<h1 ss="test-[24px] w-title" data-v-85816c8f="">Chapter 3</h1>


    Freya’s POV


    When I returned to the Silverfang estate, I heard her voice before I even stepped into the den.


    “Now that Aurora is back—and she’s a pilot, no less—you should divorce Freya and mate her instead,” Caelum’s mother, Eleanor, said with confidence that dripped like poison.


    “Aurora and I are just friends,” Caelum replied, his voice low.


    “Friends? Please,” another voice scoffed.


    That would be Giselle, his younger sister. “Everyone knows you were in love with Aurora first. She’s the first female pilot of the Airborne Wing! Freya doesn’t even have a title. She has nothing. She’s just… no match for you.”


    Their words slithered through the air like venom.


    Three years. I had stood by Caelum through every sleepless night, every brutal mission, every negotiation with rogue factions and foreign Alphas. I had patched his wounds, run pack operations in his absence, even when my own heart felt like it was bleeding out.


    And now? Now I was “no match”?


    Just then, Giselle caught sight of me standing in the entryway.


    “Oh, look who’s here. Were you eavesdropping, Omega?”


    I stepped forward, spine straight.


    “I wasn’t hiding. I wasn’t sneaking. I walked through the front door.”


    “Well, then good,” she snapped. “Because you should hear it. You should leave now. Don’t stand in the way of Caelum and Aurora.”


    “Enough, Giselle,” Caelum growled.


    But she didn’t stop.


    “She only got to mate you because Aurora was away training. She swooped in when your heart was broken, and now she’s just clinging like a parasite.”


    “Giselle, that’s enough,” Caelum said again, sharper now.


    She pouted but fell silent.


    Eleanor stepped in to soothe her daughter, but her re was still fixed on me.


    Caelum walked over, and his gaze flicked down to the ck wooden box I held in my arms—smooth, engraved, and draped in the crimson banner of the Lycan Legion.


    “What is that?” he asked.


    “My parents’ ashes,” I said tly. “I brought them home.”


    Guilt shed across his face. “I’m sorry. I should’ve been there, but Aurora—she copsed this morning. Hyperventtion or something.”


    Before he could finish, Eleanor shrieked, “Ashes? Did you bring ashes into this house?!”


    I blinked. “Yes. They’re my parents. They served the Lycan Nation with honor. They were heroes.”


    Eleanor stared at me as though I’d tracked filth onto her pristine white rug.


    “I don’t care who they were. Ashes are cursed. You cannot bring that… thing… into this home!”


    My grip on the urn tightened.


    “This is my home, too,” I said coldly. “Caelum and I bought it together after the coronation ceremony.”


    “With Caelum’s money!” Giselle snapped. “Just put it somewhere else! Don’t bring your cursed family into this house!”


    “Giselle!” Caelum barked.


    But she wasn’t finished. “You want her bringing bones into Mom’s house after her eye surgery?! The doctor said she can’t get upset! Are you trying to kill her?!”


    Caelum hesitated.


    Then he said it.


    “Just… put them somewhere else for now, Freya. Please.”


    The world tilted.


    He couldn’t look at me when he said it.


    “You think they’re cursed too?” I whispered.


    He didn’t answer.


    “Three years of standing by your side. Three years of putting your pack before my dreams. When your mother needed surgery, who found the specialist? Who used every contact I had in the Capitol to make sure her eyesight was saved? Who carried your bleeding body back from that rogue ambush in ck Hollow?”


    No one answered. Their silence said enough.


    “And now I ask for one thing. A ce for my parents to rest. And it’s too much?”


    Giselle sneered. “You didn’t do anything special. Caelum’s the one with influence. That doctor saw Mom because he respects him. Not you.”


    I turned back to Caelum.


    “I want to keep them here. Just for a few days. Just until we build the shrine they deserve.”


    He didn’t move.


    “Don’t be unreasonable,” he said quietly.


    “And if I insist?”


    Before he could respond, Eleanor lunged forward.


    “Not while I’m alive!” she shrieked, raising her hand.


    The p came hard and fast.


    Pain bloomed across my cheek as I stumbled back, still cradling the urn.


    Before I could regain my bnce, she shoved forward, striking the box with both hands.


    It slipped.


    No.


    Time slowed as the urn tumbled from my arms.


    My wolf surged beneath my skin the moment Eleanor bared her fangs—metaphorically, for now.


    My pupils narrowed into slits. Instinct roared through my blood like a battle drum. In one swift movement, I wrapped my arms around the obsidian ashwood urn, holding it close like a mother shielding her pup.


    “This is my parents’ remains!” My voice trembled with barely restrained fury, edged with a snarl. “They died protecting the Lycannds—you dare insult them?”


    Eleanor’s voice cracked like a whip through the stone hall of the packhouse. “This is my son’s den! You bring death into it and expect what—gratitude? Get that cursed thing out before I break it myself! Let your mongrel parents see what kind of filthy Omega daughter they raised!”


    My wolf’s hackles rose, fur bristling beneath my skin. I fought the shift wing at me. Not now. Not here.


    “You may be Caelum’s mother, but you are not Luna of this house!” I snapped, voice sharp like shattered ss. “And you will not spit on the honor of warriors who gave their lives to keep you safe behind these damn walls.”


    Caelum’s scent reached me before his words did—cedar and frost, as cold and unyielding as the look on his face.


    “Freya… just take it out. Please.” His jaw was tight. “My mother’s condition is fragile. If anything happens because of this—if she shifts or falls sick again—I won’t forgive you.”


    Something inside me cracked. Loud. Final.