Chapter 3

The word "fake" hung in the air like a cold verdict, echoing across the deathly silent plaza.

After two endless seconds, a feral roar shattered the stillness.

"Stella—!" Orlando's howl was raw with agony.

He whipped around, his beast eyes blazing crimson as they locked onto me— that look, as if I weren't the mate he'd waited sixteen years for, but a mortal enemy encroaching on his land.

"Megan! Have you lost your goddamn mind?!" Orlando's mask ripped away completely. Alpha dominance exploded outward, crushing the air in the plaza like a vise.

"Stella is your own flesh and blood, our heir, our pride! And you come back now, on the night of her ceremony, and beat her half to death over some worthless rogue blood slave?!"

The Alphas attending snapped out of their stupor. Whispers of disbelief rippled through the crowd.

"Did the Abyss take her mind, or what?"

"Moon Mother above, what the hell is that thing she's holding..."

"She nearly killed her own cub..."

I ignored the murmurs. I didn't even spare Orlando a glance. My gaze cut straight through the crowd and landed on that glaring pool of filthy blood.

Under my focus, the Star-Moon Tear lying in the gore let out a dying wail.

Click.

The cheap darkmoon gold chain binding it shattered into pieces.

The sacred stellar artifact erupted in ghostly blue light, shedding every trace of blood, tearing across the night sky—and flying home into my palm.

"No—! My artifact! Mother, how could you take my things!" From the rubble, fake Stella clawed at her caved-in face and shrieked.

"Your things?" I let my gaze fall to the warm gem rounding my palm.

"This token, forged from source blood and the Source of Starlight, recognizes only a true stellar bloodline. Right now, it's weeping to me..."

Cruel blue light flickered at my fingertips.

"...because it's been defiled by a carrion-smelling rogue for sixteen years."

Orlando snapped. His pupils shrank to vertical slits, claws extended from his fingertips, and a dangerous growl rumbled from deep in his chest.

"Enough! Megan! This was an accident! Give the crown and that artifact back to Stella now and apologize—or so help me, I'll stop calling you my mate."

"Mate." I rolled the word around my tongue. It tasted like bile.

The man I'd sworn to protect with my life was baring his fangs at me—for a parasite that stole my daughter's life.

"Orlando," I said, meeting his glare, "you've been Alpha of this territory so long, you've forgotten what an apex predator actually looks like."

I raised no shield. I simply stepped forward, my daughter cradled against me.

Orlando lunged with a feral snarl, claws screaming through the air, aimed straight at my throat.

Then—

His claws slammed into an invisible wall of starforce. No struggle, no crash. Just the sickening crunch of breaking bone.

His fingertips and metacarpals burst into red mist.

Before the pain could register, I flicked my wrist downward, shielding my daughter's ears and heart in a gentle cocoon of stellar force.

Pure gravity slammed down on Orlando like a mountain.

His knees buckled. The crushing force drove him through the white marble, carving two deep craters, his kneecaps shattering with a sharp crack.

"AAAHHH—!" He howled, teeth gritted, desperately pouring every ounce of his healing into standing again—but the weight pressed his spine flat.

"Did I say you could stand?" I stared down at him.

A flick of my fingers. Three spears of condensed starlight fell from above, nailing both shoulders and his spine to the crater floor like a cheap specimen. Blood soaked his expensive suit within seconds.

The entire plaza went dead silent. Under that absolute pressure, every wolf tucked its tail between its legs. Even breathing felt dangerous.

"Megan... you wouldn't dare..." Orlando coughed up blood, eyes wild. "I lead Darkmoon... the Werewolf Council will—"

"Shut up." I clenched my fist. Invisible starforce squeezed his throat, cutting off his barking mid-sentence.

I turned, boots crunching over rubble, and walked toward the trembling Stella.

"You said this child is some filthy blood slave that ruined your ceremony?"

Stella stared at me, face running with tears and snot, her pitiful act crumbling. But she still clung to the lie.

"She was jealous of me!"

I cut her off, raising my hand as molten golden flames ignited in my palm.

"Let's test it, then."

"This is Starfire. It burns only lies, never pure blood. If you're truly the child I carried for ten months, it'll feel like a mother's embrace."

I flicked my finger. The flame touched her dress.

"No! Get away from me!!" She smelled death. She scrambled backward on all fours like an animal.

Too late. Golden fire consumed her.

"AHHHHHH—!"

Her scream tore through the night.

In the raging starfire, the Glamour masking her melted like wax. Pale skin peeled away in strips, revealing coarse, matted, patchy fur beneath.

Then came the smell—worse than the sight.

The pristine stellar scent vanished, replaced by the nauseating reek of rotting meat and sewer sludge flooding the plaza, the unmistakable stench of a dying Rogue.

In the flames, her face twisted and warped into a grotesque half-human, half-wolf monster.

Nearly a hundred wolves gagged and covered their noses.

"Moon Mother above..." An elder's eyes bulged. "That stench... she's a Rogue!"

"No stellar blood at all! The heir we've been kneeling to is a fraud?!"

I stared coldly at the monster writhing in the flames, my voice carrying through psychic force, landing on every member of Darkmoon Pack like a slap:

"The child in my arms carries the true blood of this pack."

"What you've been kneeling to is a gutter rat wearing a stolen life."