Duncan arrived at the lodge the next morning like a man who'd rehearsed his entrance in the mirror. Two warriors flanked him, both young enough to still think posture mattered more than scent. I watched them cross the courtyard from the nursery window, Reuben drowsy against my shoulder, and felt nothing.
No fear. No anger. Just a cool, distant curiosity about how long it would take him to realize he'd already lost.
Sena intercepted them at the entrance. I heard her voice through the open window, careful and clipped. "Alpha Pierce. The lodge operates under neutral territory protocols. All pack authority is suspended at the threshold."
Duncan's reply carried that particular tone he used when he wanted people to remember he was in charge. "I'm here on pack business, healer. Asset division oversight. Completely within my rights."
He stepped past her. The warriors followed. And the moment Duncan crossed into the lodge corridor, I saw it happen — his whole body went rigid, nostrils flaring, head turning toward the nursery wing like something had hooked him by the sternum and yanked.
The suppressant I'd been using kept the twins' scent muted, barely a whisper unless you were standing directly over their cradles. But Duncan's wolf was deteriorating, and deteriorating wolves got desperate. They reached for things that weren't there. They convinced themselves of impossible connections because the alternative was accepting they were dying from the inside out.
His hand came up to his chest, fingers splayed like he was trying to hold something in place. One of the warriors murmured, "Alpha?"
Duncan's jaw set. "Conference room. Now."
I met them there twenty minutes later, Maia still in the wrap, Reuben in his carrier at my feet. I didn't bring anyone with me. I didn't need to.
Duncan sat at the head of the table like it was his pack house, not neutral ground. The warriors stood behind him, hands clasped, faces blank. He looked at me for a long moment, gaze dropping to the twins, then back up.
"You're going to submit them to a Silverfang healer for paternity verification," he said. Not a question. A command.
I set my folio on the table, opened it to the pre-marked page, and slid the Lycan Crown jurisdiction waiver across to him. "The twins are documented under Lycan authority. Regional pack law doesn't apply."
He didn't look at the paper. "Fated bonds leave traces. Bloodline markers. You know that as well as I do."
"I do."
"Then you know those pups carry Silverfang blood."
I met his eyes and said nothing. Let him fill the silence himself.
His hand curled into a fist on the table. "Three years ago you were broken. Wolfless. You had nothing. Now you show up with twins and Crown documentation like you didn't spend half a decade as my mate-in-waiting?" His voice pitched up, just slightly. "You think I don't know what this is?"
"What is it, Duncan?"
"Insurance," he bit out. "You found some rogue Alpha desperate enough to claim another wolf's pups, and now you're using Crown paperwork to keep me from what's mine."
One of the warriors shifted his weight. Duncan's scent spiked — frustration bleeding into something sharper, more acidic. He was spiraling and he knew it, which only made it worse.
I leaned back in my chair, Maia's small hand fisting in my shirt. "If you believe the twins are yours, petition the regional Council for emergency custody review. That's the process."
His eyes flashed. "Fine. I will."
"You won't get it."
"We'll see."
I pulled the second document from my folio — Lycan Council waiver, pre-signed, rendering any regional petition void on arrival — and set it in front of him. The silence that followed was so complete I could hear Reuben's tiny exhale from the carrier.
Duncan stared at the paper. His jaw worked. Then he stood, chair scraping loud against the floor, and walked out without another word. The warriors followed, both of them carefully not looking at me.
I waited until the door closed. Then I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding and pressed my palm flat to Maia's back, feeling her heartbeat, steady and small and entirely mine.
Ethan Cole came to the lodge that afternoon to handle the asset logistics. I saw him through the courtyard window, standing near the fountain with a tablet in one hand, stylus tapping against the screen in a rhythm that looked more like nerves than work.
When he finally came inside, he didn't meet my eyes. He set the tablet on the common room table, pulled up the division schedule, and walked me through it in clipped, professional sentences — warehouse inventory, border access logs, the timeline for transferring my mother's personal effects.
He stumbled once, just barely, when he said "personal effects." His gaze flicked toward my wrists. I wasn't wearing the cuffs. Coraline was.
I let the silence stretch until he cleared his throat and moved on to the next line item.
When we finished, he closed the tablet and stood there a moment too long, like he was trying to decide whether to say something. I waited. He didn't.
"Thank you, Beta Cole," I said quietly.
He flinched. Actually flinched. Then he nodded once and left.
I watched him cross the courtyard, shoulders tight, and wondered how long he'd been carrying that look. Three years, probably. Since the night he stood in the ceremony hall and said nothing while Duncan shattered a sacred bond in front of three hundred witnesses.
That night, alone in the suite with the twins finally asleep, I opened the bond.
*He tried to claim them today,* I told Caleb. *Used his Alpha tone. It didn't work.*
A pause. Then his voice, low and laced with something that felt like barely leashed fury. *He put his hands on you?*
*He tried to command me. The tone failed. His warriors saw it.*
Another pause, longer this time. I felt his wolf pacing, felt the tight coil of restraint that was the only thing keeping him from tearing north immediately.
*I'm three hours out,* he said finally. *Less if I push it.*
*I know.*
I closed the link and sat with my hand over his mark, feeling the slow burn of it under my palm, and thought about the look on Duncan's face when the Alpha tone hit me and I didn't even blink.
That was the moment he'd started to understand. Not all of it. Not yet.
But enough.
