Six months at the Bloodmoon Court, and I still woke up checking my neck.
The scar was always there. Cold. Hollow. A reminder that I'd stood on a platform in front of hundreds of wolves and been discarded like something that didn't take.
I pressed my palm against it—left hand, always the left—and got out of bed.
The eastern territorial audit sat on my desk in three bound volumes. I'd spent four months on it, cross-referencing alliance contracts against resource distributions, tracking signature patterns, isolating discrepancies that were small enough individually to pass unnoticed but large enough collectively to constitute theft. Three years of systematic misallocation. Two forged signatures on documents authorizing Bloodmoon holdings transfers to a pack that didn't exist.
I wrote the report in twelve pages. No commentary. Just findings.
Theodora's office was on the second floor, overlooking the eastern courtyard. I knocked once and entered when she said, "Come."
She sat behind a desk that had probably been in this room longer than I'd been alive. The morning light came through the tall windows behind her, turning her silver hair almost white. She looked up when I entered but didn't speak.
I set the report on her desk.
She picked it up. Read the first page. Turned to the second. Her expression didn't change. She read all twelve pages without looking up once.
When she finished, she set the report down and folded her hands on top of it.
"The western holdings," she said. "I want a full audit. Three territories. Twice the documentation volume."
I nodded. "When do you need it?"
"Six months."
"I'll have it in five."
Something flickered in her eyes—not quite approval, but close. She inclined her head once. Dismissal.
I turned to leave.
"Dakota."
I stopped.
"The forged signatures," she said. "You didn't speculate on who authorized them."
"You didn't ask me to speculate."
"No," she said quietly. "I didn't."
I left. The door clicked shut behind me.
In the hallway, two Bloodmoon Deltas were standing near the staircase. They'd been talking when I approached. They stopped when they saw me. One of them—a man named Garrett—nodded as I passed.
"Ma'am," he said.
I kept walking.
Six months ago, wolves like Garrett wouldn't have moved out of my way. They would've looked through me, the way you look through Omegas. The packless wolfless girl Theodora kept around for reasons no one understood.
Now they called me ma'am.
I didn't smile about it. I just filed it in the same mental space where I kept everything else that didn't make sense yet.
---
Two years after the rejection, I was in Theodora's study reviewing western territory contracts when Renata knocked.
Theodora looked up. "Come."
Renata entered carrying a bundle wrapped in soft cloth. Her face was carefully neutral, which meant something was wrong.
"A delivery," she said. "From Europe. One of Alpha Jonathan's contacts."
Theodora set down the document she'd been reading. "Show me."
Renata unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a pup—maybe six months old, small and sleeping. The scent hit me immediately: wolf, but underneath it something sharp. Chemical.
Theodora leaned forward slightly. Renata lifted the pup closer. Theodora inhaled, her nostrils flaring.
After a moment, she sat back.
"Documentation?" she asked.
Renata produced a folded packet on Silverfang letterhead. Theodora opened it and read in silence. Her expression didn't change, but I saw her fingers tighten slightly on the paper.
When she finished, she set the documentation on her desk and looked at the pup again.
"The scent," she said to Renata. "You noticed it."
"Yes, my lady. It's... off. Something beneath the wolf-scent that I can't isolate yet."
Theodora nodded slowly. "Take a sample. Store it in a sealed vial. Bring it to me."
Renata bowed and left with the pup.
I was still standing near the window. Theodora looked at me.
"The documentation claims this pup as Jonathan's legitimate heir," she said. "Delivered with a formal demand for Lycan trust territory in exchange for recognition of the succession bloodline."
I waited.
"What do you think?" she asked.
I considered. "The timing is convenient. Two years after the rejection. Long enough for a pregnancy and birth, if he'd found a mate immediately."
"And the scent?"
"Chemical," I said. "Like Renata said. Wrong."
Theodora picked up the documentation again, read it once more, then set it aside. "I will accept nothing. Confirm nothing. And I will say nothing to Jonathan."
She opened a drawer in her desk and placed the documentation inside. Then she looked at me.
"File this," she said. "In your mind. Not in the archives. Not yet."
I nodded.
When Renata returned an hour later with the sealed vial, Theodora placed it on her writing desk beside a stack of correspondence. It sat there in the afternoon light, small and unremarkable.
I looked at it from the doorway and filed the entire event in the part of my mind I kept for things that didn't make sense yet.
---
Six months later, a second delivery arrived.
This time, Jonathan sent it through a Lycan Council intermediary—a formal escalation that meant he was demanding an official response. The documentation was thicker. The demand more explicit.
And there was a letter.
The intermediary handed it to me directly. My name on the envelope in Jonathan's handwriting.
I opened it in my office, alone.
*Your presence at the Bloodmoon Court embarrasses my succession claim. Vacate your position and return to coastal Maine. Do not make this a legal matter.*
I read it twice. Then I folded it along the original creases, walked down to the court archives, and handed it to the archivist—a quiet older woman named Petra who'd been filing Bloodmoon documents for forty years.
"Jonathan's correspondence," I said. "Succession disputes."
Petra took the letter without comment and disappeared into the stacks.
I went back to my office and opened the western territorial audit file.
I didn't respond to Jonathan's letter.
I didn't leave.
I pressed my left hand against the cold scar on my neck, felt the phantom pain flare and fade, and got back to work.
