The oak door swung inward before I could knock.
"Come in, Arabella," Wyatt said from behind his desk.
He didn't look up from his tablet. For five years, I had believed he shared a cot with me in the outer dorms because he couldn't afford rent. Now, he sat behind a polished mahogany desk in an office larger than my mother’s entire cottage. The smell of dark cedar and heavy iron Alpha aura rolled off him, thick enough to choke on.
I stepped inside and kept my hands folded over my stomach. "You wanted to see me."
He set the tablet down and leaned back, steepling his fingers. "Tomorrow night is important for Ironveil. We have three allied Alphas arriving at sunset, along with their Betas." He gave me a thin, practiced smile. "I need things to run smoothly. That means appearances matter."
"What do you want, Wyatt?"
"I want you beside Skylar," he said evenly. "As her personal attendant. You'll help her into the ceremonial gown, carry her train up the platform stairs, and stand at her side while the mark is placed."
The air left my chest.
*He wants to parade us,* my wolf snarled, throwing her weight against my ribs. Her claws dug into my lungs, hot and wild. *He wants them to see us bow.*
"A transitional courtesy," Wyatt continued, his voice calm, like he was negotiating a grain shipment. "The visiting packs know you lived on my fringe. If you attend Skylar publicly, it signals unity. It shows there is no bad blood."
"It shows them I'm broken," I said quietly.
Wyatt’s jaw tightened. A low, warning vibration buzzed in the floorboards—the edge of his Alpha command pressing against my skin. "It shows you are compliant. Marcus Bellweather prepares Diana’s next injection tomorrow afternoon. Whether that vial reaches her bedside depends entirely on how well you carry that train."
He was holding my mother’s lungs in his fist, and he knew it.
I dug the fingernails of my right hand into the meat of my left wrist. The pain kept my spine straight. "What color is the dress?"
Wyatt blinked, momentarily thrown by the flat question. Then he smiled. "Ivory. See the seamstress downstairs."
"Understood."
I turned on my heel and walked out, pulling the door shut behind me.
I made it three steps into the dimly lit service corridor before my knees gave out. I hit the wall with my shoulder, sliding down until my back pressed hard against the painted concrete.
My hands were shaking violently. They rattled against my knees like dead leaves in a gale.
*Thirty seconds,* I told myself. *You get thirty seconds.*
I stared at the secondhand watch on my wrist, watching the second hand tick past the scratched glass. Fifteen. Twenty. Twenty-five.
At thirty, I clenched my hands into tight fists until my knuckles cracked. The shaking stopped. I stood up, smoothed down the front of my faded denim jacket, and headed for the bridal suite.
***
Two days before the ceremony, the fitting room smelled of expensive lilac perfume and cut roses.
Skylar Torres stood on a low wooden pedestal in front of three full-length mirrors. The ivory silk of her ceremonial gown pooled around her bare feet, heavy with seed pearls. Her rogue background didn't show in the cut of the fabric; she looked every inch an Alpha’s chosen mate.
"A little tighter around the ribs, Arabella," Skylar said softly.
Her voice wasn't cruel. It was worse. It was polite, detached, and entirely dismissive—the tone of a woman giving instructions to an appliance.
I knelt on the plush carpet with a mouthful of brass pins. My fingers worked methodically, gathering the silk at her waist and pinning the excess.
Skylar raised one manicured hand to the collar at her throat. Her fingers lingered over the moonstone setting, stroking the cold gem with a tiny, private smile. She caught my eye in the center mirror.
"Tell me something," she murmured, her tone genuinely curious. "Did you honestly never suspect? Five years is a very long time to believe a lie."
My hands didn't pause. I drove another pin through the folded silk.
"I suppose when you have no wolf, you learn not to ask questions," she added with a light sigh. "It must be terrifying, living so blind."
I said nothing. I finished pinning the hem, smoothed the heavy silk train out across the carpet with sharp, even strokes, and rose to my feet. I didn't look at her face.
"The seamstress will have the final stitch done by five," I said.
I walked out into the empty hallway, pulled the service door shut, and leaned my forehead against the cool drywall. The plaster was cold against my skin.
I reached into my boot and pulled out the small, black-backed notebook I had started carrying. My handwriting was small and tight. I wrote down the times of Wyatt’s meetings, the names of the guards posted at the eastern gate, and the exact words Skylar had used. Every debt was going into ink.
***
An hour later, I was cutting through the back pantry behind the main kitchen, carrying a fresh stack of linen napkins.
The heavy swing doors were cracked open an inch. Through the gap, two voices drifted out from the prep counter. Ranked wolves. I recognized the low, gravelly tones of Vance and Garrett—Wyatt’s senior Deltas.
"The registrar confirmed it this morning," Vance said, the sound of a ceramic coffee mug clinking against the counter. "Five years to the day. The unchallenged union clause clears at midnight during the ceremony."
"The Lycan Council actually accepted the filing?" Garrett asked.
"Filed and stamped. Ironveil absorbs the eastern ridge lands permanently. Three thousand acres of prime timber and water rights, free and clear." Vance chuckled, a low, oily sound. "Wyatt played it perfectly. Kept her fed, kept her quiet, never marked her."
"What about a contest?" Garrett asked. "If someone files an objection—"
"There’s nobody left to object," Vance dismissed easily. "The ancient pact is ironclad. The land transfer can only be challenged by a direct descendant of the Hayes bloodline. And the old man’s line died out when his daughter ran off twenty years ago."
I froze.
The air in the pantry turned razor-sharp. My hearing—sharpened by the restless, waking presence of my wolf—caught the rhythmic thud of their heartbeats, the steam rising from their coffee, the faint scrape of Vance's boots on tile.
*Descendant.*
The word struck my chest like a physical blow.
I stepped back silently, retreating into the shadow of the pantry shelves until the kitchen doors swung shut. I pulled the notebook from my boot, opened to a fresh page, and wrote the word down in bold, jagged letters:
*Descendant.*
I pressed the pencil down so hard the lead snapped, underlining the word three times. Behind my ribs, something ancient and heavy shifted—a door I didn't recognize, waiting for a key I didn't yet hold.
