Mariah Porter arrived at Duskhollow on Thursday afternoon, unannounced, in a car that cost more than the pack house.
I was folding linens in the service wing when I heard the commotion at the front entrance — voices rising in the careful, performative warmth of pack diplomacy, the Duskhollow Alpha's Beta moving quickly to greet someone whose rank required immediate attention. I did not need to look. I knew the cadence of that kind of arrival. Someone who expected doors to open before they knocked.
I finished the sheet I was folding, set it on the stack, and kept working.
By evening, Mariah had made her presence felt throughout the house. I heard her laugh twice during the dinner service — bright, musical, the kind of sound designed to carry. She greeted the Duskhollow Alpha with practiced Luna warmth, her hand extended, her mark visible on her neck where everyone could see it. The mark Angel had given her eight years ago, the one that should have been mine.
I served wine at the far end of the hall and did not look in her direction.
After the meal, I carried a tray of empty glasses toward the kitchen. The service corridor was dim, lit only by the small sconces near the floor. I was halfway through when I heard footsteps behind me.
I did not turn. I set the tray on the side table and began sorting the glasses by size, a task that required no thought and gave my hands something to do.
"Everly."
Her voice had not changed. Still clear, still controlled, still carrying the particular authority of a woman who had spent eight years learning how to sound like she belonged in the position she had taken.
I turned.
Mariah stood three feet away, her posture perfect, her expression carefully neutral. She wore a dress that cost more than I made in six months. Her hair was pulled back in the style Ironveil Lunas favored — sleek, severe, designed to draw attention to the mark on her neck. She looked at me the way you might look at something you had stepped over on the street and then, for reasons you could not explain, decided to step back and examine.
"Mariah," I said. My voice was even. "Was there something you needed?"
She smiled. It did not reach her eyes.
"I wanted to see you," she said. "It's been a long time."
"Eight years."
"Yes." She took a step closer. The performance dropped. Her smile thinned into something colder, sharper, more honest than anything she had shown the pack at dinner. "Whatever you think you're doing here, Everly, it's over. You understand that, don't you?"
I said nothing. I had prepared for this conversation the way you prepare for weather — by knowing it is coming and deciding in advance not to let it move you.
"Angel is mine," she continued. Her voice was measured, precise, each word placed with the care of someone who had rehearsed this speech more than once. "The pack is mine. The mark is mine. You had your chance and you were found wanting. The Moon Goddess made a mistake with you, and we corrected it."
I let her finish. Then I met her eyes.
"You still smell like nothing, Mariah," I said quietly. "You know he can tell."
Her composure fractured.
It was brief — a flicker across her face, a tightening at the corners of her mouth, a breath that caught and held for half a second too long. Then she recovered. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and the Luna mask slid back into place.
But I had seen it. And she knew I had seen it.
"Stay away from him," she said. Her voice was lower now, stripped of the measured ice, raw at the edges. "Stay away from my mate."
She turned and walked back down the corridor, her heels sharp against the stone floor. I watched her go. Then I picked up the tray and continued toward the kitchen.
Catalina was waiting near the stove, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
"She found you," she said.
"Yes."
"And?"
"She's scared." I set the tray down and began rinsing the glasses, one by one, in the deep sink. "She knows the jasmine hasn't faded. She knows his wolf hasn't quieted. She's spent eight years building something on a foundation she knows is cracked, and now she can feel it starting to shift."
Catalina nodded slowly. "Good. Scared people make mistakes."
I dried the first glass and set it on the rack. "She'll try something."
"Let her." Catalina's voice was flat, matter-of-fact. "We're close now. The stage is almost ready. Let her do whatever she's going to do. It won't matter."
*
The next morning, I was summoned to the Duskhollow Alpha's office.
He sat behind his desk with a piece of paper in his hand, his expression carefully neutral in the way of Alphas who are navigating something they do not fully understand but know is politically delicate.
"Alpha Dunn has made a formal request," he said. He did not look at me directly. "He's asked for you to serve as his personal attendant for the remainder of the summit sessions. He's offering the correct rate. More than correct, actually."
I said nothing.
"I'm not required to approve it," he continued. "But refusing an Alpha of his rank without cause would be... complicated."
"I understand," I said.
"You'll report to his guest quarters tomorrow morning at eight. You'll attend him during the day sessions. Standard service protocols apply." He paused. "If there's any issue — any issue at all — you come to me immediately."
"Yes, Alpha."
He dismissed me with a nod. I left his office, walked down the corridor to the service wing, and found Catalina in the linen room.
"He's requested me," I said.
She looked up from the inventory sheet she was reviewing. "Requested you for what?"
"Personal attendant. For the rest of the summit."
Catalina set the sheet down. Her eyes narrowed. "He's trying to keep you close."
"Yes."
"And you're going to let him."
"Yes."
She studied my face for a long moment. Then she nodded. "The Council representatives are confirmed for next week. The senior ones. The ones whose testimony will matter."
"I know."
"If he proposes the re-marking publicly, before them, you'll have your stage."
"I know," I said again.
Catalina crossed her arms. "Are you certain, Everly? Once you accept the assignment, once you're in proximity to him every day, the bond scar is going to pull. His wolf is going to push. You'll feel it."
"I've been feeling it for eight years," I said quietly. "I can feel it for one more week."
She held my gaze. Then, finally, she asked the question she had been holding since Wednesday morning.
"Are you certain?"
I thought of Lily upstairs, asleep with her silver wolf drawing on the pillow. I thought of my mother in the healer's ward, silent for eight years, her wolf dormant, her bills paid in my labor. I thought of the cold scar on my neck and the phantom pain that pulsed every time Angel Dunn was within a hundred miles.
I thought of the Lycan Council. The public ceremony. The rejection vow I had been practicing in the dark for six years.
"I've been certain for six years," I said. "I was just waiting for him to arrive."
Catalina nodded once. "Then let's finish this."
