Mooncrest Prison


    Finished


    The stink of damp stone and old blood clung to the air, thick enough to coat the back of the throat. Pale shafts of winter light nted through the barred windows high above, but they brought no warmth to the corridor.


    Kael Vale moved through it slowly, each step weighted by the heavy iron shackles that bound his wrists and ankles. The chain dragged between his feet, its links clinking against the stone floor–clink, clink, clink–a hollow, mocking rhythm that echoed down the hall like the beating of a funeral drum.


    Once, he had carried the bearing of the Ebonw Pack’s heir–straight–backed, chin lifted, the wolf in his blood radiatingmand. Now his head was shaven, the proud line of his shoulders bowed under invisible weight. The thin gray of the prison uniform hung from him like an insult, stripping him of name and rank.


    He had expected this day to bring familiar faces. His parents, perhaps–Lord and Lady Vale, stone–faced with disappointment. Or Scarlett, still stubborn enough to meet him despite the ruin between them.


    He had not expected her.


    Tessa of the ckmaw Pack sat behind the reinforced ss, posture perfect, her expression carved from a cier. She did not fidget. She did not blink more than she needed to. Her presence cut through the stale air like the edge of a de.


    The sight of her jolted his heart against his ribs. He tried to hide it by looking away, but it was toote. The shame was already written in the tense lines of his body.


    The day she woke from hera, he had known.


    Not in his mind–his mind had fought it, denied it, grasped for excuses–but somewhere deeper, in the primal ce where a wolf cannot lie to itself, he had known Riley was not the one who hurt her.


    But to acknowledge that meant facing the truth: he had sworn under oath that his own sister had tried to kill Tessa.


    He had handed Riley over to chains, to a life without freedom, to the pain that had maimed her body. To admit he’d been wrong was to stare directly at the ruin he’d made of her life.


    The weight of that was something he had not been ready to bear.


    Still, when Tessa’s cold, unblinking gaze found him, he found himself moving forward, drawn into her orbit like prey toward the predator’s den.


    The guards guided him into the visiting station. The ss wall divided them, thick and unyielding, framed by the metal casing that anchored it into the stone. A battered ck telephone receiver waited on each side.


    Kaei sat heavily on the stool. The chain at his ankles scraped the floor. He lifted the phone with a hand that felt stiff and clumsy. Tessa mirrored him without looking away.


    For several heartbeats, they simply sat there–his breathing shallow, hers measured and slow, like a wolf scenting the wind before the strike.


    She broke the silence first.


    “What’s wrong?” Her voice was low, edged in steel. “Cat got your tongue?”


    Kael’s gaze fell, his shoulders curling inward, as if the very air around her had weight.


    The look stirred no pity in her–only a colder kind of satisfaction. In her eyes, he was no Alpha, no heir. He was a coward hiding from the truth.


    You don’t have anything to ask me?” she pressed, each word deliberate, sharpened to pierce.


    He swallowed. His mouth worked, but his voice was thin when it finally emerged. “I already… have a sense of the truth.”


    Her lips curved, but the expression carried no warmth–only contempt. “A sense?” She gave a short, humorlessugh. “Don’t <b>make </b>meugh, Kael. You don’t know a damn thing”


    <b>3:34 </b>PM P.


    Finished


    Something in her tone made the hairs on his arms rise. There was more beneath her words–something waiting to be unsheathed.


    And then she began.


    In clipped, measured sentences, she told him everything.


    How Dean Elira ckthorn had woven her lies like a spider spinning silk, deceiving Alpha ric until he believed Riley was a threat. How, on those lies, Alpha ric had abandoned Riley to the Rogue settlement, cutting her from the Pack as though she’d never been blood.


    She spoke of the long years that followed, of how Riley had been called back after fifteen winters—not out of love or duty, but because she could be used.


    Every foul detail. Every piece of the rot festering beneath Ebonw’s proud name.


    Her voice was steady throughout, but her eyes never left him, pinning him like a wolf holding its prey down with a paw until thest breath.


    By the time she finished, Kael’s hands were clenched so tightly around the receiver that the chain between his manacles rattled.


    The sound seemed to snap something inside him.


    He mmed his fist against the ss with a snarl, the impact sending a dull thud through the reinforced barrier. His voice tore out of him in a raw roar that shook the receiver in his grip.


    “Lies! You’re lying! You’re trying to trick me!”


    The outburst bounced off the stone walls, echoing down the empty row of visitation booths.


    Tessa didn’t ever flinch.


    She leaned back slightly in her chair, her expression settling into something almost bored–as if his denial had been the most predictable part of the entire conversation.


    On her side of the ss, the wolf in her eyes said: You can rage all you want. The truth won’t change.


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