"Otherwise, once you enter the pack estate, who knows what torments she'll put you through."
I let out a cold laugh. "Have the heir cast me out? My status is not something the heir has the authority to revoke."
Celeste bit her lip and stared at me. Something in her scent shifted, that honeysuckle sweetness thickening until the bruised-peach undertone bled through, cloying and deliberate. "If my Luna wishes to beat or kill someone, direct it at me. Why strike my nursemaid? Are you truly not afraid the heir will punish you when he returns?"
"Cruel as you are, the mating bond may have been ordained by the Alpha King, but if you harm the heir's pup, he can still sever the bond all the same."
I smiled. "Miss Thornwell puts on quite the performance. Perhaps she should join the traveling minstrel troupe."
"If the heir wants to champion your cause, by all means, send him to me. I won't run from it."
The crowd of onlookers grew indignant, their collective unease pressing in like the low rumble before a storm. "You've gone too far! Just because her rank is lower than yours, she deserves to be humiliated?"