Then a third. I put the weight of my bloodline behind it. Not the meek, muted Omega who had swallowed wolfsbane tinctures to keep her scent small and her wolf quiet. The daughter of the Silvercrest line. The Alpha-blooded Omega whose wolf had been caged so long it had forgotten the shape of its own teeth.
"And that's for destroying a pack bond and not feeling an ounce of remorse."
Three slaps. She stood there, stunned stupid.
The red marks bloomed across her cheek like brands. My hand didn't shake. My breathing didn't waver. My wolf sat behind my ribs, calm and watchful, and for one crystalline moment I understood what it felt like to stop being afraid.
Then she screamed, clawing her way off the bed. "Seraphina, I'll kill you!"
She shoved me hard. I hit the ground, and a sharp pain shot through my lower abdomen. Dread flooded through me instantly. Cold, immediate, animal dread that had nothing to do with Corvina and everything to do with the life I was carrying. I gritted my teeth and dragged myself up, bracing against the wall to stay on my feet. My wolf whimpered, curling inward, pressing protectively toward the place where the pain bloomed.
She swung at me, her palm connecting with my face. "You hit me? You think I'm someone you can push around? Those three slaps? I'm paying them back double!"
She raised her hand for a second strike, but footsteps echoed in the hallway outside.
Her arm froze mid-swing.
The shift was instantaneous. So fast it would have been impressive if it weren't sickening.
In one fluid motion, she snatched the pup from the bassinet, dropped him onto the floor from a low height, then threw herself down beside him, curling over the infant and wailing as if the world were ending.
The pup's screams tangled with hers, filling the room. The tiny thing reeked of milk and new wool and a faint ghost of pine, Fenris Greyfang's blood crying out from a body too small to understand what had just happened to it.
I stood there clutching my stomach, my body locked in place. I couldn't process what I'd just witnessed.
Corvina had hurt her own pup.
He'd just been born, and she'd thrown him on the ground without a second thought. No wolf, no matter how broken, no matter how far fallen, did that. Even rogues guarded their young. Even the mad ones. The instinct was older than language, older than pack law, older than the Moon Goddess herself.