Duke's explanation rolls out smooth as silk. "The Greymoor Pack asked me to deliver this on their behalf," he says, lifting the wine bottle slightly. "Inter-pack courtesy. Goodwill gesture. You know how it is."
No one believes him.
I can feel it in the way the room has gone too still. The way the ambient conversation dropped the second Duke opened his mouth. Every wolf here can smell the real reason he's standing in Victor's great room, and it's not neighborly diplomacy.
It's the amber still flickering at the edges of his eyes when he looks at me.
Victor accepts the wine with a single nod. His voice is calm. Measured. "Marcus."
His Beta steps forward immediately. Tall, steady, with the kind of quiet authority that doesn't need to announce itself.
"Seat Alpha Duke at the courtesy end," Victor says. "Extended hospitality."
The phrasing is deliberate. Not *guest of honor*. Not *welcome addition*. Just the minimum protocol owed to an Alpha who showed up uninvited with a bottle of wine and a thin excuse.
Duke's jaw tightens, but he doesn't argue. He moves to the far end of the long banquet table and sits. His posture is controlled. Polished. But I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers curl too tightly around the stem of his glass.
He's here because his pride couldn't let me go. Because watching me walk into another Alpha's territory on another Alpha's arm was more than his wolf could tolerate from a distance.
So he came.
And now he's stuck at the courtesy end of the table, watching.
My fingers find Victor's forearm. Not his hand—his forearm. The instinct is automatic, grounding, and the moment my skin touches his, Lune settles. Victor's hand covers mine without hesitation, warm and sure, like my touch there is simply where it's always belonged.
I feel Duke's gaze on us. I don't look back.
---
Victor guides me deeper into the pack house, his hand still at the small of my back. The great room opens up ahead—golden candlelight, the scent of roasted venison and pine smoke, wolves gathered in clusters near the long table.
Then something happens that I'm not prepared for.
A young Delta wolf—dark fur, broad shoulders—steps into our path. For a second I think he's blocking us. Then he drops his head. Bares his throat.
Lune surges upward in my chest, sudden and fierce.
Another wolf approaches from the left. A she-wolf with silver-tipped ears. She presses against my leg, her head low, her posture submissive in the way wolves only are when they recognize authority.
Luna authority.
My breath catches.
More wolves move closer. One by one, they lower their heads. Bare their throats. Press gently against my legs or stand at a respectful distance, eyes averted. It's not trained. It's not rehearsed. It's pure biological instinct—the pack recognizing something in me that I haven't even fully claimed yet.
The warmth floods through me so fast it's dizzying. Two years of Duke's chosen-bond declarations—*You're mine, Colette. You belong to me.*—never once made me feel like this.
This is different.
This is real.
Lune is practically glowing inside me, her voice a low, satisfied rumble. *They know. They know who we are.*
I glance at Victor. He's watching me, not the wolves, and there's something in his expression I can't quite name. Pride, maybe. Or relief. Like he's been waiting for me to see this—to feel it—and now that I finally am, he can breathe.
Across the great room, I catch a glimpse of Eleanor Ashford standing near the hearth. Victor's mother. The former Luna. She's watching too, her gaze steady and assessing, and when the wolves press closer to me, when they bare their throats in that unmistakable gesture of recognition, her expression shifts.
It's subtle. Just a slight softening at the corners of her mouth, a faint nod. But Victor sees it. I see him see it. And I realize, with a jolt, that she's satisfied.
Completely. Finally. Satisfied.
Then I hear it.
A low growl.
I turn.
The same wolves who just bared their throats to me are now stiff, bristling, their gazes locked on the far end of the table. On Duke. Their lips pull back slightly, not aggressive—just wary. Instinctive.
They don't trust him.
They don't want him here.
Duke's grip on his glass tightens until his knuckles go pale. He doesn't look at the wolves. He looks at me. At Victor's hand still resting over mine on his forearm. At the scent I know he can smell now, woven so deep into my skin that no amount of distance or time could erase it.
Fated.
Irreversible.
Not his.
For a second, I think he's going to say something. His mouth opens slightly, his jaw working like he's biting back words that want to claw their way out.
But he doesn't.
He just sits there, amber flickering in his eyes, and watches.
---
Eleanor moves toward us before I can fully process what just happened. She's graceful, measured, with the kind of presence that makes you stand a little straighter without realizing it.
She stops in front of me and takes both my hands in hers. Her grip is warm. Firm.
"Colette," she says, and there's no hesitation in her voice. No assessment. Just certainty.
I swallow. "Luna Ashford."
"Eleanor," she corrects gently. Then she smiles—small, knowing—and says, "I believe you already know your way to the kitchen."
The room goes quiet.
Not silent. Just… still. Like everyone heard it and is processing what it means.
Victor's brows rise slightly. I feel his hand tighten over mine for just a second, surprised.
Across the room, Duke's amber-flecked gaze sharpens.
Eleanor's hand moves to my elbow, steering me gently toward the corridor that leads to the kitchen. Her touch is light, but the message is clear.
She's already decided.
She decided before tonight.
And she just told the entire pack.