"Your legal paperwork doesn't govern an emancipated soul," I interrupted.
I took another bold step forward. I could feel the stunned silence from the three alphas behind me, their protectiveness warring with profound shock at watching a scarred omega verbally eviscerate a seated legacy envoy.
"You want a tribunal? Bring it. Drag the entire high council down to Aldridge. Let them audit the scar you gave me. Let themsee what happens when you try to shove an emancipated omega back into a cage."
I pointed a trembling finger at his chest — a gesture utterly taboo by thousands of years of pack tradition.
"I will never go back to you. I would rather burn out my own core than spend another second tethered to a coward who uses pack politics as an excuse to maim his own destined mate because he's insecure."
Silence.
Trent stared at me, handsome face a mask of furious, uncomprehending shock. He'd expected me to cower. To hide behind Hayes's jacket and cry. He hadn't expected the defective omega to publicly humiliate his authority and challenge his tribunal threat.
Before he could recover, a sound broke the heavy silence.
Slow, deliberate clapping.
I whipped around toward the dark corner near a stone planter.
Chloe stepped out of the shadows.
Bright pink sparkly cocktail dress, wrong for the elegant muted tones of the legacy event. Half-eaten shrimp cocktail skewer in one hand, clapping enthusiastically with the other, massive grin on her face. Completely, beautifully unbothered by three muscled alphas radiating lethal dominance or the furious Northern envoy three feet away.
"That wasincredible," Chloe announced, pointing the shrimp skewer at Trent. "She just dumped you. Again. In front of witnesses. You might want to go inside and get some ice for that burn."
Tristan let out a sharp, genuine bark of laughter — the tension on the terrace shattered by it. The frat-boy smile returned to his face, but this time it was ruthless.
"You heard the lady, Trent," Hayes said smoothly, his warm hand settling on the small of my back — steady, proud, unshakeable. "The conversation is over. Enjoy the canapés inside. I suggest staying away from the shrimp."
Hayes turned me gently, maneuvering the perimeter around Chloe, ushering her under his massive arm alongside us as we moved back toward the glass doors.
We didn't stay at the gala another second.
We walked through the silent ballroom in a phalanx, ignoring the wide-eyed stares of the glittering elite, out the massive front oak doors and back into the crisp night air.
My hands were shaking with the adrenaline crash of what I'd just done. My heart was hammering.
But beneath the terror, a tiny, warm spark was burning in the center of my scarred chest.
Pride.
I had chosen myself. I had verbally mutilated the monster who'd broken me.
As Tristan pulled his black SUV to the curb and Hayes opened the rear door for me, I realized — for the first time in my entire life — I wasn't just surviving.
I was fighting back.
19
WREN
The adrenaline crash hit twelve minutes after we left the campus gates.
One second I was sitting rigid and blank in the back seat, staring out at blurring city lights, chest hollowed out by the magnitude of what I'd done on the terrace.
The next second I couldn't breathe.
My lungs seized. A cold shiver wracked my spine. My hands cramped into white-knuckled fists. The fierce bravado that had fueled my confrontation with Trent evaporated instantly from my blood, leaving behind a raw, gaping crater of vulnerability and terror.
