Fenris went rigid.
A flash of disbelief crossed his eyes, and his brow furrowed deeper than before. The faint pressure of his Alpha aura faltered, just for a heartbeat, like a flame guttering in an unexpected wind.
Ravenna froze too. She even forgot to keep producing those thin, trembling distress pheromones.
I pulled a cloth from the side table and wiped the wine from my hands. Then I crouched down.
I picked up the shards of glass from the floor one by one, bare-handed, and dropped them into the waste bin nearby. A sliver bit into my palm. I didn't flinch. My wolf, that quiet presence curled deep inside me, didn't even stir. She had grown used to small pains long ago.
When I was done, I stood and looked at Fenris.
"My clothes are stained. I'm going upstairs to change."
I turned and walked toward the upper floor of the den, my spine perfectly straight.
His gaze stayed fixed on my back the entire way. I could feel it like a physical thing, the weight of an Alpha's attention pressing between my shoulder blades. I did not lower my head. I did not hunch my shoulders. I gave him nothing.
Back in the Alpha Suite, I shut the door.
I leaned against it and closed my eyes.
Seven years of devotion. Seven years of tending his wounds after territorial skirmishes, of managing his household, of warming his den and bearing every indignity with the quiet endurance expected of an unmated Omega. Today, that chapter was finally over.
The communicator on the nightstand pulsed with a soft silver glow.
An encrypted message from Alaric Silvercrest.
"Seraphina, the passage through the border territories has been secured. The Silvercrest Pack's sentinels will arrive in the Capital Territory in three days. Whatever the Blackthorn Pack owes you, I will make them pay back tenfold. A hundredfold."
I stared at the message. My eyes burned with heat, and deep in my chest, my wolf lifted her head for the first time in what felt like years. Not a whimper. Not a growl. Just a slow, trembling awareness, like a creature scenting home on a distant wind.
The bedroom door swung open without warning.
Fenris strode in on those long legs, his sharp gaze locking onto the communicator in my hand. His presence flooded the room, that thick Alpha aura rolling ahead of him like a storm front, heavy with authority and the demand to submit.
He crossed the room in three steps and snatched the device away.
The screen went dark at that exact moment.
He didn't try to unlock it. He tossed it onto the thick fur rug like it was nothing.
Then he reached out and gripped my chin, forcing my face up toward his. His fingers were rough, calloused from years of fighting in shifted form. The grip was not gentle. It was possession. It was control.
"Downstairs just now. Why didn't you put up a fight?" His tone was probing, almost suspicious. His nostrils flared slightly, as though trying to read something in my scent that my face refused to give him.
I met his eyes. My voice was flat, without a single ripple of emotion.
"You've always said my temperament is too sharp. That I should learn to be more yielding. I gave her the Luna's Moonstone Circlet and the Bloodrose Pendant. Isn't that exactly what you wanted?"
Something complicated flickered through his gaze. His wolf was close to the surface; I could see it in the way the grey of his irises darkened, the way his jaw worked as though clenching back words that belonged to the animal rather than the man.
He released my chin, wrapped both arms around my waist, and pulled me against his chest.
His scent washed over me. Charred oak and iron and the cold bite of winter pine. That was Fenris. But threaded through it now, clinging to the collar of his shirt and the hollow of his throat, was something else. Jasmine and synthetic sweetness. Ravenna's scent. The two tangled together, and my stomach turned. My wolf recoiled, pressing herself flat against the floor of my mind, ears pinned back in revulsion.
Fenris lowered his head, his lips brushing the shell of my ear.
"Seraphina, I know today was hard on you. Ravenna's older sister was crippled shielding me from a silver blade during a border raid years ago. I owe a blood debt to her family. Taking care of Ravenna is the least I can do."
"As long as you conduct yourself properly and stay in your place, there will always be a place for you in the Blackthorn Pack. You'll still be the she-wolf who's been by my side the longest."
He was making me a promise. Delivered from on high, like scraps of meat tossed to a stray wolf begging at the edge of a feast. His Alpha aura pressed down, warm and suffocating, as though the weight of it alone should make me grateful.
He actually expected me to be grateful.
A frantic knock came from outside the door.
Ravenna's delicate voice drifted through the wood, laced with a fresh wave of distress pheromones so potent they seeped under the doorframe like smoke.
"Fenris, my chest hurts all of a sudden. Can you come be with me?"
His arms dropped from my waist instantly.
Not a second of hesitation. He turned to leave. His wolf didn't even look back. Neither did he.
At the doorway, he paused and glanced over his shoulder.
"There's an Alliance Gala at the Blood Moon Reunion Ceremony tomorrow night. I'm bringing Ravenna. She's only recently returned to the territory and doesn't have proper formal attire." His eyes swept over me, utterly matter-of-fact, as though he were discussing the redistribution of hunting grounds rather than the dismantling of everything I held sacred. "That Starweave Ceremonial Cloak in your wardrobe. Have the den attendant bring it to Ravenna tomorrow so it can be altered to fit her."
I stared at him in disbelief.
That Starweave Cloak. Five years ago, when he had first declared me his companion before the pack, he had commissioned a master weaver from the old territories to create it for me. Every thread had been measured against my body, every stitch infused with moonlight during a waning crescent. Nine hundred and ninety-nine silver threads woven along the hem, each one hand-blessed under open sky.
I had treated that cloak like a sacred thing. I wouldn't even let the den attendants touch it.
Once, a new attendant had snuck it from the wardrobe to try it on. The moment I found out, I had her dismissed from the den and sent beyond the Blackthorn territory entirely.
Fenris had praised me for it at the time. He had said what was mine was mine, and no wolf in his pack had the right to lay a claw on it.
