Chapter 13 The Clip That Broke a Luna
The doors opened on their own, enchanted hinges humming softly as I stepped inside.
The dining hall was too bright. Too polished. Too calm.
Helena glanced up first, offering the same warm smile she had given me on the morning of the oath-binding. But this time, it faltered. Just a fraction. Just enough for me to see the worry behind her eyes.
I tried to smile back.
It felt like wearing someone else’s face.
I took my seat beside her, careful not to wince as the chair pressed against bruises hidden beneath soft grey fabric.
Marcus nodded stiffly.
The Beta cousins murmured greetings.
Isabelle gave me a perfect, surgical smile, the kind reserved for prey she wanted to dissect slowly.
Grayson… didn’t look at me.
He sat across the table, expression clean, unreadable, a carved statue of judgment and ice. Not a flicker of emotion. Not even disdain. That would have been easier to survive.
But this emptiness?
This careful blankness?
It terrified me more than the pain in my thighs.
“Good morning,” he said, as if nothing happened last night.
As if he hadn’t broken something inside me so painfully I could still feel the pieces shifting.
His voice was smooth. Controlled. Cold.
He was performing.
For them.
For me.
For the lie he believed.
I lowered my gaze, forcing my breathing to stay steady.
The servants placed plates before us, citrus pastries, berry compotes, warm bread, herbal broths. Everything smelled comforting.
I felt nothing.
Isabelle tapped her spoon lightly against her teacup.
A signal.
The air shifted.
I didn’t realize everyone had gone quiet until I felt their eyes like needles on my skin.
“Before we proceed,” Isabelle said pleasantly, “there is a small matter of clarity.”
Clarity.
My heart stuttered.
That word never meant anything kind.
Grayson’s jaw tensed, not in anger, not in reluctance.
In readiness.
Like he’d been waiting for this moment.
A servant stepped forward, placing a small silver device on the table. An old model, used only for official evidence.
My blood ran cold.
I knew.
I knew what this was before it even lit up.
“Isabelle...” Helena started, voice sharp.
But Isabelle didn’t even look her way.
A holo projection burst into view, grainy, blown up, slowed.
Chloe’s last banquet.
The night before her death.
There I was, younger, thinner, hair looser, face soft with nervousness, standing near the balcony railing.
The holo zoomed in.
My hand reached toward Chloe’s glass.
The room inhaled all at once.
“That’s not...” My voice cracked.
“Quiet.” Marcus’s tone held command.
I felt my entire body flood with heat and then ice.
My breath stilled.
My lungs closed.
“Continue,” Isabelle said softly.
The clip replayed. Slower.
My fingers brushed the stem of Chloe’s glass.
That tiny, isolated moment, severed from the truth, magnified into guilt.
It didn’t show:
Chloe arguing with me.
Chloe drinking before she even arrived.
Chloe switching places with me.
The spilled tonic on the railing.
My attempt to steady her.
The way she leaned too far.
The scream I swallowed as she fell.
None of it.
Just that one moment.
Isabelle folded her hands elegantly.
“A shame we discovered this so late. But clarity is essential for pack unity.”
I stared at the projection until my eyes blurred.
“I didn’t touch her drink,” I whispered. “I didn’t poison Chloe. I never would...”
“Then explain,” Grayson said.
His voice.
Not loud.
Not angry.
Not cruel.
Worse.
Disappointed.
I snapped my gaze to him.
He still wouldn’t look directly at me.
His stare stayed fixed on the holo image.
“Grayson,” I breathed, “you know this isn’t the whole video. It’s cut. Someone edited this.”
Isabelle arched a brow. “Are you accusing the Knight security team of falsifying records?”
My heart plummeted.
The room felt like a trap, every angle closing around me.
Grayson finally looked up.
His eyes were dead calm.
And something in me shattered.
He believed it.
He believed this.
“Evie,” he said, voice low, “I want you to tell the truth.”
I choked.
Helena reached for me under the table, her fingers brushing mine, but Isabelle’s look made her withdraw.
“Please,” I whispered. “You said you believed me. You said...”
“That was before this,” he cut in.
And even though I heard controlled disappointment…
Something darker flickered in his gaze.
A calculation.
A certainty.
He wanted this to be true.
He wanted to justify the hate he had been feeding for six months.
He wanted Chloe’s ghost to whisper that he was right.
He wanted revenge.
And I… was the easiest target to place it on.
“You should step carefully now,” he said quietly. “Do not lie to me again.”
Lie.
Again.
Like he had already decided the verdict.
Like he had already sentenced me.
My voice tore itself out of my throat.
“I didn’t kill her! I didn’t poison her! That drink was for me. I don't know how she....”
Isabelle stood.
“That’s enough,” she said sweetly. “We don’t need you to confess. The evidence speaks.”
The projection flickered off.
My world went dark with it.
“You should leave,” Marcus murmured. “We will revisit this privately.”
Helena whispered my name, but no one else moved.
Not even Grayson.
Especially not Grayson.
He watched me with the expression of a man seeing a stain spreading across something he once considered precious.
But beneath that mask...
He was plotting.
With Isabelle.
Together.
To avenge Chloe’s “murder.”
They thought they were righteous.
They thought they were protecting someone pure.
They thought they were punishing the right person.
And that was the cruelest part.
They were wrong from the beginning.
My hands trembled as I pushed my chair back.
No one stopped me.
No one spoke.
No one cared.
Except Helena.
Her eyes glistened with horror I didn’t fully understand yet.
I stepped away from the table.
From the lies.
From the betrayal.
From the man who was supposed to be my mate.
My Luna mark pulsed once, painfully.
And for the first time…
I wondered if this house would ever let me survive long enough to prove my innocence.