Chapter 61 The truth
The lights dim without warning.
Not slowly. Not ceremonially.
Just off.
A sharp click echoes through the auditorium, and the murals painted across the ceiling vanish into shadow. The moon goddess disappears first, swallowed by darkness, and for a brief, irrational moment I think of her turning her face away.
I feel it before I see it.
That hollowing sensation behind my ribs.
That sense of being pulled backward through time.
A screen descends from the stone wall opposite the Council thrones. It’s massive, stretching nearly floor to ceiling, its surface dull and gray. Clinical. Like everything else here.
“This footage,” the scribe says quietly, no longer projecting his voice, “was recovered from sealed archives beneath the Northern Research Wing. It has been verified by three independent record-keepers. It has not been altered, dramatized, or edited.”
Each word lands like a nail.
“This is an original record.”
The screen flickers.
And then.
My father appears.
Not older.
Not broken.
Not dying in a pool of blood the way I last saw him.
He is younger. Whole. Clean-shaven. His dark hair neatly combed back, his posture straight, his lab coat pristine. His eyes are sharp, intelligent, focused.
Exactly as I remember him.
My breath leaves me in a silent rush.
“No,” I whisper, though no one is listening.
The camera angle is static, mounted high in the corner of a room I recognize even before my mind catches up: white walls, reinforced glass, metal fixtures bolted into the floor. The kind of room that pretends to be sterile while hiding its cruelty in plain sight.
My stomach turns.
There are others in the room with him,men and women in lab coats, some older, some younger. Their voices overlap at first, arguing.
“…instability at this stage.”
“…ethical limitations.”
“…the Council will never approve.”
My father steps forward into frame, calm and authoritative, and the room quiets.
I remember that voice.
It used to read me stories.
“This isn’t about approval,” he says, cool and precise. “It’s about results.”
My fingers curl painfully around the chains.
He’s not asking whether to do it.
He’s arguing about how.
One of the scientists shakes his head. “You’re talking about pushing past the failure threshold. We’ve already lost three.”
“Because you’re treating them like finished products,” my father cuts in. “They’re not. They’re foundations.”
He gestures to a monitor off-screen. Data scrolls rapidly,heart rates, neural activity, genetic markers I don’t fully understand but recognize enough to fear.
“The maternal line must be broken down first,” he continues, his tone steady, almost instructional. “Pain accelerates cellular mutation. Resistance is learned. Strip it away early, and adaptation becomes instinct.”
I stop breathing.
Pain accelerates cellular mutation.
The room feels too small. Too tight. I become acutely aware of every eye on me, every whisper of fabric, every shift of weight in the audience behind me.
This has to be a lie.
This has to be doctored.
I shake my head slowly, as if the motion alone might disrupt the image, distort it, make it fall apart.
The footage continues.
The camera angle changes.
Now it’s lower.
Closer.
The table comes into view.
I see myself.
Not as I am now,older, scarred, hardened, but small. Fragile. My hair spread across cold metal, my wrists restrained. I can’t see my face clearly, but I know it’s me the way you know your own reflection even in shattered glass.
My vision blurs.
“No,” I say louder this time. “No, no.”
My father steps into frame again, closer now, and for a horrifying moment, his face softens.
He looks down at the girl on the table.
At me.
“My greatest creation,” he says, and there is something almost like pride in his voice.
The world tilts.
A scream echoes through the footage, raw, desperate, coming from somewhere beyond the camera’s view. A woman’s scream. Agonized. Terrified.
It cuts off abruptly.
I flinch like I’ve been struck.
My chest constricts, memories slamming into me without permission,white rooms, the smell of antiseptic, the way fear used to sit in my throat like a stone even when I couldn’t remember why.
“This isn’t real,” I whisper. “This isn’t real.”
I look up, desperately, searching for the one anchor I have left.
Darius.
He is standing now.
I hadn’t even noticed when he rose from his throne, but he’s there,tall, rigid, his face carved from stone. His eyes are locked on the screen, dark and unreadable.
“Darius,” I say, my voice breaking. “Tell me this isn’t real.”
He doesn’t speak.
Not a word.
The silence is worse than any accusation.
Something inside me fractures.
I turn back to the screen, my heart pounding so hard it hurts, as the footage continues to play,my father issuing instructions, adjusting instruments, speaking in that same measured tone while suffering unfolds just out of frame.
I feel like I’m drowning in someone else’s memories.
“What the hell is this?!” I shout, the words tearing out of me before I can stop them. My voice echoes off the stone walls, sharp and broken.
The screen goes dark.
The lights come back on.
And before anyone else can speak, a roar shakes the chamber.
“SILENCE.”
The sound is so powerful it vibrates through the floor, through my bones. Wolves in the audience recoil instinctively.
I turn toward the source.
One of the Council members is standing now.
He is ancient, his white beard braided and heavy with ceremonial rings. His eyes are pale and hard, his presence oppressive in a way that has nothing to do with physical strength and everything to do with authority long abused.
The nameplate before his seat reads: CORNELIUS.
“You will address this Council with respect,” he snarls, pointing a finger at me. “You are not here to question proceedings.”He leans forward, eyes cold. “Subject L–17.”
The title hits harder the second time.
I gasp, my breath catching painfully, and before I can stop myself, something raw and furious tears its way up my throat.
“Call her that again,” Darius growls, his voice low and deadly, “and I will forget every law that protects you.”
The room freezes.
No one breathes.
