Caleb's POV
My jaw ached from the effort of keeping that fake, easy smile on my face.
Every time I heard Serafina's high-pitched laugh, I wanted to reach out and snap the air around her into silence. Below us, in the mud, Helen looked up at me. Her face was a mask of pure, shattered betrayal. I saw the way her lips trembled, and I saw the way the black filth of the courtyard puddle ruined her hair. It took every bit of my training, every ounce of Alpha blood in my veins, to keep laughing at the joke I hadn't even heard.
I am going to kill Kevin for that shove, Cassian's voice vibrated in the back of my skull, raw and bleeding with a shared agony. I am going to tear him apart.
Not today, I replied, my mental voice sounding dead to my own ears. Father is watching our eyes. If we stop laughing now, he will know she is the reason. Walk away, Cassian. Just walk away.
We followed our father, Alpha Marcus, back inside the pack house. The air grew colder as we left the sun-drenched courtyard and entered the stone corridors of the high wing.
My father walked with a heavy, rhythmic stride. He was a man made of iron and old secrets, and today, his scent was heavy with the smell of old paper and ozone. He didn't speak until we reached the double mahogany doors of his private office.
He stepped inside and signaled for us to follow. The room was grand, filled with shelves of ancient books and high-tech monitors that glowed with the data from the laboratory.
My father sat behind his massive desk, his shadow stretching long across the floor. He didn't ask us to sit. He simply stared at us for a long moment, his eyes searching our faces for any sign of weakness.
"The pack is at a crossroads," he began, his voice like the grinding of stones. "The laboratory is demanding higher yields of energy for the satellite moon. The frequencies are becoming unstable. We must tighten our ranks. We cannot afford to carry those who do not contribute to the strength of the Silver-Moon."
I felt a cold chill settle in my gut. I knew this tone. This was the voice he used when he was about to do something terrible in the name of the "Greater Good."
"The Council has finalized the Omega Purity Act," he continued, sliding a thick stack of papers across the desk. "It is a new law that will ensure our resources only go to those who have shifted, those who are warriors, and those who can breed the next generation of Alphas." He stopped staring at us all at once.
"The ones who are stagnant, the ones who remain human well into adulthood, are a drain on our society. They are a glitch in the system."
"What are you saying, Father?" Cassian asked, his voice tight. He was standing slightly behind me, and I could feel the heat radiating off him. He was losing his grip on his calm.
"I am saying that we would be cleaning our house," Father responded.
He pulled a single sheet of paper from the top of the pile. It was an official decree, stamped with the seal of the laboratory and the blood-red wax of the pack elders.
"To show the Council that you are ready to lead, you must both sign this. It is a list of disposable members. They will be moved to the extraction facility tonight to be used as fuel for the moon's stabilization."
My hands felt numb. I stepped forward and looked down at the paper. It was a list of names. Names of people I had grown up with. People who were too old to hunt, or too weak to fight, or children who hadn't shifted by the age of sixteen.
I scanned the list, my heart stopping in my chest as my eyes reached the very top. There, written in bold, clear letters, was the name: Helen of the Laundry.
The name felt like a physical weight on my chest. I could hear Cassian's breath hitching behind me.
Through our link, I felt a wave of such intense, blinding rage from my brother that I feared he might shift right there in the office. He wanted to kill our father. He wanted to burn the world down to keep her safe.
"Caleb, don't," Cassian whispered in our minds, his voice breaking. "We can't sign that. We can't let them take her."
I looked at my father. He was holding out a silver pen, his eyes fixed on mine. He wasn't just asking for a signature. He was testing us. He knew we were hiding something. He had seen the way we looked at the courtyard, even if we thought we were being subtle. This was a trap. If we refused to sign, he would know she was our mate. He would know she was our weakness. And if he knew that, he wouldn't just send her to the facility. He would use her as a lever to break us both.
"Is there a problem, Caleb?" Father asked, his voice dangerously smooth. "You seem hesitant. Do you find it difficult to put the pack before your own feelings?"
My eyes bulged. Feelings? Is he refering to the one I and cassian have towards Helen, or our feelings generally to all those on the list?
"No, Father," I said, my voice sounding like it belonged to a stranger.
I thought about the 'Switching.'I thought about the secret meetings in the greenhouse. I thought about the chocolate I had given her, and the way I had looked at her with ice in my eyes only hours later. We were already living a lie. We were already monsters in her eyes.
If I didn't sign this, the guards would be at her door in five minutes. If I did sign it, I would have the authority of the law on my side. I would be the one in charge of the extraction.
But if I signed it, I would be the one who could manipulate the data, change the transport routes, and find a way to hide her in the deeper tunnels where the sensors couldn't reach.
To save her, I had to become the villain in her story. I had to be the one who condemned her on paper so I could be the one who rescued her in the dark.
I looked at Helen's name again. I thought about the mud on her face and the way she must hate me right now. She would see this signature. She would see that her own mates, the men who claimed to love her, were the ones who sent her to her death.
My heart felt like it was being crushed by a giant's hand. I looked at Cassian, and in his eyes, I saw the same terrible realization. We were trapped. There was no better choice, only the choice that kept her heart beating for one more day.
I reached out, my fingers trembling slightly as I took the silver pen from my father's hand. The metal felt freezing, like a piece of the satellite moon itself. I looked at the line next to her name, the space where my signature would seal her fate.
"Good," my father whispered, a cold, satisfied smile touching his lips. "Show them that you are Alphas. Show them that you have no mercy for the weak."
I looked at the ink, black as the mud she was sitting in. I felt Cassian's soul screaming in the back of my mind, a sound of pure grief. But I focused on the letters of her name, memorizing every curve, every line.
I leaned over the desk, the weight of the pack and the weight of my love crushing me down.
Caleb sees Helen's name at the very top of the execution list and picks up the pen.