This Is the Price of Defying Your Alpha (Chloe's POV)

The fever hit me that night.

The soul-backlash from forcibly severing the Mate bond, combined with the shattering of both kneecaps, had finally brought me down completely.

The north wing was guarded by the Silver Guard and held like a fortress, but it had never been built for extended occupation — only as a backup defensive position. All my medical supplies and emergency herbs had been left behind in the Luna suite at the main building when we evacuated.

The fever soaked me in cold sweat. My knees had swollen to a grotesque purple-black, and every breath felt like my lungs were packed with broken glass.

When the morning light came through the bulletproof windows, I heard the commotion outside.

Selena was screaming.

Apparently, the newly appointed Co-Luna had thrown open the Blood Moon Pack's treasury with great anticipation — and found nothing but dust and empty crates so clean they could have been polished.

Caleb must have assumed I'd used my Silver Pack authority to freeze the funds and clear out the vault as leverage against him. The arrogant Alpha couldn't bring himself to believe that the territory he was so proud of had long since become a hollow shell — one that had only kept running because I'd been quietly subsidizing it out of my own pocket.

To force me to my knees. To make me surrender actual control of the treasury. Caleb gave Selena his silent blessing to exercise her Co-Luna privileges and begin her retaliation.

They cut off all food, water, and medical supplies to the north wing.

"My Luna, your fever is too severe — if this continues, you'll lose the use of your legs permanently!"

My loyal maid Tara knelt at the bedside, pressing a cold wet cloth to my forehead, tears streaming down her face.

I lay propped against the pillows, shaking, too weak to speak. I locked my jaw and refused to let a single sound of pain escape.

"I'm… I'm fine. Don't go begging them…" I used the last of my strength to grip Tara's hand, my voice reduced to a ragged whisper.

Tara nodded, her eyes red.

But when the fever dragged me back to consciousness again, Tara was gone.

A cold dread seized my chest instantly.

"Tara?!"

I tried to push myself upright. The agony in both knees slammed me back down onto the mattress.

And then — from the courtyard outside the window — a scream tore through the air.

Tara's voice.

I don't know where I found the strength. I dragged myself off the bed on legs that left twin streaks of blood across the floor, hauled myself hand over hand to the windowsill, and held on.

Through the thick bulletproof glass of the north wing, I saw something that made my vision go white.

In the main courtyard of the Blood Moon Pack estate.

Two heavily built Enforcers had Tara pinned face-down against the rough gravel. Her hands were still clenched tight around a small bundle — fever herbs she'd stolen from the main building's medical room.

Selena stood over her in that ostentatious red dress, gripping a thick vine whip studded with barbs.

"A lowly maid," Selena said, her voice a cold sneer, "daring to defy the Co-Luna's orders and sneak out to steal medicine?"

The contempt on her face was almost gleeful.

"Strip her jacket off. I'm going to teach her today exactly who runs this territory."

The fabric tore with a sharp rip. The guard wrenched Tara's coat away, leaving her thin back exposed to the freezing air.

"No — this medicine is for the Luna — you can't—" Tara struggled frantically, and a guard's boot came down hard between her shoulder blades, driving her into the dirt.

"Still talking back? Hit her."

Selena's arm swung up and the whip came down.

Crack.

"Ah—!"

The barbed vine bit across Tara's bare back. Skin split open. Blood flew.

Crack. Crack.

The blows kept coming. Tara's cries rang through the entire courtyard.

And the people standing around — pack members who had eaten food from my table, who had received kindness from Tara's own hands — stood and watched in silence. Not one of them stepped forward. Some were leaning together, exchanging quiet, cold smiles.

"Stop — STOP!"

I hammered my fists against the glass, a raw, desperate scream tearing out of my throat.

The bulletproof panels didn't carry a sound.

I turned my head. My gaze found him — standing at the top of the stone steps.

Caleb.

He stood in his Alpha coat, arms folded across his chest, watching everything in the courtyard below with the detached composure of a king surveying his domain.

He could see Tara being beaten bloody. He could hear every scream. He didn't move. He didn't speak. He simply stood there and allowed Selena to use this — to use her — as the instrument of my humiliation.

As if he felt my stare, Caleb slowly raised his head.

Across thirty meters of open courtyard, his gaze found mine through the glass — found me, soaked in blood, clinging to the windowsill.

He didn't stop Selena. Instead, he let the full weight of his Alpha voice carry the words directly to my ears:

"Chloe. This is the price of defying your Alpha."

His eyes were flat and cold. The faint curve at the corner of his mouth was pure, unhurried contempt.

"Hand over the real access to the treasury. Apologize to Selena. Otherwise, the next one to die under that whip will be you."

The words hit me like a physical blow.

The price of defying your Alpha.

Apologize.

In the courtyard, Tara had gone still. She lay collapsed in the mud, drenched in her own blood, her back a ruin of torn flesh — and she was still holding that bundle of herbs against her chest.

Selena's arm had tired. She dropped the bloodied whip with a look of disdain and waved her hand. "Throw this garbage back in the north wing. Tell that wolfless waste that with no money and no medicine, she can rot in there and die."

Two guards grabbed Tara by the ankles and dragged her across the ground, leaving a long, vivid trail of blood across the stone.

The north wing door swung open. Tara was thrown inside.

Clang. The iron door locked behind her.

I don't know how I got down the stairs.

When awareness returned to me, I was already on my knees on the cold floor behind that iron door.

"Tara — Tara!"

My hands were trembling as I pulled her into my arms — this girl who was barely breathing.

Blood soaked into my fingers immediately. All the color had drained from Tara's face. She forced her swollen eyes open with tremendous effort, and her fingers — caked in dirt and blood — slowly uncurled. She pushed the bundle of fever herbs toward me. The cloth was saturated red.

"Luna… the medicine… please take it…"

She was coughing blood between each word, and still she tried to smile — a smile that looked more like grief than joy. "Tara's useless… only managed to get a little…"

"Don't speak — I don't need the medicine. Stop talking."

The tears I had held back broke through all at once, falling in heavy drops onto Tara's blood-covered face.

I held her cold body against me and shook — uncontrollably, violently, unable to stop.

Six years.

Six years of giving everything I had. Six years of holding nothing back. The territory I had poured myself into protecting. The Alpha I had spent half my life trying to save.

And in the end he had stood there, arms folded, and let his mistress beat the most loyal person in my life until her back was a shredded, bleeding wreck.

I closed my eyes.

Whatever remained inside me — the last fragment of mercy I had carried for the Blood Moon Pack, the last trace of feeling I had once held for Caleb — was ground to nothing in the blood soaking Tara's skin.

In my pocket, the dark-gold insignia badge, still marked with my own dried blood, surged with heat. The aura it carried — the aura of something at the very top of the hierarchy — roared through my veins like a current begging for release.

So. They believed that a wolfless woman with no combat ability was something they could bend and break at will.

Fine.

Caleb. Selena.

You want the money? You want dominion over this territory?

From this day forward, I will make every inch of the Blood Moon Pack's land into the ground where you are buried.