Across the aisle, I saw Alpha Deveraux from Hollow Pine Pack leaning forward, whispering furiously to his Beta. Others weren’t Keven pretending to hide their outrage.
The prosecution rose next–a tall, broad–shouldered woman in a dark green suit, her expression carved from stone. She spoke without hesitation, her voice booming into every shadowed corner of the council hall.
“The people will demonstrate,” she said, “that Maggie Thorn orchestrated attacks that cost lives, endangered pups, and nearly destroyed the fragile peace among the packs. We recognize her past” she glanced briefly toward Maggie, “-her rogue status, her claims of reform, her alliances. But these actions cannot go unanswered. Justice must be served.”
A low rumble of agreement stirred the gallery again.
I pressed my palms against my thighs, trying to anchor myself.
Then it was the défense’s turn.
Her name was Tessa Harrow, and she commanded the room without raising her voice. She was slight, almost unassuming, but when she stood, it was like a storm gathering on the horizon–quiet at first, but impossible to ignore.
Her iron–gray hair was pulled into a severe knot at the base of her neck, and when she spoke, her voice curled like smoke through the tense air.
“Yes, my client was raised rogue from a young age,” she said, each word deliberate, like the hammer of a gavel. “Yes, she led others who had been cast out, abandoned, and forgotten. But what the prosecution will conveniently ignore is the systemic failure that drove those wolves to desperation in the first place.”
She looked out over the gallery without pity. “The rigid pack structures. The unbending hierarchies. The sins of fathers visited upon sons and daughters who never asked for the blood they were born into.”
A few pack leaders stiffened visibly at that.
Tessa smiled thinly, sensing her advantage.
“The attacks on the Moonstone Pack were abhorrent. No one–least of all my client–denies that.” Her gaze swept the room, daring anyone to argue. “But it was not without context. It did not arise in a vacuum. And before you mete out irreversible judgment, before you make an example of a single wolf for the sins of an entire broken system–consider not just what Maggie did, but why she did it.”
The silence afterward was deafening.
Even the ever–present scribbling of the council stenographers seemed to pause for a moment, as if the room itself needed time to process the words.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair, feeling the eyes of the entire gallery pressing down like a physical weight.
Because that was the problem, wasn’t it?
It wasn’t just about Maggie.
If she walked free, every pack leader with a taste for blood would scream about weakness.`
There would be outrage
Fear.
Calls for blood.
Old alliances would fray at the edges. Trust–already a fragile, battered thing–could shatter completely.
But if she was sentenced to death?
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Chapter 234
+25 BONUS
My throat closed painfully.
Elena would never forgive us.
Maybe never forgive me.
I knew where she stood–on the edge of compassion, right at the line between justice and mercy. And wherever she went next, I would follow. But I wasn’t sure I could protect her from the fallout
The clerk called the first witness.
“Elena Hart.”
My heart stuttered.
She rose from the side doors and walked to the stand.
Elena moved like a leader now. Calm. Measured. Dignified. But I knew her well enough to see the fire burning just beneath her stillness.
She placed her hand on the oath stone.
“I swear to speak the truth, by the Moon and by my bond.”
Jacob leaned forward slightly. Intrigued.
And I sat frozen in place, knowing the next words out of her mouth might change everything–for Maggie.
And for us.
Elena sat straight–backed in the witness chair, hands folded neatly in her lap. From a distance, she looked composed,
impenetrable. But I knew her too well. I could see the slight tremble in her fingers, the way she tightened her grip against the wood of the chair to steady herself.
Everything–everything–was about to change.
Chapter 235
Chapter 235
