Chapter Four

The Alpha's Judgement

The air in the Alpha’s war room tasted like rusted iron and burnt coffee. Two weeks. Two weeks since the scent of Lila’s jasmine perfume had clung to Asher’s sheets, since her laughter had curled around the cracks in his resolve. Now her name sat between them like a landmine, detonating in his mother’s voice.  

“You’re being willfully blind!” Selene Voss slammed her palm on the oak table, the map of their northern territories shuddering under her grip. Moonlight sliced through the stained-glass window behind her, painting her silver-streaked braid the color of fresh blood. “This isn’t about your pride, Asher. It’s about survival.”  

Asher leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking like a warning. He’d been wearing the same black Henley since yesterday, the collar frayed where he’d tugged it during the endless council meetings. “Funny. Last time I checked, we don’t convict people based on *feelings*, Mother.”  

The warrior standing at Selene’s shoulder shifted—Jaxon, his knuckles still scabbed from the patrol skirmish three nights prior. The man slid a manila folder across the table, the edges smudged with what looked like dried mud. Or blood. “Phone records,” Jaxon said, voice gravel-dull. “Calls to a burner traced to Bloodfang territory. Every damn time you sent scouts to the border, Alpha.”  

Asher didn’t touch the folder. Couldn’t. The memory of Lila’s teeth grazing his collarbone flickered behind his eyelids—her whisper, “You trust me, don’t you?”—before he crushed it. “You think I don’t know how easy it is to fake a call log? Christ, Jax, you tracked rogues for five years. Tell me you’ve never planted evidence.”  

Selene’s laugh was a serrated thing. “Oh, by all means, defend the girl who’s been asking about our supply routes since the night you bonded. What was it she said at the ball? *‘I just want to understand your world, Asher.’*” The mimicry was flawless, cruel.  

He stood so fast the chair screeched against the stone floor. “Enough.”  

But the door burst open before he could storm out, the stench of pine sap and infection rolling in. A man stumbled through—Evan, from the eastern patrol. His left arm hung grotesquely, the shoulder dislocated, and a gash across his cheekbone wept sluggish black blood. Poison. Wolfsbane.  

“Bloodfang… ambushed the river pass,” Evan rasped, collapsing against the wall. His good hand fumbled with his cargo pocket, producing a phone with a shattered screen. “They knew… knew where we’d be. Laughed about… about their little songbird.”  

Selene was already moving, her healer’s instincts overriding Alpha poise as she pressed a wad of gauze to Evan’s wound. “Play it,” she ordered, her eyes never leaving Asher’s face.  

The recording crackled to life.  

“—coordinates are correct?” A man’s voice, thick with the guttural accent of the Bloodfang.  

“You think I’d risk this if they weren’t?” Lila. Lila, her words syrup-sweet even through the phone’s tinny speaker. “Just remember our deal. The moment Asher’s dead, the territory west of the river is mine.”  

The world tilted. Asher gripped the table’s edge, the wood splintering under his fingers. No. No, she’d wept against his chest after the bond consummation, whispered she’d never felt safe until him—  

Jaxon flipped open the folder at last, spreading out grainy surveillance photos. Lila in a hoodie at the abandoned gas station off Route 9. Lila handing a USB drive to a figure in a Bloodfang jacket. Lila, Lila, Lila.  

“You think I wanted this?” Selene’s voice had gone dangerously quiet. She cradled Evan’s head as he slumped, her gloves streaked red. “That I enjoy watching my son’s heart get carved out?”  

Asher’s throat burned. He stared at the last photo—Lila’s face half-lit by moonlight, her smile sharp enough to cut glass. How many times had she traced that same smile against his skin? “You’re my forever,” she’d sighed, her palm flat over his heartbeat.  

The lie curdled in his stomach.  

“Bring her here.” The words clawed out of him, raw. “Now.”  

Jaxon hesitated. “Alpha, if she’s working with them—”  

“You think I can’t handle my own mate?” The snarl ripped through the room, primal, the wolf surging to the surface. But even as the command left his lips, Asher’s hand drifted to the scar beneath his shirt—the one Lila had kissed just this morning, her lips warm and sure.  

Somewhere in the woods beyond the lodge, a howl rose. A warning. A dirge.  

Selene nodded to Jaxon, her mouth a grim line. The warrior slipped out, Evan’s labored breaths filling the silence.  

Asher didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The proof stared back at him, undeniable, and yet—  

Her fingernails digging into his back, breathless, “I’d burn the world for you.”

He’d believed her.  

God help him, he’d believed her.  

