Chapter 175 CHAPTER 175
When the doors of the council chamber closed behind the Silverpine elders and the guards led them away, the room did not feel victorious. It felt hollow.
Lisa remained standing for a moment longer, as if her body had forgotten how to move. The words spoken inside that chamber were still echoing in her mind. Her mother had trusted a witch. Her brother’s memories had been altered. Silverpine had knelt - not before her, but before the throne. And Sebastian had been there among them, his head lowered, just as he once had lowered it when she stood alone in Silverpine surrounded by wolves who looked at her as though she were an intruder in her own fate.
She finally turned and walked out of the chamber without saying anything.
Celia stirred inside her almost immediately.
“I cannot forgive them,” Celia’s voice burned quietly in her mind. “Not after what they did. Not after how they made you stand there and judged like you did not belong.”
Lisa swallowed, her chest tight. “I don’t know if I can either,” she admitted silently. “Seeing them like that… it brought everything back.”
As she moved down the corridor, the memory did not return gently. It came back in fragments that still burned. The festival lights. The sudden silence when Sebastian had stood before her and announced what she herself had not yet understood.
The laughter that followed. Sara’s voice cutting through the crowd first, sharp and amused. The way whispers had spread like wildfire when someone said she was wolf-less. She remembered Mrs. Hale’s words more clearly than she wished to, remembered how the Luna had not shouted, had not insulted her, but had simply looked at her as if she were a mistake.
She remembered the circle of bodies closing in, the air growing thin, the disbelief in Sebastian’s eyes when he realized who his mate was. And she remembered the pain - not just in her chest when the bond was rejected, but the humiliation of standing there alone while everyone decided what she was worth. Seeing the Silverpine elders again had pulled all of it back to the surface, raw and unhealed.
And now those same men had knelt, not before her, but before her brother. They had asked forgiveness from the king, not from the girl they had wounded.
Her heartbeat quickened.
“They never saw you,” Celia said bitterly. “They saw only the throne.”
Lisa exhaled slowly, though the air did little to steady her.
Her thoughts fractured under the weight of the day. The truth about her mother still felt unreal. The image of Seraphine beside Helena in that vision beneath the tree would not leave her mind. The laughter. The closeness. The betrayal that followed.
It was too much.
Her steps slowed as she reached the wide corridor just outside the palace gardens. She did not immediately notice that someone had stopped several paces ahead of her.
Liam had not known about the Silverpine elders.
He had been elsewhere in the palace, speaking briefly with a guard about patrol rotations, when something inside him tightened without warning. It was not a sound. Not a scent. It was a rush of emotion that did not feel entirely his own. Anger, confusion, grief - all colliding at once.
He had stopped mid-sentence.
“I’ll finish this later,” he had said to the guard, already turning.
He did not question why he was walking quickly toward the council wing. He only knew that something was wrong.
Now, as he stood near the corridor, he saw her.
Lisa was walking toward him, but she did not seem to see him at all. Her expression was unguarded in a way he had never seen before. Every feeling she was carrying was written plainly across her face - the hurt, the exhaustion, the anger she was trying to contain.
He felt it again - that pull in his chest.
“Lisa,” he called softly.
She did not react at first. It was as though his voice had to reach through layers before it reached her.
“Lisa.”
This time she looked up.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Something unspoken passed between them - not dramatic, not magical in a visible way, but undeniable. The moment their eyes met, the tension inside her cracked. She had been holding herself together inside the chamber, in front of elders, in front of the throne. She could not hold it any longer.
Tears filled her eyes before she even realized they were coming.
Liam closed the distance between them without hesitation. He did not ask permission. He did not hesitate. He simply pulled her into his arms.
The first sob left her chest like something breaking.
“It’s too much,” she whispered against him, her voice trembling. “It’s too much for one day. I just found out about my mother… about Seraphine… and now Silverpine is here and I can’t stop remembering everything they did.”
His arms tightened around her.
“Silverpine?” he repeated, his tone shifting.
She nodded weakly. “They came to apologize. To the king. Not to me.”
For a brief second, anger flared sharply inside him. The idea of them standing inside Mooncrest, kneeling, asking for mercy after what they had done to her - it stirred something fierce in his chest. But he forced it down immediately.
This was not about them.
This was about her.
He brushed a hand gently over her hair, steadying his voice. “You don’t have to think about them right now.”
“But I am,” she said helplessly. “I see their faces. I hear the way they spoke that day. I feel like I’m back there.”
He pulled back slightly so he could look at her.
“Do you want to leave?” he asked quietly.
She blinked, confused. “Leave?”
“Just for a while,” he said. “Do you want to get out of Mooncrest?”
She hesitated. “Where would we even go?”
He gave the faintest breath of a smile. “I don’t know.”
That surprised her enough to pause her tears.
“I don’t know,” he repeated softly, “but I know this. The magic responds to emotion. You told me that once. And right now, the only thing I want is to take you somewhere your heart can breathe.”
Celia stirred within Lisa, her anger cooling into something else. He feels it, she murmured. He feels you.
Lisa looked at Liam’s outstretched hand.
“Anywhere?” she asked quietly.
“With you,” he answered without hesitation, “anywhere.”
He took her hand gently and led her toward the quieter side of the garden where fewer eyes lingered. The air was cooler there, touched by the scent of leaves and distant water. For a moment, she let herself lean into the steadiness of his presence.
He stopped and turned to face her fully.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Where are we going?” she whispered again, though her voice carried less fear now.
He stepped closer, his fingers tightening slightly around hers.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I know I want you somewhere you can smile. Somewhere your heart doesn’t feel like it’s breaking.”
He closed his eyes briefly and focused - not on coordinates, not on strategy, but on the single clear emotion inside him: protect her.
The air in front of them shimmered faintly, then split open in a soft ripple of light. The portal formed quietly, without spectacle, as though it had been waiting for the right reason to exist.
Lisa stared at it, then back at him.
“You really don’t know where that leads?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
For the first time since she had left the chamber, something small and genuine flickered inside her. A fragile smile tugged at her lips through the tears.
“That’s reckless,” she murmured.
“Probably,” he agreed.
He stepped forward first, still holding her hand.
She followed.
As the portal swallowed them both, the palace gardens faded behind them, and for the first time that day, Lisa’s tears were no longer only from pain. Somewhere beneath the weight of truth and betrayal, beneath the memories of rejection and anger, she felt something steady anchoring her.
And as the light closed around them, she allowed herself to smile - even if she had no idea where they were going.