My Alpha Drugged Me and Called Me Crazy

The pack did not fall apart in one night. It cracked slowly, like ice under a heavy boot.

I stayed in the old healer's cottage at the edge of the territory. Connor hadn't thrown me out yet. I knew why. He needed a reason the allied packs would accept.

So I listened. Wolves talk when they think the broken ones can't hear.

On the second day, Redmoor sent a letter asking about their voided treaty. On the third day, Stoneharrow and Blackfen sent letters too. On the fourth day, two warriors I had sealed came back to the infirmary screaming. Their wounds had split open again.

The young healers I had trained knocked on my door that night. Their hands were shaking.

"Please," one of them whispered. "We tried everything you taught us."

"I taught you herbs," I said. "I didn't teach you my blood. No one can."

I went anyway. I closed the wounds with what little I had left. Then I threw up in the snow behind the infirmary, and no one held my hair.

On the fifth day, Connor ordered an audit. He needed emergency money. The Conclave was coming, and his territorial charter was up for renewal. He needed to look strong.

The Beta's mate cleaned the cottage path. She told me the rest with her eyes on the ground.

"The Alpha house," she said quietly. "The armory. The border posts. All of it came from your mother's trust."

"I know," I said.

"There's nothing left in it."

I knew that too. I just hadn't known he would let his own Beta and Gamma find out. Through the dead bond, I felt nothing. But I could picture his face. Red. Twitching. Small.

That was when the invitation came.

*

The celebration dinner was for Brielle. White roses on every table. Her sticky perfume hung over everything, trying to cover the smell of fear.

I sat at the far end, alone. The cold place on my neck ached. It always ached now.

Halfway through the meal, Brielle stood and tapped her glass. She wore a silver dress. She touched Connor's lapel like she owned it.

"Before we celebrate," she said, soft and sweet, "the pack deserves the truth. About why our Alpha had to protect us."

The lights dimmed. The wall behind her lit up.

It was me.

I was on the bathroom floor of our old quarters. My hair stuck to my wet face. I was clawing at my arms. I was gasping and gasping and couldn't get air. I remembered that night. I remembered the tea Connor brought me an hour before. Sweet and bitter at once.

On the screen I sobbed, "Something's wrong with me. Something's wrong with me."

She had filmed it. She had been in the room.

Someone near the front laughed. Then another. I looked. It was Trevor Hayes. I had held his chest shut for six hours last winter. He wouldn't meet my eyes, but he was still smiling.

Connor stood. His aura flared, burnt pine gone sour.

"You've all seen it," he said, loud and heavy. "Coraline is unstable. Unfit to carry a wolf. That's why her wolf left her. That's why she lied at the banquet." He pointed at the floor in front of him. "Kneel. Apologize to this pack. Or leave as a rogue."

The whole room turned to me.

I stood up. My chair scraped loud across the stone.

I walked. Not fast. I walked the whole length of the hall, past the healers who looked away, past Trevor, past the Gamma, who stared at his plate.

Brielle smiled when I reached her. "Down there, sweetie," she said, and nodded at the floor.

I slapped her.

The sound cracked through the hall. She stumbled sideways into the banquet table. Glasses tipped. A rose bowl shattered. Her little silver mirror skidded across the floor.

Connor opened his mouth.

I picked up his goblet. Red wine, the expensive kind. I lifted it and poured it over his coat. Slowly. Over the high collar, over the gold braids he wore for battles I had planned. The wine ran down his chest like a wound.

No one breathed.

Then I reached up and pulled my collar aside.

The rejection scar sat on my neck, gray and dead. I turned so every table could see it. I didn't hide it. I held it out like a soldier holds out a wound.

"You will remember what you lost," I said.

That was all. I didn't explain. He would understand soon enough.

I turned and walked away. At the stairs I went down instead of out. The basement kennels smelled of damp concrete and old food. In the last cage, a small golden shape lifted his head.

Barnaby. Connor bought him for the photos. When Brielle moved in, he was sent down here and forgotten. I had been sneaking him dinner for months.

He whined and pressed his nose to the bars. His red collar hung too big on his neck.

"Come on, baby," I whispered. "We're going."

I picked him up. He was warm and heavy, and he licked my chin.

I carried him up the stairs and through the front doors. The night air was sharp and cold. Behind me, I heard Connor shouting my name. Then shouting orders.

The doors closed.

I didn't look back.

Deep inside me, in the quiet place where Lyra slept, something shifted. Just once. Like a heartbeat under ice.