Lila's Cottage

Meanwhile, the first thing Lila felt was the cold. Not the crisp chill of early autumn, but the metallic bite of steel pressed to her throat. Her eyes flew open to shadows moving like smoke in her dim bedroom—warriors of the Shadowmoon Pack, their faces obscured by leather masks, their breaths sharp and purposeful. She thrashed, her threadbare sheets tangling around her legs, but a calloused hand clamped over her mouth. The sour stench of wolfsbane clung to their gloves. They’d come prepared.  

“Get up,” growled a voice she almost recognized. Caleb? The beta who’d sparred with her last week, who’d laughed when she’d pinned him in the dirt. Now his grip on her arm was brutal, fingers digging into the half-healed scar from the rogue attack. Her ribs screamed as they yanked her upright, her bare feet scraping splintered floorboards. She’d been bedridden for days, her body still trembling from the fever that had gnawed her bones. No one had told her why. No one had come at all, until now.  

“What’s happening?” she rasped, but the blade at her neck bit deeper. They didn’t speak. Didn’t meet her eyes.  

They dragged her through the pack compound like a carcass. Dawn hadn’t yet broken, the sky a sickly bruise of indigo and gray. Curtains twitched in windows. Faces watched—friends, she thought bitterly—but no one intervened. Her toes left smears of blood in the dirt.  

The fortress room reeked of power and pine resin. Asher Voss stood silhouetted against the floor-to-ceiling windows, his broad shoulders rigid, his hands clasped behind his back like a general’s. Moonlight carved hollows into his face, making him look older than his 28 years. Lila’s knees buckled as the warriors shoved her forward, but she refused to collapse. Not in front of him. Never in front of him.  

“Explain this,” she spat, rattling the silver cuffs they’d clamped on her wrists. The metal seared her skin, the pain sharpening her voice.  

Asher turned slowly. His amber eyes—once warm, familiar—were glacial. “You’re asking me for explanations?” A muscle twitches in his jaw. “Three patrols dead. The eastern border was compromised. Intel delivered straight to the Bloodfang Pack.” He stepped closer, his scent of cedar and iron overwhelming. “Your scent was all over the meeting site.”  

Lila barked a laugh. “I’ve been rotting in the infirmary for a week! Ask Dr. Marlowe. Ask anyone.”  

“Dr. Marlowe’s missing,” he said flatly.  

The air left her lungs. Missing. Her chest tightened. “You think I—? Asher, I nearly died defending this pack!” Her voice cracked. She hated it. Hated the tears scalding her eyes.  

Selene Voss materialized from the shadows like a specter, her silver-streaked hair coiled tight against her skull. “Mind your tone, girl. You’re addressing your Alpha.”  

“I’m addressing the boy who promised he’d never doubt me!” Lila shot back.  

The slap came fast. Selene’s rings split Lila’s lip. “Liar,” the older woman hissed. “You’ve always been a stain on this pack. A human-born mongrel playing a warrior.”  

Asher flinched—almost imperceptibly—but said nothing.  

Lila wiped blood on her sleeve, her laugh jagged. “Is that what this is about? My blood? My human mother?” She turned to Asher, her voice dropping. “You knew. You knew what they’d say about me when you brought me here.”  

He looked away.  

“Look at me!” she screamed. The warriors tensed. “You swore I’d earned my place! Was that a lie too?”  

“Enough!” Asher’s roar shook the rafters. His composure shattered, his fists trembling. “You want proof? We have records of everything, images!”  

“Someone framed me,” she whispered.  

Selene sneered. “Convenient.”  

The world tilted. They’d scrubbed her clean. Set the stage. Her throat burned. “You think I’d betray the only home I’ve ever had? Betray you?”  

For a heartbeat, something flickered in Asher’s gaze—doubt, maybe. Pain. Selene’s hand clamped his shoulder. “The pack needs strength now, Asher. Not sentiment.”  

He closed his eyes. “Lila Hart,” he said, the name sounding foreign on his tongue, “you are hereby banished from Shadowmoon territory. If you return, you will be executed on sight.”  

The scream that tore from Lila’s throat was feral, raw. “Asher, please! Don’t do this!” She lunged, but the warriors wrenched her back. Her nails ripped on the stone floor. “They’re lying to you! Can’t you see it?!”  

He didn’t turn. Didn’t blink. Just stared at the horizon as if she’d already vanished.  

Selene’s voice slithered after her as they hauled Lila out. “You’ll thank us for this mercy one day, half-breed.”  

The last thing Lila saw before the doors slammed was Asher’s reflection in the glass—his face ashen, his eyes red-rimmed. And the ghost of his hand rising, just slightly, as if to reach for her.  

The door clicked shut. Asher’s breath fogged the glass.  

“You did what was necessary,” Selene said, softer now. “The pack will rally.”  

He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The scent of Lila’s blood—coppery and sweet—still hung in the air. He’d know it blind.  

And Lila’s scream still clawed at his skull.  

He’d have to let her go. For now.