Chapter 178 CHAPTER 178
The room they were placed in was large but deliberately bare. There were no windows, no decorations, no sense of time beyond the slow dimming of torches set high into the stone walls. Small narrow beds lined the sides, each with folded blankets and nothing more. It was not a dungeon in the cruel sense. No chains. No iron cuffs. No darkness thick with rot. Mooncrest had not judged them yet. They were being held, not punished.
And somehow that made the waiting worse.
The heavy door had shut behind them with a finality that still echoed in Sebastian’s mind. Since then, no one had spoken for several minutes. The silence pressed down harder than the stone ceiling above.
Sebastian sat on the edge of one of the beds, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped together so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. He dared a glance at his father.
Alpha Richard looked older.
Not by years. By weight.
His shoulders, once broad with command, seemed slightly bent forward. The sharpness in his eyes had dulled into something closer to exhaustion. In a single day, the man who had led Silverpine with quiet authority now looked like someone who had miscalculated everything.
Sebastian swallowed.
He had known this was coming.
He had seen it in Lisa’s eyes back at school long before this confrontation. She had not wanted revenge. She had not wanted reconciliation. She had only wanted distance. He had told his father as much, though never this plainly. There had been no fury in her, only a quiet resolve that felt far more dangerous.
But this was not the moment to say, I told you so.
Not when Richard already looked like he carried the entire weight of Silverpine on his spine.
Across the room, Cedric sat on his own bed, his back leaning against the stone wall. His hands rested on his thighs, but they were not still. His fingers twitched occasionally, as if rehearsing words he would never say aloud.
His mind drifted unwillingly to the image of his wife the night before. Hilda’s bright, foolish excitement. Her hands clapping together. Her voice giddy with fantasies of titles, of status, of living in a palace as the honored parents of a Lycan princess.
He let out a low breath through his nose and gave a humorless chuckle.
“Lord of the dungeons,” he muttered under his breath.
He shook his head faintly, and the ghost of that bitter reflection must have shown on his face, because when Alpha Richard’s eyes landed on him, something sharp flickered in them.
“You find this situation amusing?” Richard’s voice carried through the chamber, controlled but edged.
Cedric looked up, confusion replacing the distant expression he had worn. “No.”
“That smile,” Richard continued, stepping forward. “Do not stand there pretending this is nothing.”
Cedric straightened slowly. “I was not smiling.”
Richard’s restraint faltered. “This,” he said, gesturing at the enclosed space around them, “is the result of choices that should never have been made.”
The other Silverpine elders watched in tense silence, none eager to intervene while two men burdened by guilt began tearing into one another.
“I know I was wrong,” Richard admitted, his voice thick with contained frustration. “I should have reported the child when you found her. I should have informed Mooncrest immediately that a rogue infant had appeared within our territory. I allowed friendship to override duty.”
Cedric’s jaw tightened, but he did not interrupt.
“You begged me,” Richard went on. “You said you and Hilda had prayed for years for a child. You asked me not to expose her to scrutiny. You promised she would be treated as your own.”
A pause stretched between them.
“I did not know,” Richard said, the words heavier now, “that she would grow up in your household as a servant. I did not know she would be beaten. Mocked. Denied schooling. Used.”
Cedric flinched at the accusation, though he did not deny it.
“You speak as though I alone created this,” Cedric replied quietly. “You knew she was different. You saw it.”
“I saw,” Richard shot back, “and I should have acted. That is my failure. But do not twist this into something shared equally. Whether she was a princess or a nameless orphan, she was a child under your roof.”
The truth settled into the chamber like dust.
Sebastian felt every word. The rejection he had carried out under Sara’s spell was one sin, but the life Lisa had endured before that was another layer entirely. He had rejected a mate. Cedric had broken a child.
Richard’s voice lowered but did not soften. “If she had simply been rejected as a mate, the King might have been furious, but he would have accepted the law. Wolves are permitted to reject. It is written. But what cannot be defended is cruelty. That is what has turned this into more than a personal matter. It has become a stain on Silverpine.”
The accusation hung between them.
One of the older elders, seated near the far wall, cleared his throat softly. His voice was calm, measured, carrying the steadiness of someone who had seen pack conflicts rise and fall over decades.
“This is not the time to tear at one another,” he said. “Blame will not shorten this wait. We all played a part. Each in our way.”
Richard closed his eyes briefly, then nodded once.
The elder continued, “There is something greater at stake than our pride. The witch is still out there. Our guards are weakened. Our pack is vulnerable. If we fracture now, we lose more than status.”
The mention of the witch shifted the energy in the room. Fear crept into the silence, colder than anger.
“We need the king,” the elder said plainly. “Not only for judgment. For alliance.”
Cedric remained quiet for a long moment.
“I will take it,” he said quietly.
Several elders turned toward him.
“I will tell the King I concealed everything from you,” Cedric continued, addressing Richard directly. “I will say that you were unaware of her adoption. That the secrecy was mine alone. Let the punishment fall on my household. Spare the pack.”
Richard studied him for a long moment.
“If I claim ignorance,” he replied, “I appear incompetent. An Alpha who does not know what happens within his territory is no Alpha at all.”
“That may be preferable to the entire pack suffering,” Cedric said.
“No,” Richard answered firmly. “Lies are what brought us here. We will not add another.”
Cedric’s shoulders lowered. The offer had not been theatrical. It was not an attempt to reclaim dignity. It was the weary suggestion of a man who finally understood the damage he had caused.
“The truth,” Richard said quietly now, addressing all of them, “is the only thing we have left that is not already broken. Each man will answer for his part. That is the way forward.”
No one argued.