The summit's closing session began at two in the afternoon. The hall was fuller than it had been all week — visiting Alphas, their Betas, Council observers with their notebooks open, the Duskhollow wolves stationed along the walls in careful formation. I stood six feet behind Angel's chair with a water carafe in my hands, my face angled down, my posture the practiced stillness of someone who has learned to occupy space without claiming it.
The territorial agreements were nearly complete. Water rights had been settled. Hunting boundaries drawn. The atmosphere in the room carried the particular tension of men who had spent three days negotiating and were now watching to see if the agreements would hold.
Then the dispute erupted.
Two visiting Alphas — one from the northern territory, one from the eastern ridge — began arguing over a border claim that had not been fully resolved. Their voices rose. The northern Alpha stood, his chair scraping back. His Beta moved forward, hand raised in a calming gesture that was ignored. The eastern Alpha's aura flared, a wave of dominance that made the Duskhollow Deltas near the door shift their weight and bare their necks without thinking.
Angel did not stand. He did not raise his voice. He simply spoke.
"Enough."
The Alpha tone dropped into the room like a stone through water. It was not loud. It did not need to be. The tone moved through the air with physical weight, a command that bypassed conscious thought and went straight to the wolf inside every person present. The two arguing Alphas went silent mid-sentence. The northern Alpha's knees bent slightly, his body responding to the dominance before his mind could object. The eastern Alpha's aura collapsed inward, suppressed, his wolf pressing him into submission from the inside.
Every warrior in the hall straightened. Spines went rigid. Eyes dropped. The Council observers stopped writing and simply watched.
Angel continued in the same measured tone, the Alpha authority still present but no longer crushing. "The border claim was addressed in session two. The agreement stands as written. If either of you wishes to challenge it, you do so through formal Council channels. Not here. Not now."
Silence.
The northern Alpha sat. The eastern Alpha nodded once, his jaw tight, his aura still suppressed. The dispute was over. The session continued.
I stood behind Angel's chair with the carafe in my hands and felt the Alpha tone move through my chest like a wave of cold water. Not in submission — I had no wolf to submit — but in the specific, nauseating familiarity of a voice I had once loved. A voice that had whispered my name in the dark. A voice that had spoken the rejection vow before three hundred witnesses.
My scar flared cold. The dead bond inside my chest gave a single hard pull, like something testing a chain that had rusted but not broken.
My hands stayed steady on the carafe.
When the session resumed, Angel turned in his chair. Not fully. Just enough to glance back, as though checking that the water was still there, that I was still there. His eyes found mine.
I was watching him.
I had not meant to be. I should have been looking at the floor, at the carafe, at anything else. But I was watching him with an expression I had not prepared, something that came from a place deeper than strategy.
He froze.
It was brief — a half-second pause, his eyes widening slightly, his mouth parting as though he wanted to speak. Then he turned back to the table. But I saw his hand tighten on the armrest. I saw the tension move through his shoulders.
He carried that expression for the rest of the day. I know because I watched him carry it.
*
The third evening of the summit, I was in the Omega quarters helping Lily with her dinner when Catalina found me.
"She's been in the kitchens," Catalina said quietly. She did not sit. "Mariah. Twice today. Both times near the Omega meal prep."
I looked up from Lily's plate. "Did she touch anything?"
"I don't know. But she was alone for three minutes the second time. The kitchen staff didn't think to watch her."
I set down the spoon I had been holding. My pulse did not change. My hands did not shake. But something cold moved through my chest, slow and deliberate.
"Stay with Lily," I said. "Don't let her out of your sight."
Catalina nodded. "What are you going to do?"
"Check the food."
I went to the kitchens. The Omega meal service had already been plated and distributed. I found the head cook and asked which dishes had been prepared in the last hour. She pointed to the stew pot, the bread basket, the vegetable tray. I leaned over the stew and inhaled.
Nothing unusual. Just broth, meat, the faint bitterness of root vegetables.
I went back to the Omega quarters. Lily was eating her bread, her small hands tearing pieces and dipping them in the stew. Catalina sat across from her, watching.
I sat down beside Lily. "How does it taste, baby?"
"Good," she said. She smiled. "Can I have more?"
"Finish what you have first."
She nodded and took another bite.
I watched her eat. My pulse was steady. My hands were folded in my lap. Everything was fine.
Then, an hour later, Lily began to shake.
It started in her hands. A small tremor, barely visible, the kind of thing you might miss if you were not watching closely. Then her shoulders. Then her whole body.
She dropped the crayon she had been holding. Her eyes went wide.
"Mama—"
She collapsed.
I caught her before she hit the floor. Her body arched in my arms, her spine bending backward, her mouth open, foam forming at the corner of her lips. Her eyes rolled back. Her small hands clenched into fists.
I screamed.
I did not mean to. I had not screamed in eight years. But the sound tore out of me, raw and animal, a sound I did not recognize as my own.
"CATALINA!"
She was there in seconds. She took one look at Lily and her face went white.
"Wolfsbane," she said. "Concentrated. Get her to the healer. Now."
I lifted Lily in my arms and ran.
