Among everyone present, the person who was the most taken aback was Avelina Woodcrest.
She stood like a statue, her innocent mask momentarily slipping to reveal the gears grinding behind her eyes.
Out of everyone in the Nightbane pack, Avelina was the one who believed she knew Lyanna Blackwood the best. She had spent months, carefully dissecting Lyanna's character, finding every hairline fracture in her soul and driving a wedge into it.
Avelina had spent so much time scheming against the Luna that she had come to view Lyanna as nothing more than a predictable, pathetic weakling.
In Avelina's eyes, Lyanna was a girl who had tasted only defeat. She was someone so fundamentally broken that even the lowest house servants felt empowered to bully her.
As the Luna, she was theoretically the highest-ranking female in the pack, yet she couldn't even find the strength to rebuke a maid for a cold meal or a sarcastic comment.
That was the version of Lyanna that Avelina was comfortable with—a door mat dressed in fine linen.
The fact that this same girl was now standing tall and daring to talk back to Cedric was something Avelina found deeply weird and suspicious.
Cedric was the person Lyanna had always feared the most. To be honest, if Cedric had ever agreed to dissolve his marriage and marry Avelina instead, Avelina wouldn't have felt the need to go to such extremes.
She knew Lyanna didn't love him. In fact, Lyanna had often described the Alpha as too domineering, too brutal, and too frightening to ever truly love. She had wanted nothing to do with him because she lived in terror of his shadow.
But Cedric was a man of his word. Even though he didn't like Lyanna and found her timidity a burden, he was the type of person who viewed a promise as a sacred bond.
There was no way he would ever let her go unless she left on her own or was carried out in a casket.
Avelina had tried the first option, torturing Lyanna through subtle psychological warfare and isolation, hoping the girl would simply run away.
But Lyanna was even too much of a coward to flee her own marriage. That was why Avelina had finally decided that death was the only solution.
Avelina watched Lyanna now, frowning as she tried to calculate what could have possibly changed.
She searched for a reason, but the only thing she could come up with was a temporary surge of adrenaline.
She figured that because Lyanna had looked death in the face and survived, she had gained a fleeting, desperate courage that would surely run out the moment the reality of her situation set back in.
I understand now, Avelina thought, her heart finally beginning to slow its frantic pace.
She is frustrated. She knows I'm the one who tried to kill her, but she also knows she has no proof and no power to stop me. This outburst is just the final scream of a dying animal. She'll go back to being a timid little mouse soon enough.
Placating her frightened heart with these thoughts, Avelina calmed down completely.
She looked over at Cedric with a sadistic, hidden smile, waiting for him to snap and put Lyanna back in her place for such blatant disrespect. To her shock, Cedric remained speechless.
Cedric was having an internal crisis of his own. He had never known Lyanna was capable of raising her voice, let alone shouting at him with such clarity.
For a long time, he had found her constant shivering and downcast eyes to be her most annoying traits.
He had grown up imagining a Luna who would be his equal—someone who could stand up to him, someone who could lead the pack in his absence, and someone who would rule by his side without flinching at his every move.
Instead, he had been saddled with a girl he considered an idiot. He had never understood why she feared him so much when he had never laid a finger on her in anger.
But today, as she stood there defiantly, he couldn't find a single trace of hidden fear in her eyes. She wasn't pretending.
For the first time, she was looking at him as a person, not a monster. Combined with the sudden, overwhelming pull of the mate bond, Cedric felt an alien urge to praise her.
He almost wanted to smile and tell her that this version of her was exactly what the pack needed.
He pressed that urge down with iron discipline, going silent rather than arguing.
Avelina, seeing this, felt a cold wave of panic. She saw the way Cedric was staring at Lyanna—not with the usual irritation, but with a look that suggested he was seeing her for the very first time.
He can't look at her like that, Avelina thought, her nails digging into her palms.
Only I deserve that look. How dare she have even a small share of his curiosity?
She knew she had to act fast to restore the status quo. She needed to remind Cedric why Lyanna was a disappointment and a liability.
Stepping forward, she let her voice take on a soft, honey-coated tone—a sound so sweet it felt grating to Lyanna's ears.
