Chapter 4 The framing

“I was beginning to think that you had fainted in the kitchen… Again,” Verena said, looking around to make sure everyone was watching. “We can’t have the sister of the Luna being lazy, can we? Even though she is well… unbounded”,

“I've been serving the Warriors on the other wing, Verena.” Astraea said her eyes on the floor.

“Luna Verena,” Jaxon corrected his voice, sounding low and dangerous. “Address your queen with the respect she has earned, Astraea, or have you forgotten your place entirely?”

Astraea looked up and for a second she looked at Jaxon's eyes, searching for a little bit of the man who had once promised to protect her from the world. There was nothing, just a hard man who had traded his soul for a stronger bloodline.

“My apologies, Luna Verena,”Astraea whispered.

“That's better,” Verena smiled, with a wicked glint in his eyes. She held out an empty chalice. “Now, be a darling and fill this up, the honey mead is a bit heavy, and I need a steady hand.”

Astraea climbed onto the raised platform where they were seated. The eyes of every wolf in the room were on her. She felt the weight of their gaze.

She leaned forward, lifting the heavy pitcher. Just as the honey mead began to pour into Verena's cup, Verena's foot shot out. It was a small stolen movement, hidden under her gown.

Astraea's foot caught on Verena's heel, and with her body already weak from the illness and the severing of the bond, she didn't have any stamina left in her, she fell.

The silver pitcher flew from her hands, landing on the stone floor with a loud sound. The honey mead poured all over the floor, soaking Astraea's white thin tunic and splashing across Verena's gold gown.

Astraea fell hard on her knees, the impact sending pain through her body. The hall went silent for a moment, then the laughter began. It started with Verena, a high, mocking laugh.

“Oh goodness, Astraea. Look at what you have done.”

“You clumsy bitch.” Jaxon growled, standing up so fast from his seat, that the chair fell. “You have ruined the Luna's gown. Is there anything you can do right?. You can't shift properly. And now, you can't even pour a simple drink.”

Astraea rushed to pick up the fallen pitcher, her hands slipping in the spilled mead. “I'm sorry. It was an accident. I slipped…”

“You didn't just slip, you failed,” Verena interrupted, her face going into a look of distress.

She looked at the neighboring alphas. “You see, this is what Jaxon would have had to live with. My poor sister. She is just so fragile. She can't even hold her own weight. It is a mercy that Jaxon rejected her. She would have fallen over her own shadow on the coronation day.”

“She's a disgrace to the South”, a voice shouted from the back of the hall.

“Look at her crawling in the mead like a dog,” another person laughed.

Jaxon came down from the platform his heavy boots going through the spilled mead. He looked at Astraea, his eyes filled with pure hatred.

“Get out of my sight. Go to your shack, scrub yourself. You smell like failure, and it is ruining the feast.”

“But Jaxon…” Astraea’s started her voice shaking.

“Go”, he roared, the force of his alpha command hitting her like a physical blow. Astraea's wolf or what was left of its forced her body to move.

She rushed to her feet, her eyes on the ground as she ran out of the hall. The sound of everyone laughing at her as she ran. As she reached the heavy doors to move out of the great hall, she heard Verena's voice one last time.

“Don't be too hard on her, Jaxon. She is just an omega They were born to be under our feet, were they not?”

Astraea bust through the door and ran into the night. She ran onto a long road, the sound of laughter was still hot in her ears. She collapsed against the stone wall of the outer barracks, her breath coming in wet sobs.

She looked down at her hands, covered with sticky meat and dirts. She felt truly worthless, like the parasite they said that she was.

The walk back to the outskirts of the village felt like a slow march towards her grave. Astraea stumbled through the mud, the sticky mead on her skin attracting the biting insects of the southern night. The laughter from the great hall still echoing in her head.

Her shack was made up of rotting cedar and mud, hidden in the shadows of the cliff where the shining of the sun never reached. It was a place meant for her to die quietly.

She opened the door and fell onto her thin straw pallet, her body finally giving out. “Why,” she cried into her hands in the darkness, her voice breaking.

“I gave him everything. I gave this pack everything, everything I ever had, even when I had nothing left to give. I can't do this anymore” she whispered.

“I have nothing left, please, please, moon goddess just let me sleep and not wake up.”

She didn't hear the soft tipped toe of footsteps, the shadows that slipped through the back of the rotting wood wall a she lay down with her face buried in her arms, crying for the life that has been stolen from her. Neither did she see, the gloved hand that pushed a heavy, velvet wrapped object into the straw of her bedding.

The roar of the Alpha’s horn shattered the peace of the early morning. It was a sound that demanded everyone's immediate attention. No one stayed in bed.

Astraea was woken up by the iron grip of an enforcer dragging her from her bed. “Out, everyone to the square. "Now,” the enforcer shouted, throwing her towards the door.