps in her hair.
She counted the steps between the shamans. The high altar was flanked by two massive silver braziers, throwing long shadows across the stone.
Luna Satire and Victoria were standing there, together with the twenty-one Pack Elders, watching the torture with cold, expectant eyes.
However, Luna Satire couldn’t take it anymore. This process was taking too long, and she refused to confirm her worst nightmare–the hidden truth she had known for seventeen years!
She had spent a lifetime controlling Victoria’s destiny to ensure it didn’t happen again. Now, history was mocking her.
That orphan girl and her mother always reaped where they didn’t sow.
Breaking protocol, the Luna kowtowed before the altar. "Please, Moon Goddess... My daughter Victoria has been chosen to represent this pack since she was five years old. Do not let our noble bloodline be insulted by a common, parentless orphan."
Lena’s hand tightened against her thigh.
It was cruel how Luna Satire never missed an opportunity to remind her she wasn’t their child.
Even when they were young, the Luna would unprovokedly warn any child who tried to be Lena’s friend, telling them Lena had killed her own parents and that they should play with Victoria instead.
Hearing the Luna beg the goddess to strip her of the mark made Lena’s stomach twist.
To think that the ruler of their entire species had neglected pure Alpha bloodlines to pick a wolfless stray was absurd.
If the Moon Goddess looked down right now, heard the Luna’s weeping, and realized she’d dropped her sacred spark into the wrong vessel, she would take it back.
And the moment that silver brand vanished from Lena’s palm, the twenty-one Elders wouldn’t hesitate to tear her apart right here on the ritual floor to erase the embarrassment.
Lena pressed her palms together. She didn’t believe her own pleas would work, but she had no choice.
’Don’t look,’ Lena begged the ceiling silently. ’Please, don’t look down. Don’t fix it. Just leave me with it.’
Immediately, the torches lining the stone walls blew out all at once.
Absolute darkness claimed the sanctuary.
Everyone froze. The shamans’ chanting choked off into a collective, terrified gasp.
"Mother?" Victoria whimpered in the dark, her tough-girl act completely vanishing. "What’s happening?"
"Calm down, my dear. The shamans will handle it," Luna Satire replied, her voice trembling slightly as she patted her daughter’s hand. She called into the darkness, "Is everything okay?"
There was no answer. Instead, the lights around the altar flickered back to life, one by one, casting a pale glow over the stone.
The shamans remained on their knees, speaking frantically in an ancient, forgotten tongue.
Beside them lay Lena’s unconscious body on the cold stone floor.
One shaman cautiously approached her body. Fearing the worst, he reached down and pulled her right hand up.
Then, his brow furrowed. He flipped her left hand over.
The shaman froze. He stumbled back, his eyes wide with an emotion that looked dangerously like awe.
"The Moon Goddess has spoken!"