Chapter 167 The Lie Unraveled
Victoria’s scream did not fade.
It broke into the space and held there, carrying grief that did not settle and anger that had nowhere to go. She knelt beside Devon, her hands trembling as she reached forward and then stopped, as though touching him would make the moment more real than she could bear.
“No,” she said again, her voice breaking. “No, this cannot be.”
Her control was gone.
There was no restraint left in her posture, no composed expression to hide behind. She looked at the elders, then at Kane, then back at Devon’s body, as if searching for something that could undo what had already happened.
“You cannot do this,” she said, her voice rising. “You cannot take everything from me.”
The elders did not respond immediately.
They watched her. Waiting for control that was no longer there.
Victoria pushed herself up from the ground, her movements unsteady. Her breathing was uneven, her gaze unfocused as it shifted across the arena.
“You said the rules would protect us,” she said suddenly, her voice tightening. “You said you would not interfere.”
Her eyes locked onto Kane.
“You ruined everything.”
Kane did not react. He stood where he had stopped, his attention steady, his expression unchanged.
Victoria took a step forward. Then another.
“Devon would have won,” she said, her words spilling out faster now, losing structure. “He should have won. You made this into something it did not have to be.”
A murmur moved through the crowd.
Victoria did not hear it. She was focused entirely on Kane, her anger rising to meet her grief.
Aria watched her closely.
There was something in Victoria’s words that did not sit right. Not just the accusation. The certainty behind it. The way she spoke as though she had already prepared this narrative before she arrived.
Aria’s focus sharpened.
Then Victoria laughed.
It was short. Sharp. Unstable.
“You all think you understand,” she said, her voice shifting into something erratic. “You think you have seen everything.”
Her gaze moved across the crowd. Across the elders. Across Aria.
“None of you know anything.”
The elders exchanged a look.
Something had shifted. Something more than grief.
Victoria took another step forward, then stopped abruptly, her hand moving instinctively toward her stomach.
Aria noticed it immediately.
The movement was small. But it was wrong.
Victoria’s hand lingered there, pressing slightly, as if confirming something that should not require confirmation. The fabric of her dress pulled in a way that did not make sense, too rigid, too uniform, sitting against her body differently than it should have.
Aria’s eyes narrowed.
“I was carrying his future,” Victoria said, her voice cracking. “You took that too.”
The words landed across the arena.
But they did not land cleanly.
Something beneath them did not align, and Aria was not the only one who felt it. The elders’ attention sharpened at the same moment hers did.
“Step forward,” the head elder said.
Victoria did not respond immediately. Her breathing was uneven. Her gaze darted once, then again.
“No,” she said quickly. “There is nothing left to discuss.”
“Step forward,” the elder repeated. No hesitation this time.
Victoria’s shoulders tensed. She did not move.
Aria stepped forward instead.
Her gaze locked onto Victoria.
“Your claim does not match what I am seeing,” she said calmly.
Victoria turned sharply.
“You have no authority here,” she snapped.
Aria did not raise her voice.
“You are hiding something,” she said.
The arena fell silent.
Victoria’s expression shifted. Just slightly. But enough.
Aria stepped closer. Her focus did not waver.
“Show them,” Aria said. “Or I will.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed.
“No.”
The answer came too quickly. Too firmly.
The elders moved closer. They were no longer observing. They were intervening.
“Remove your hands,” the head elder said.
“I will not be humiliated further,” Victoria said.
“You are already under scrutiny,” he replied.
Two of the elders stepped forward then, closing the distance before Victoria could pull back. Their hands closed around her arms, not roughly, but with a finality that left no room for resistance.
Victoria struggled.
It did not matter.
They held her still as the head elder reached forward and pressed his hand flat against her stomach.
The padding gave way beneath his palm immediately, compressing where a pregnancy never would, shifting where life never had been.
He withdrew his hand.
The arena did not make a sound.
Victoria’s breathing came fast and shallow. Her eyes moved across the crowd, searching for something, finding nothing.
“It is not what it looks like,” she said.
The head elder looked at her for a long moment.
Then he stepped back.
“This council has extended leniency to you on more than one occasion,” he said. “When the moon fever spread through this territory, your father’s influence was considered. We believed you had been manipulated. Coerced. That the choices made were not entirely your own.”
Victoria said nothing.
“That leniency was a mistake,” he continued.
His voice did not rise. It did not need to.
“You conspired with your father to spread the moon fever. You fabricated a pregnancy to strengthen a territorial claim. You attempted to interfere with a sanctioned challenge. These were not the actions of someone who was manipulated.” He paused. “These were the actions of someone who chose.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Victoria’s composure, what remained of it, cracked open completely.
“I had no choice,” she said, her voice fracturing. “You do not understand what he was to me. What Devon was. What any of this was.”
“We understand precisely what it was,” the elder replied. “Deception. Conspiracy. And deliberate harm to this pack and its people.”
Victoria shook her head.
“You cannot do this.”
“Guards,” the head elder said. “Take her away.”
They moved immediately.