"Yeah, I hit you." My voice was steady. Low. The kind of steady that five years of silence had forged into something harder than iron. "That first one was for being shameless enough to seduce another she-wolf's mate."
A second slap landed clean. The crack echoed off the stone walls, and I felt my wolf settle into my spine like a blade sliding into its sheath. Not raging. Not desperate. Present. For the first time in years, fully and completely present.
"That one's for climbing into a bonded Alpha's bed when your own mate hasn't been dead five moon cycles and you were carrying his pup to term."
Then a third. I put the weight of my bloodline behind it. Not the meek, muted Omega who had swallowed wolfsbane tinctures to keep her scent small and her wolf quiet. The daughter of the Silvercrest line. The Alpha-blooded Omega whose wolf had been caged so long it had forgotten the shape of its own teeth.
"And that's for destroying a pack bond and not feeling an ounce of remorse."
Three slaps. She stood there, stunned stupid.