Thunder rolled somewhere far off in the distance, a low, grumbling warning that barely registered against the five people under punishment.

"Co-Luna doesn’t seem like the Alpha’s favorite anymore," Diane said, that sharp little smile sitting right at the corner of her mouth as they reached the open ground at the center of the pack.

She didn’t bother hiding the satisfaction she took from watching Daisy’s face tighten. After all, every one of them had made the mistake of holding onto Daisy’s words like they were gold, and every one of them had walked out of that gym carrying the weight of Daisy’s humiliation on their backs.

Daisy stood there and felt the tears pressing in at the corners of her eyes, hot and stubborn, threatening to spill, but she locked her jaw and refused to let them fall. She would not give them that.

Seraphine had not only walked away from the assassins sent to end her, but had turned the whole gymnasium into a stage and used it to leave Daisy standing in the middle of it looking like a fool. The anger that rose in Daisy’s chest was so thick it almost choked her.

But there was one thing she kept coming back to, one quiet thought she clung to when everything else felt like it was crumbling. As long as Seraphine remained out there in the outlands, the rogue assassins would find her eventually. They always found their mark, and that was Daisy’s solace.

That was the thing she pressed her fingers around when the world felt like it was slipping out of her grip.

Still, it didn’t stop the others from talking.

"Luna Sera doesn’t just have Alpha Ravyn’s attention anymore," Fred said, his voice carrying that particular edge of irritation that only comes when someone feels they’ve been dragged into a mess they didn’t make. "She’s got Alpha Voren’s too."

He wasn’t looking at anyone when he said it, just staring out at the track ahead like the words cost him something. He was already calculating what this incident was going to mean for his record, for all their records.

A mark like this didn’t just disappear. It sat in a file somewhere and followed you every time a promotion came up for review. A stain. That’s exactly what it was, a stain Daisy had put on all of them without asking.

"I’m honestly not surprised you caught that," Kevin said, glancing over at Fred with something between amusement and resignation. "The way Alpha Voren was looking at her."

He paused, shaking his head slowly. "But honestly who wouldn’t look at her like that? She’s prettier now than she ever was when she was still here with us."

That was the part none of them could quite explain away. Seraphine had changed, not in some small, forgettable way, but in the kind of way that made you feel like you’d been looking at her wrong your whole life.

She’d been right there among them, and they hadn’t seen it.

Audrey had been listening with one eye on the path back toward the main buildings and the other on the growing restlessness of the group. The last thing any of them needed was to still be standing here talking when the Alpha or one of his people came through.

She could already feel the anxiety pulling at the back of her throat. "Alright, enough," she said, clapping her hands once. "We need to start the r—" She stopped. Something snagged in her mind, some thought she hadn’t finished yet.

"Bryan," she muttered, almost to herself, like she was working it out in real time. "And that boy. He stood right up against his own mother." She shook her head slowly, her mouth pulling at one side. And just like that, she was right back in it, the gossip pulling her under before she even realized she’d stepped off the edge.

"It’s pretty obvious Luna Sera is way more than just a pretty face," Diane said, her voice carrying respect threaded through with the sting of shame. "She gave up everything she had, and we still let Co-Luna play us."

Her eyes cut briefly to Daisy, then away. There was guilt there, buried under the annoyance, but guilt had a way of coming out sideways.

Daisy wanted to cry. She could feel the pressure of it behind her eyes and in the tight space at the base of her throat, but crying here in front of all of them, in the middle of the pack grounds, would be the end of whatever dignity she had left.

So she stood still and kept her face arranged into something that she hoped looked like composure.

"I just hope she forgives us," Fred said, rubbing the back of his neck as he scanned the distance. His voice had lost some of its bite, replaced by something more tired and genuine.

"We should start before they close everything up. And who knows, maybe if we actually put in the work, she might forgive us. My sister at the hospital said Luna Sera’s only staying for four days total. That means she’s technically down to two left. So we’re not exactly running with a lot of time here."

"After everything we pulled, we probably deserve worse than this," Kevin said, nodding slowly. He glanced pointedly at Daisy when he added, "Especially with Co-Luna in the mix."

There was no warmth in the look, but there wasn’t cruelty in it either, just an honest accounting of how things stood. The others murmured in tired agreement and started spreading out across the track.

Daisy stood apart from all of it, and she felt completely, utterly lost.

Training had never been her thing. She’d always found ways around it, an excuse here, a convenient absence because the physical grind of it exhausted her in ways she didn’t like to admit.

But Ravyn hadn’t left her a way around this one. She was on her own, not even sure her body would hold up for thirty minutes at a reasonable pace.

The thought of collapsing out here was almost too much to hold. It would strip every last thread of the respect she’d spent years weaving together.

"Sorry, Luna Sera," the four warriors called out together, voices overlapping as they found their stride and started moving around the track. Their tone wasn’t mocking anymore. It carried something more real, like they actually meant what they said.

One full loop passed, and Daisy hadn’t moved an inch.

Diane peeled off from the group and jogged back toward her, barely winded, her expression carrying all the patience of someone who had none left to give.

"You’re the reason we’re out here doing this," Diane said flatly, keeping her voice low enough that it stayed between them. "If you don’t get moving, I’m going to mindlink the Alpha right now."

"Shut up!" Daisy snapped, the words coming out high and ragged, cracked at the edges in a way she hadn’t intended.

The warriors laughed. Not meanly, exactly, but without pity either. Daisy’s hands balled into fists at her sides, and she turned, whether to compose herself or to find somewhere to look that wasn’t their faces, and that was when she saw her.

Seraphine was walking out of the gym, stepping into the gray outdoor light with the easy, unhurried movement of someone who belonged wherever she happened to be standing.

Voren was right behind her, close enough that the quiet understanding between them was impossible to miss, something inside Daisy snapped.

It was a pure, scalding feeling that moved through her faster than she could get ahead of it. She gritted her teeth so hard her jaw ached, and then she was moving, feet hitting the ground, closing the distance between them with every stride.

"Sera!" The name tore out of her throat like something feral, ragged and furious all at once. "You have to die!"