Then Let Them Burn (Chloe's POV)

"Burn her! Burn this bloodsucking wolfless witch!"

"Avenge our brothers! Make her pay for every soul we lost at the front!"

The curses rose with the flames, turning the night sky bright as noon. Several hundred Blood Moon Pack members had lost all reason—their eyes glowing that sickly predatory green—and they had sealed every exit of the fortress, leaving no way out.

BOOM.

A massive stone, hurled with the full force of a half-shifted Beta, screamed through the air and slammed into the outer window of the second-floor balcony.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Then came the rest—a relentless barrage of rocks, burning bottles, and sharpened wooden stakes. Even the Silver Guard's custom reinforced bulletproof glass had its limits. Under the sustained, savage assault of dozens of raging werewolves, those limits were finally reached.

With a shriek of fracturing material, the entire massive pane exploded inward.

CRASH—!

A torrent of razor-sharp glass shards tore through the room like a hailstorm, carrying with them the bone-cutting wind of early winter, swirling snow, and a thick choke of black smoke.

"Luna! Watch out!"

Tara, already covered in wounds, screamed and threw herself forward despite the tearing agony across her back, trying to shield me with her body.

She was shaking violently, staring down at the mob below—their torches raised, their faces twisted into something barely human—and she sobbed with raw desperation: "They've lost their minds—they've completely lost their minds! Some of those people down there picked up winter coats from your charity drive last month, Luna. The perimeter is breaking. Please, let's use the escape tunnel while we still can!"

"Retreat?"

I gently moved Tara aside and stepped through the carpet of broken glass, brushing a dusting of snow and ash from my shoulder without urgency.

"Why would I retreat?"

I dragged an armchair to the shattered window and sat down directly in front of the gaping hole—cold wind and thick smoke pouring freely over me—and looked down.

The mob below had descended completely into madness. They were hauling armloads of heavy timber soaked in cheap fuel oil, piling it in frantic heaps against the steel doors of the north wing. Acrid black smoke rolled up the walls in dense waves, nearly swallowing my view entirely.

"Chloe! You vicious wolfless freak!"

One of the bereaved family members had half-shifted, thick wolf claws extended, jabbing a finger up at me on the second-floor window ledge as he screamed: "Blood Moon Pack sheltered you for six years! And what did you do? You cut off our water and food, and then you bribed someone on the black market to swap out the Wolfsbane antidote our fighters needed to survive! You worthless creature with no wolf soul—how can you be so goddamn cruel?!"

"Burn her! Let the Silver Pack scrape up a pile of charcoal!"

How pathetically funny.

Blood Moon Pack sheltered me for six years, they say.

Every drop of clean water they ever drank. Every premium cut of cold-stored meat they ate through the winter. Every high-grade healing potion they ever claimed. Even the torches and fuel oil they're holding right now to burn me alive—where did any of it come from? Every last coin of it was purchased with Silver Pack gold. My gold.

Four years ago, when a rogue wolf surge swept through the territory, who had pawned her own mother's keepsakes to hire the finest mercenary company on the continent—just to keep these old, weak, and wounded people alive inside their own borders?

Me.

And now Selena—that reckless fool—had gone behind everyone's backs, bought the cheapest counterfeit medicine she could find on the black market, and gotten ten elite warriors killed. All she had to do was stand on the front steps and cry, spin some absurd lie, and these wolves I had kept fed and alive for six years didn't hesitate for a single second. They piled every accusation onto my head and screamed for my ashes.

I leaned back in the armchair and watched the contorted faces below with cold, unhurried eyes.

"Luna, why won't you tell them the truth?" Tara was nearly hitting the floor in desperation. "If you just show them the purchase records—prove that Selena went to the black market on her own—they'll understand they've been deceived!"

"It won't matter, Tara."

My gaze drifted to the main steps of the central building.

Caleb was standing there, holding the trembling Selena against his chest. This Alpha—who had never once been questioned in his own territory—had chosen, when faced with a mob attacking his former mate, to simply watch. He hadn't even bothered to call for an investigation. He was letting Selena's lie stand. He was using this crowd, this frenzy, as a tool to finally scrub me out of his life—the humiliating stain he'd never been able to erase on his own.

"Werewolves live by the law of the jungle," I said quietly. "They only believe what they want to believe."

I turned back to the window. "They want to burn me? Then let them burn."

"Light it! Burn the witch to the ground!"

A thunderous roar erupted below. Several powerfully built werewolves raised their blazing torches and swung them toward the fuel-soaked timber pile.

Then—at the very last moment—

RRRRRUMBLE——!!

A deafening mechanical roar—so heavy it seemed to crack the ground itself—came grinding in from the direction of the territory entrance.

An instant later, more than a dozen blinding high-beam headlights swept in a hard, flat line directly across the crowd of torch-wielding rioters in the center of the square.

"Who the hell—?!" The mob threw up their hands against the glare, stumbling back in sudden fear.

Ten armored vehicles, black from roof to axle, rolled into the square in a tight formation and boxed the mob in from every side.

The doors opened.

Dozens of figures stepped out—long black coats, and pinned to each chest, a single gleaming badge: a gold coin, dripping blood.

The moment that badge registered, the entire square went dead silent. Even Caleb, standing up on the steps, went white as a sheet.

They were the most feared and notorious enforcers in the entire Pack — the top collection hounds of the underground loan sharks, men known for their absolute brutality and their complete lack of mercy.

The leader of the enforcers was a scarred man who stood close to two meters tall. He exhaled a slow drag from his cigar, embers glowing between his fingers, and pointed directly at Selena—still nestled against Caleb's chest at the top of the steps.

"Co-Luna." His voice was almost lazy. "Hiding behind a man won't make this debt disappear."

"The balance owed on that black-market batch of counterfeit antidote, plus the high-interest loan you took out to keep up appearances—with the compounding interest accrued over the past several days, the total comes to five million gold coins."

The scarred man's voice wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. It carried cleanly to every single person in the square—landing like a hard slap across the faces of everyone who, only moments ago, had been calling Selena a hero.

"If you can't produce the funds tonight, we proceed according to the terms of the Blood Pact."

He ran his tongue slowly across his lips. "We flay you in front of everyone here. And we collect the debt in bone and blood—yours and your cubs'."