Let Them Kneel (kaelani and Julian) novel Chapter 71

The cell was cold.

Not freezing, not unbearable—just cold enough to remind Kaelani that comfort wasn’t an option. The overhead light flickered every so often, buzzing faintly like it, too, was tired of bearing witness.

She sat on the edge of the narrow metal cot bolted to the wall, spine straight, hands folded in her lap. Her uniform was a dull gray, scratchy at the seams, the fabric stiff against her skin. There were no mirrors in the cell, but she could feel the dullness in her eyes, the blood crusted at the edge of her lip from biting down too hard during yesterday’s questioning.

Three days.

That’s how long she’d been in this place. Three days of isolation, suspicion, and the suffocating weight of someone else’s narrative swallowing her whole.

The first day had been the worst.

Hours of interrogation under harsh lights. Question after question demanding names, timelines—explanations she could barely articulate.

Who are you? Why did you run from your pack? Why did you create a fraudulent human identity?

She gave them the truth. All of it.

But Elara’s version of her life had already been fed to them like gospel.

Kaelani was nothing more than an orphaned Omega, abandoned at Silveredge Pack as an infant. A kitchen girl who began working in the packhouse at twelve. And from the start, she had been difficult. Disrespectful. Mouthy. Defiant. A problem child with a superiority complex.

Lies.

Kaelani had tried to stay invisible. She had done what she always did—what she was forced to do. Survive. Submit when she had to. Speak only when the pain of swallowing her voice became too much to bear. Yes, she’d snapped a time or two. But what were a few sharp words after years of being trampled?

Still, it didn’t matter. Not here.

Not when they already saw her through Elara’s twisted lens.

They told her she was an unregistered Lycan. The words still didn’t feel real.

She’d blinked at them, stunned.

“That’s not possible,” she had said. “Alpha Garrick had me tested when I was eighteen. He claimed the results said I was human.”

“There are no records of that,” one of the Council interrogators had replied coldly, narrowing his eyes. “Convenient, don’t you think?”

They accused her of fabricating her own exile.

Even worse—of expunging her entire record.

They were painting her as a rogue. A threat. A liability that had slipped through the cracks and dared to trigger an Alpha’s rut.

An Alpha already promised to another.

The disgrace of it. The scandal.

Kaelani leaned her head back against the wall, closing her eyes.

They would judge her. Harshly.

Because she had no wolf.

Because she had no rank.

Because no one would come to her defense.

No one believes an Omega.

The clang of the cell door jolted her out of thought.

“It’s time, Omega,” one of the guards said—blunt and unsympathetic.

The other stepped forward, silver cuffs in hand. Without ceremony, they shackled her wrists. The metal was cold against her skin, but not as cold as the looks they gave her—like she was something to be contained.

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