Agony twisted her features. She crumpled to the ground, both hands pressed tight over her belly, tears streaming down her face.

Nana Ashwick shrieked. "Mistress! What happened to you?!"

Then she whipped around and glared at me, eyes blazing. "Even if you are the heir's bonded mate, that gives you no right to lay hands on a she-wolf carrying young! She's about to whelp! You strike now, and you'll be killing two lives. Is that what you want?!"

"The Pack Heir isn't in the territory. You think you can act this brazen without consequence? You don't think he'll come back and settle the score?"

Settle the score with me? If he didn't come looking for me first, I'd be looking for him. Keeping a secret mate, dragging the Shadowmere name through the mud. The heir to the Shadowmere Pack, stooping to something so disgraceful.

Rosalind charged forward and slapped Nana Ashwick clean across the face. The crack rang out sharp and loud. "Insolent old hag! How dare you speak to my Luna that way. How dare you slander her."

Nana Ashwick shrieked. "You dare strike me? Mistress, you must stand up for this old servant! Have the Pack Heir cast out this vicious she-wolf at once!"

"Otherwise, once you enter the pack estate, who knows what torments she'll put you through."

I let out a cold laugh. "Have the heir cast me out? My status is not something the heir has the authority to revoke."

Celeste bit her lip and stared at me. Something in her scent shifted, that honeysuckle sweetness thickening until the bruised-peach undertone bled through, cloying and deliberate. "If my Luna wishes to beat or kill someone, direct it at me. Why strike my nursemaid? Are you truly not afraid the heir will punish you when he returns?"

"Cruel as you are, the mating bond may have been ordained by the Alpha King, but if you harm the heir's pup, he can still sever the bond all the same."

I smiled. "Miss Thornwell puts on quite the performance. Perhaps she should join the traveling minstrel troupe."

"If the heir wants to champion your cause, by all means, send him to me. I won't run from it."

The crowd of onlookers grew indignant, their collective unease pressing in like the low rumble before a storm. "You've gone too far! Just because her rank is lower than yours, she deserves to be humiliated?"

"Exactly! She's seven or eight moons along, about to deliver. A kick like that could kill her!"