Lyra’s POV
Lyra’s eyes lifted slowly, her fingers curling against the rough wood.
Across the courtyard, near one of the wagons, stood a woman.
She was speaking quietly to a guard, her posture straight, her hands calm at her sides.
She knew that face.
Her heart stumbled painfully.
That woman had spoken to her on her first day here.
Had explained, in a gentle voice, why she was in Blackthorn.
Why she had been brought as a tribute.
If she remembered clearly, and she was certain she did, that woman had been rejected as a bride.
Lyra’s mind pulled the memory up without mercy.
The first day.
Rejected brides were taken away.
That was what she had been told.
Taken away meant dead.
It was what everyone believed.
What everyone whispered.
What she herself had accepted without question.
Unwanted girls did not get second chances.
They disappeared.
So why was she standing there now, alive, breathing, moving crates with quiet purpose like she had always belonged here?
The thought struck her so sharply that she did not catch the words before they left her mouth.
“She is alive?” she blurted.
Marley followed her gaze without asking who she meant.
His eyes found the woman easily, and he nodded once, as if the answer were obvious.
“Obviously,” he said.
“Why?”
Her throat tightened.
“She…” Her voice faltered, the rest of the sentence slipping away from her.
“I thought she was gone.
Taken.
Or…” She could not finish the thought, could not say the word she had carried in her chest since that day.
Marley turned to her fully then, his brow creasing.
“Gone where?” he asked.
The question was simple, almost innocent, and that somehow made it harder.
She shook her head slowly, more to herself than to him.
“Never mind,” she murmured.
But her mind would not let it go.
She watched as the woman laughed softly at something the guard said.
Alive.
Safe.
Here.
The truth settled over her slowly, painfully, like a fog lifting.
She had been wrong.
About all of it.
She thought of the stories whispered about Alpha Ronan.
About the brides he took each year.
About the noble daughters who never returned.
Feared.
Condemned.
Painted as a monster.
Her hands trembled slightly as she continued working, her thoughts racing ahead of her.
She noticed more now.
Other women she recognized as tributes too, moving among the supplies, working, talking quietly, their clothes simple but clean, their faces relaxed.
None of them looked afraid.
None looked trapped.
A memory surfaced, sharp and unwanted.
Guardian Eamon’s voice, low and bitter.
Words spoken once, long ago, when she had been younger and too curious for her own good.
The truth is rarely what the powerful want you to believe.
Her chest tightened.
Lyra hesitated before speaking, her eyes still fixed on the women across the yard.
They moved quietly, heads lowered, hands busy with work.
None of them looked afraid.
None looked trapped.
“Marley,” she said carefully, “those women… they are the tributes, aren’t they?”
He did not answer right away.
He watched her the way one might watch ice begin to crack, deciding whether to step closer or back away.
“Tributes offered to Alpha Ronan,” she continued.
“From other packs.”
Marley finally nodded.
“Yes,” he said.
Her fingers curled into her palm.
“I thought they were killed,” she whispered.
“So did everyone else,” he replied.
She turned sharply toward him.
“But they are alive,” she said.
“They are,” he said again, calm as stone.
Lyra searched his face.
“Why?” she asked.
Marley exhaled slowly, as if deciding how much truth she could carry.
“Because Ronan does not kill them,” he said.
“That is not what the stories say,” she whispered.
Marley gave a short, humorless sound.
“Stories are useful things.
They keep people obedient,” he said.
She looked back at the women, at the way one of them laughed softly when another dropped a basket, at how easily they moved through the space like they belonged there.
“They are not noble daughters,” Lyra said suddenly.
The words came to her before she fully understood them.
Marley’s eyes sharpened.
“No,” he said.
Her breath caught.
“They never were.”
“No,” he repeated.
“They were slaves.
Unwanted girls.
Children born of affairs.
Burdens their families wanted erased.”
Lyra felt something cold slide down her spine.
“They dressed them in silk,” Marley went on.
“Taught them manners.
Gave them names that sounded important.
Then sent them here and told the world they had sacrificed something precious.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
“And Alpha Ronan knew,” Marley said quietly.
She turned to him again.
Ronan had known that she was not a noble daughter, so of course he would know about the others too.
Yet he did not do anything.
“He always knew.” Lyra’s chest tightened.
“Then why accept them at all?” she asked.
Marley met her gaze fully now.
“Because refusing them would have sent the girls back,” he said.
Back to punishment.
To cages.
To worse.
Lyra thought.
“So he took them,” Lyra murmured.
“Yes.”
“And instead of killing them…”
“He gave them work,” Marley said.
“Shelter.
Protection.
Choice.”
“Choice?” she echoed.
“They can leave,” he said.
“No chains.
No guards.
They are free to go whenever they wish.”
Lyra swallowed hard.
“Do any of them leave?” she asked.
Marley shook his head once.
“Not one.”
Her throat burned as the truth finally took shape in her mind, sharp and undeniable.
Blackthorn was not the threat.
It was the refuge.
The lie had never been about Alpha Ronan’s cruelty.
It had been about the noble packs hiding their sins.
Sending their shame away and calling it sacrifice.
Letting the world believe a monster lived here so they could sleep at night.
And he had let them.
He had carried the weight of that lie willingly.
Not to protect himself.
But to protect the girls they threw away.
Lyra pressed her hand to her chest, steadying her breath.
Just like her.
She could leave if she wanted.
Nothing truly held her here.
But the thought of returning to Crescent made her stomach twist.
The cold halls.
The eyes that never saw her.
The place where she had never been safe.
She looked again at the women, at the quiet strength in their movements, at the calm in their faces.
She understood now why none of them ever went back.
Alpha Ronan was not a butcher.
He was something far more dangerous to the world that hated him.
He was a man who remembered every wrong done to him and chose a punishment that did not spill blood, but exposed truth.
And that truth burned deeper than any blade.
Marley’s voice pulled her back.
“Are you alright?” he asked gently.
She nodded, though her eyes stung.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“I am just… learning.”
He smiled faintly, as if he understood more than she had said.
She took one last look at the woman by the wagon, then turned back to the work before her, her heart heavy, but clearer than it had ever been.