"Lyanna, you really shouldn't speak to Cedric that way," Avelina said, her voice dripping with artificial concern.
"As his wife, you ought to understand his anger. How could you just leave the ancestral hall and the protection of the pack to go to the mountains alone? Do you even realize the position you hold?"
"You are the Luna. If an enemy pack had been lurking out there, they could have captured you and used you as a bargaining chip to strip the Nightbane pack of its resources. Please, for the sake of the pack, you must start acting like a leader."
The effect was instantaneous. The small spark of positive feeling Cedric had felt for Lyanna's courage vanished, replaced by a cold surge of irritation.
As he listened to Avelina's words, he realized she was right. His expression hardened, and he looked back at Lyanna with a gaze full of distrust and disdain.
Avelina heaved a sigh of relief, her smile becoming brighter and more "innocent."
She swayed her scantily clad body closer to Cedric, moving with a practiced grace until she was almost touching him. She placed a delicate, lingering hand on his shoulder, looking up at him with wide, adoring eyes.
"You shouldn't be too hard on her, Cedric," Avelina cooed, her hand smoothing the fabric of his tunic.
"She's your Luna, after all. Don't worry, I will help you guide her and point her in the right direction. Now that she's had this brush with death, I'm sure she's learned her lesson. She will be much more obedient now and stay within the safety of the pack where she belongs."
She turned toward Lyanna, her eyes flashing with a hidden triumph. "Am I right, Lyanna? You'll be a good Luna from now on, won't you?"
Lyanna stood perfectly still, watching the performance as if it were a low-budget movie playing out in front of her.
She didn't interrupt, and she didn't flinch.
She simply watched Avelina's hand on her husband's shoulder and the way the woman leaned into him. When Avelina finally finished her speech, Lyanna let out a short, sharp snicker of pure disdain.
Then, she began to clap. The sound was rhythmic and mocking in the quiet room.
She started to laugh, a deep, genuine sound that made Cedric and Avelina share a confused glance, wondering if she had truly lost her mind.
Finally, Lyanna stopped laughing and fixed Avelina with a look of chilling mockery. "And who, exactly, are you?"
Avelina frowned, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Lyanna, what is wrong with you? It's me, Avelina."
Lyanna's face suddenly became serious.
Her eyes went cold, and a domineering aura seemed to radiate from her, pinning Avelina where she stood. "From this moment forward, you will address me as Luna. I don't know what kind of inappropriate relationship the two of you have that allows you to call the Alpha of this pack by his given name, but I will not entertain that kind of nonsense from a subject."
Avelina's mouth dropped open in shock.
She couldn't comprehend where this version of Lyanna had come from. Cedric, however, was focused on a different part of the statement. The accusation of adultery stung his pride. He glared at Lyanna, his voice low and dangerous.
"What kind of garbage are you spewing?" Cedric demanded.
"There is absolutely nothing between Avelina and me. She is the pack healer and a loyal subject, nothing more. You are my wife. I know you don't like me, but don't go around spreading lies. I, Alpha Cedric Nightbane, would never cheat on my Luna. Not ever."
Lyanna didn't seem cared about his anger. In fact, she looked almost bored by it. Beside him, Avelina's face darkened.
She had known Cedric felt this way, which was why she had been so desperate to remove Lyanna from the equation entirely.
Hearing him swear his loyalty to a woman she hated made Avelina's blood boil with frustration.
Lyanna took a slow, measured step toward Cedric, closing the distance until she was looking him directly in the face.
"Wow," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"You say you wouldn't cheat on me, but look at the reality of this room. Have you ever walked through your own pack and listened to what they say about us? They say I'm so useless I can't even keep my husband's attention. They say you are always with the 'little healer.' They say it would be better if she were the Luna instead of me."
She gestured sharply toward Avelina's hand, which was still resting on Cedric's shoulder.
"She has certainly been acting the part," Lyanna continued, her voice rising with a cold authority.
"Even as I stand here talking to you, she has her hands all over your body, trying to mark her territory right in front of your wife. And you dare to stand there and tell me you aren't cheating? If you haven't given her cause, then tell me, Alpha: what on earth gives a common healer the courage to act like this in front of the Luna?"