"You're right, it doesn't. But I never wanted to hurt you. I just wanted to do what was best for the Pack. You know I care about you. You know that, don't you?"
"Do I?" The question came out quieter than I intended, almost fragile, and I hated myself for it. Somewhere beneath my ribs my wolf gave a low, wounded sound I couldn't silence. "Because it doesn't feel that way. You keep saying you care, but your actions tell a different story, Dorian. Every single time."
He drew breath to speak again. I could feel it coming, the same lecture, the same sermon about duty and honor and the weight of the Blackthorn name. He couldn't stop himself. It was as though I were a green pack-warrior who needed to be schooled on the hard truths of pack life, a pup who couldn't grasp what it meant to sit as Alpha over the whole of the eastern territory.
I ended the call without asking permission. Without a goodbye. Without giving him the courtesy of a final word.
The communicator chimed again almost instantly. Dorian's name glowed on the screen, insistent, commanding, the way everything about him was commanding. I watched it ring. Once. Twice. Three times. Then I reached over, held my thumb to the crystal until the light died, and watched it go black.
The den was silent. The city hummed faintly beyond the window, indifferent to the woman sitting alone on a bare mattress in a cold room, holding a dead communicator in hands that would not stop shaking.
Laughter rolled through the great hall of the Nightveil estate like woodsmoke off a hundred hearths, thick and warm and impossible to escape. Ivar's Moon Blessing Day had drawn the entire pack together, every warrior, every Omega, every mate and cousin and distant blood-kin who owed their place to the Blackthorn name. Glasses clinked against glasses. Someone had set old crooning records spinning, and the brass notes drifted beneath the noise of conversation like a current beneath a river.
I scanned the room from my place near the head of the long table. Neva stood at the bar across the hall, a glass of untouched red in her hand, half-turned toward one of the pack healers. She was caught in conversation but not entirely present. Her eyes had that faraway quality, the look of a she-wolf whose mind was somewhere else entirely. It didn't matter. I was glad she came.
She had been busy. The work at the Pack Chronicle had consumed her for weeks, and Ivar had mentioned she wasn't in the mood for a gathering. But here she was, dressed in black silk, her dark hair pinned back, looking like she belonged in every room she entered. That was Neva. Always doing the right thing. Always putting others before herself.
Even from here, beneath the smoke and the wine and the press of so many scents, hers reached me. Fresh frost and white birch, cold river-stone, a thread of moonflower. My wolf lifted toward it the way it always did, and something in me wanted to cross the room.
"Dorian!" Ciara's voice cut through my thoughts, bright and deliberate. She appeared at my elbow, those wide, hopeful eyes turned up at me like a pup begging for permission. Her left arm rested in a sling, the bandage visible beneath the sleeve of her cream-colored blouse. Her scent came with her, sweet honeysuckle laid over something faintly spoiled, and for half a breath my wolf went still and wary without knowing why.
"Could you help me with the prawns and the crab? I can't peel them with my arm like this."
I hesitated. My gaze drifted back toward Neva, still standing at the bar, still talking to the healer. I had meant to go to her. I had meant to pull her aside, ask her how she was, tell her something. Anything.
But Ciara was standing right in front of me, injured, waiting. I couldn't leave her hanging. The debt of honor my father had sworn under the Moon Goddess to her dead mother hung over every interaction like a chain I could not set down.
"Sure," I said, and moved to sit beside her at the table.
"Thank you. You're a lifesaver." Ciara's smile was radiant, the kind of smile that made everyone in the room believe she was exactly what she appeared to be: fragile, grateful, harmless.
I picked up a prawn and began working the shell free with my fingers. Then a crab leg. The work was tedious, beneath the dignity of an Alpha in most circumstances, but this was different. This was Ciara. The obligation was clear. Others in the pack could be demanding in their own ways, but this particular duty carried the weight of a dying Moon Oath.
"You're always so kind to me, Dorian. I don't know what I'd do without you." She leaned closer, her shoulder brushing mine.
"It's nothing. Just doing what I should."
The shell cracked between my fingers. I set the clean meat on her plate.
Ivar appeared then, two tumblers of aged scotch in his hands. He set one in front of me and dropped into the chair across the table, loosening his collar with his free hand. His scent moved with him, gunmetal and dry pine resin, scorched copper, a faint thread of juniper. His dark eyes flicked to Ciara, then to me, and a knowing look crossed his face.
"You really know how to make a man feel useful, huh?" He raised his glass in a mock toast. "What a gentleman."
I let out a low rumble of a laugh and slid another peeled prawn onto Ciara's plate.
"Just helping a member of this pack who needs it."
Ivar leaned back, swirling the scotch in his glass, and let his gaze drift across the room to where Neva stood. She was alone now. The healer had moved on. She held the same glass of red she'd carried since she arrived, the wine untouched, the stem turning slowly between her fingers as if she were counting the minutes until she could leave.
"Hey, Dorian." Ivar's voice dropped a register, casual but pointed. "Why don't you peel some of those for Neva? I'm sure she'd appreciate it too."
I frowned. The suggestion landed wrong, like a stone dropped into still water, and my wolf pricked its ears at the edge of it. I hadn't come here to spend the evening shelling plates of seafood for every wolf in the room. Neva was perfectly capable of doing it herself.
"Neva's fine. She's just taking a break," I said, and the words sounded hollow even to my own ears.
Ivar raised an eyebrow. He took a slow sip of his scotch and set the glass down with a deliberate clink.
