Mila cast Claire a sidelong glance, her eyes laced with quiet mockery. There was no need for words; the message was clear enough. She thinks that Claire was overestimating herself, mistaking her own cunning for something far more impressive than it actually was.

Yes, surviving three years in vampire territory required a certain level of intelligence and adaptability, but that alone did not make her untouchable.

In the court of the Alpha King, such tactics were nothing new. These were people who had grown up surrounded by power, by politics, by schemes layered beneath polished smiles.

Compared to that, Claire’s efforts felt almost… transparent. The kind of maneuvering that might impress outsiders, but would never slip past eyes trained to detect deceit from a distance.

Certainly not the Alpha King.

Under the Alpha King’s scrutiny, nothing so obvious would go unnoticed. And Mila knew it. That was why her gaze lingered just a moment longer, amused and unimpressed.

If Claire thought herself clever, then she was only proving how little she understood the game she was trying so hard to play. Even Mila, for all her restraint, wouldn’t have handled it so clumsily.

If it had been Mila attempting something like this, she might have slipped past suspicion. After all, she had grown up alongside Addison, treated as both a sister to Addison and a daughter to the Alpha King and Queen within the palace.

But everything changed because of a single misstep weeks ago. In a moment of fear, she had asked Addison to postpone her coronation, worried that once Addison ascended, she would be cast aside, that her place in the palace, along with the support she had carefully built, would vanish like dust.

It was a desperate plea, born from insecurity… and it cost her everything.

Addison rejected her.

And when the Alpha King and Queen learned of it, their attitude toward Mila shifted overnight. The warmth they once showed her disappeared, replaced by cold vigilance.

They began to treat her like a threat, watching her as one would a black-eyed wolf, something dangerous, unpredictable, and capable of turning on them at any moment. It was as if the three years she had spent by their side, the time she had filled in the absence of their daughter, had meant nothing at all.

One mistake, one poorly chosen request, and she lost her standing, her place, her identity within the family.

If that was how they treated Mila… then what of Claire?

Claire, who had openly schemed against Addison, who had tried to steal her man, who had nearly cost her life, what chance did she have?

The Alpha King and Queen wouldn’t even spare her a proper glance, much less any goodwill. To them, every word Claire spoke would be tainted with suspicion, twisted into a potential scheme before it even had the chance to be understood.

And yet, it seemed Claire had never truly considered any of this.

’How laughable…’

Mila lowered her gaze, casting one last look at Claire before briefly glancing toward the Alpha King and Queen. Regret tightened around her chest, heavy and suffocating.

She shouldn’t have done it, shouldn’t have let greed and fear cloud her judgment. Asking Addison to postpone her coronation… after everything her cousin had endured, after barely making it back alive, it had been foolish, selfish even.

What had she been so afraid of losing? The people who supported her? The status she thought defined her?

She had clung to those things as if they were hers to begin with, as if losing them would strip her of her worth. But deep down, she had always known the truth. Those people had never truly belonged to her.

They had only used her as a front, as a blade borrowed to strike at the Alpha King and Queen. And yet, she had still walked into that fire willingly, relying on the kindness, patience, and trust the royal couple had once given her.

And the moment she faltered… it was all gone.

But what had she expected? That they would choose her over their own daughter? That they would abandon Addison, the child the Queen had nearly died bringing into this world, the blessing they cherished as she had been gifted by the Moon Goddess herself?

The thought was almost absurd now.

So why had she even dared to compete with Addison for something like that? Was it because her own father had never loved her the way Addison’s did? Because her mother had treated her like a tool, a means to gain favor, instead of loving her unconditionally?

Or… was it simply her own fault?

While Claire simmered in her resentment over Addison’s return, an event the entire city celebrated as though a goddess herself had come back, Mila stood apart, lost in a quieter, more tangled storm of emotions.

Her gaze, dull and distant, followed the approaching carriage where Addison sat within, framed by the crowd’s roaring excitement. But to Mila, the cheers sounded muted, as if she were hearing them from underwater, the world around her fading beneath the weight of everything churning inside her.

For Addison, however, everything felt different. With her memories gone, this was the first time she had ever experienced such overwhelming cheers, such open acceptance from her people.

It was the first time she could truly feel it, feel that her efforts had meant something. She had poured everything into this path, giving her time, her strength, her sweat, blood, and tears to secure a better future for them.

And now, standing before a sea of smiling faces and raised voices, she finally received something in return.

Appreciation. Acceptance. Love.

Her chest tightened, not with pain, but with something fragile and unfamiliar, something she had once thought she no longer needed.

Slowly, the echoes of her past began to fade. The mocking glances, the biting remarks she had endured in the Midnight River Pack when she was their Luna, those memories had clung to her for so long.

No matter how much she had done for them, how she had secured their safety, ensured their survival, shielded them from stronger neighboring packs, they had never once acknowledged her efforts. To them, she had been nothing more than a burden, a disgrace they tolerated but never respected.