Darius’ aura fills the chamber, heavy and dominant, pressing down on everyone present. His hands are clenched, his shoulders tense, like he’s barely holding himself back from lunging across the stone and doing exactly what he’s promised.
Cornelius sneers, but there’s a flicker of something like unease in his eyes.
“This is a trial,” he says stiffly. “Not a mating den. Control yourself, Alpha King.”
Darius’ eyes never leave him.
“You are walking a very thin line,” he says quietly. “And you will not dehumanize her again.”
The words burn their way out of me before I can stop them.
“You’re lying,” I say, my voice shaking but loud enough to carry across the chamber. “You’re trying to paint my father as a monster to justify whatever you want to do to me.”
The chains bite into my wrists as I strain forward, my heart hammering so hard I swear the entire room must hear it. My throat feels raw, scraped hollow by everything I’ve just seen, but I force the words out anyway because if I don’t speak now, I feel like I’ll shatter.
“I wasn’t some experiment,” I continue. “I wasn’t a project or a subject or a weapon. My parents loved each other. My mother loved him. He loved her. You don’t get to rewrite that just because it’s convenient.”
Murmurs ripple through the audience.
Some wolves look away. Some stare harder, like they’re trying to peel me open and see what’s inside. Others whisper to each other, their expressions tight with uncertainty. I recognize a few of them, wolves who thanked me, who bowed their heads, who brought gifts with trembling hands just a day ago.
Now they look afraid.
I swallow, my chest aching.
“You showed a video,” I say, my voice breaking despite my effort to keep it steady. “You showed fragments. Out of context. You think that gives you the right to decide who he was? Who I am?”
For a brief, fragile second, no one interrupts me.
Then a new voice cuts through the chamber like a blade.
“That’s enough.”
It doesn’t come from the Council thrones.
It comes from the audience.
I turn my head slowly, my pulse spiking.
One of the vampires rises from his seat.
He moves with deliberate grace, tall and unnervingly still, as if motion itself is optional for him. His skin is pale, almost translucent under the chamber lights, and when he looks at me, his eyes glow a deep, unnatural red.
Not the wild red of frenzy.
The controlled red of something ancient.
Something predatory.
“Love?” he repeats softly, his lips curling in a faint, cruel smile. “You truly believe that?”
The room grows colder.
I feel it along my spine, a creeping chill that has nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with instinct.
He takes a step forward.
Then another.
“I can assure you of this,” he says, his voice smooth and merciless. “One of our own would never mate with a lowly mutt like your father.”
The word hits me like a slap.
Mutt.
Something inside me snaps.
A sound rips out of my throat,half snarl, half scream,as I surge against the chains. The metal groans under the sudden force, the restraints rattling violently. Gasps erupt from the audience as the links strain, hairline fractures spiderwebbing across the cuffs at my wrists.
I feel my beast surge up, hot and furious, flooding my veins with power.
“Take it back,” I snarl, my vision sharpening, the edges of the world going painfully clear. “Take it back right now. You're all wrong! You know nothing!”
The vampire’s smile widens.
“Or what?” he asks calmly. “You’ll prove us right?”
The chains creak again.
A sharp crack echoes through the chamber.
For one horrifying heartbeat, I think I’m going to break free.
Then pain explodes at my throat.
White-hot agony spears through my neck as something drives inward from the collar encircling my skin. I scream,there’s no stopping it,as spikes punch into my flesh, precise and brutal. My knees buckle, my entire body convulsing as the shock rips through me.
The world fractures into light and pain.
I barely register the chorus of shocked cries from the audience. Barely hear the shouts from the guards. All I know is the searing burn at my neck, the way my strength evaporates in an instant, my beast howling in fury and pain inside my skull.
“Lyra!”
Darius’ voice cuts through everything.
He’s on his feet, his chair overturned behind him, his aura slamming into the chamber like a physical force. I can feel him even through the pain, feel the way his rage surges outward, wild and uncontrollable.
“Get those things out of her,” he roars, taking a step forward. “Now.”
The blood guards tense.
Thane moves instinctively, his hand lifting slightly, his eyes locked on the collar at my throat. Vincent’s jaw is clenched so hard I can see the muscle jumping.
For a moment, I think Darius is going to lose control.
Part of me hopes he does.
Then Celeste stands.
She doesn’t raise her voice.
She doesn’t need to.
“This is for the safety of everyone here,” she says smoothly, her gaze flicking briefly to me before returning to Darius. “Your mate is unstable. You saw how close she came to breaking free.”
I gasp, the pain slowly receding to a dull, vicious throb, tears blurring my vision. The spikes retract slightly but don’t fully withdraw, a cruel reminder that they’re still there, waiting.
Darius’ fists are clenched at his sides.
“She was provoked,” he snarls. “And you know it.”
Celeste tilts her head, studying him with cool interest.
“If you forcefully remove her restraints,” she says, “the Council will invoke its authority to act independently once more.”
The words fall into the chamber like a death sentence.
I see it in Darius’ eyes,the calculation, the fury, the helplessness all colliding at once. He knows exactly what she’s threatening.
I do too, now.
The Council blood guards would turn on him.
On us.
The trial would become a massacre.
Darius’ chest rises and falls sharply.
Slowly, painfully, he sits back down.
The sound of him lowering himself into that throne is louder than any roar.
Celeste smiles.
It’s small.
Satisfied.
I sag against the chains, my strength gone, my throat burning, my heart splintering in my chest. The room feels impossibly far away, like I’m watching everything through thick glass.