Avery turned her head, refusing to meet the Alpha’s eyes.

Yvette, seeing the woman she had tried to displace turn away, realized the Luna would offer no mercy. She turned to Preston Hale instead, her voice a ragged whisper. “Please... I have no family to take me in if I am exiled.”

Preston, catching Hudson’s sharp nod, sneered at the girl. “If your blood is clean, prove it. Yield your communication stone and submit to a scent-search of your belongings. If you refuse, we call the Silver Ridge Sentinels. The choice is yours: humiliation here, or the iron cages of the pack prison.”

The thought of a body search was...