Sienna's POV
They bring me back to the throne room before dawn.
I have not slept. I have spent the night in my chambers staring at the ceiling, listening to the guards shift outside my door, knowing that everything I have ever known is about to end. The council chambers are already full when they push me inside. Everyone is here. Every Alpha, every diplomat, every person who has ever smiled at me while calculating my worth.
They are here to watch me fall.
My father sits on his throne like he has been waiting there since yesterday. He has not slept either. I can see it in the way his jaw is set, the way his hands grip the armrests. He looks older than he did before. Colder.
"The council has convened," he announces, his voice carrying through the chamber like a weapon. "We have voted. The decision is unanimous."
My stomach drops.
"Sienna Moonvale, you have brought shame upon this house. You have rejected a sacred bond. You have embarrassed the crown in front of witnesses from every pack in the realm." He stands and I feel the power roll off him again, that suffocating weight that makes breathing harder. "By the authority granted to me as King and as your father, I declare you rogue."
The word hits me like a punch.
Rogue. Not daughter. Not princess. Rogue.
I can feel it before I can feel anything else. The magic starts in my chest, burning like someone lit a fire inside my ribs. It spreads outward, hot and sharp, burning through every vein in my body.
The royal marks on my skin begin to glow. I look down at my wrists where the silver Moonvale symbol has been marked since I was born. It is burning. Actually burning.
"No," I whisper but my voice is too small for this room.
The marks start to fade. The silver glow dims. The symbol that marked me as royalty, as belonging to something bigger than myself, starts to disappear like it never existed. It feels like they are erasing me.
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out. I will not give them that satisfaction. I will not let them see me break.
"You are stripped of your title," my father continues. He is not looking at me anymore. He is looking through me like I have already become a ghost. "You are stripped of your rank. You are stripped of your place in this kingdom. As of this moment, you are no longer family. You are no longer royal. You are no longer one of us."
Each word lands like a blade.
The other council members watch me with expressions I cannot read. Some look sad. Some look angry. Most just look like they are witnessing something inevitable, something that was always going to happen because I was too stupid to understand my place.
Helena tries to stand. I see her push against the guards holding her back. Her face is red, her eyes bright with tears. She is mouthing something at me but I cannot hear her over the roaring in my ears.
My stepmother Sable sits perfectly still, watching me with ice in her eyes. There is a smile threatening the corners of her mouth. She has wanted this since the day my father married her. Proof that I was never good enough to be truly royal.
"You have seven days," my father says, and his voice is almost soft now. Almost kind. That is the cruelest thing he can do. "Seven days to return to this throne, accept the mating bond with Prince Kessler, and resume your place as my daughter. If you do not return within seven days, you will be marked for death."
The words hang in the air like poison.
Marked for death. Not killed. Not hunted. Marked. So that any wolf, anywhere, can put an end to me if they find me wandering in their territory. I will have no protection. No territory. No pack.
I will be nothing.
"Do you understand what I am telling you, Sienna," he asks. He uses my name like it tastes like ash in his mouth.
I nod because my voice has broken somewhere inside me.
"Speak," he demands.
"I understand," I manage to say. The words come out barely audible.
"Then you are dismissed."
The guards move toward me but I do not wait for them to touch me. I walk toward the doors on my own, my head up, my spine straight, refusing to let them see me stumble. Behind me, I hear Helena call out again. I hear her voice crack. I do not turn around because if I see her face, if I see her reaching for me and failing, I will break completely.
I walk out of the throne room and I do not look back.
The palace halls are empty. The servants have all been told to stay away from me. I am contagion now. I am a warning. I am what happens when you disobey the king.
My chambers feel smaller than they did yesterday. The white ceremony gown is still lying on the floor where I dropped it. The diamonds from my hair are scattered across the marble. It looks like a funeral in here.
I gather what I can. A cloak. A knife. The ring my mother gave me before she died. Nothing else matters. Nothing else will help me survive what is coming.
That night, I wait until the palace is completely silent. Until even the guards outside my door have changed shifts enough times that they stop listening for movement.
I walk to the back gardens where no one watches. Where the forest begins and the palace ends. Where I can still smell freedom if I close my eyes and breathe deep.
I remove my clothes and fold them carefully, as if folding them small enough will make it hurt less to leave them behind.
The shift happens differently this time. It has always been controlled in the palace. Practiced. Careful. Never more than a flex of power, never more than enough to prove I could do it.
This time it is wild.
My bones break and reform in ways that make me scream without sound. My skin ripples like water. My wolf, the part of me I have kept locked down for my entire life, explodes through my skin like she has been clawing to get out all along.
She is silver like moonlight. She is hungry. She is terrified. She is free.
I run.
The forest blurs around me. Trees that I have only ever seen from the palace windows flash past. The ground is soft under my paws. The air tastes like earth and rain and a thousand scents I have no names for.
My wolf does not know where she is going. She only knows that she has to keep running because behind her is everything she lost. Ahead of her might be something she can survive.
The night is deep and dark but my eyes see everything. The stars. The shadows. The distant glow of the palace fading behind me.
Somewhere ahead, I can smell another wolf's territory. Another pack's scent marking the border of their land. My wolf does not care. She is too desperate to care. She is too alive to care.
She runs toward the darkness like it is the only thing in the world that has not betrayed her.
She does not know yet that crossing into another pack's territory is a death sentence for a rogue.
She does not know yet that she is about to meet the one wolf who might decide to kill her.
She only knows that she cannot stop running or she will remember that her own father just chose to erase her from existence.