Mitchell's office at the Stormridge pack house smelled like old leather and pine. I sat across from him at the heavy oak desk, my hands folded in my lap, watching him review the alliance documents for what had to be the fifth time. He kept running his thumb over the Morrison family seal at the bottom of the page—a wolf's head crowned with a crescent moon, pressed into black wax.
"Camille." He finally looked up. His expression was tight. Guilty. "I need you to understand what this is."
"I understand," I said.
"No." He set the documents down and leaned forward. "I don't think you do. This isn't... this isn't like what you had with William. This is a formal alliance. Political. The Lycan Prince—August Morrison—he's not..." Mitchell stopped. Started again. "He's powerful. Ruthless. He doesn't do anything without a reason, and I arranged this because I needed to know you'd be safe. Protected. But I'm terrified I've just put you in another cage."
I looked at my brother. Really looked at him. The guilt was written all over his face—in the tightness around his eyes, the way his shoulders curved slightly forward, the careful way he was choosing his words.
"You didn't put me anywhere," I said quietly. "I chose this."
"After three years of being used," Mitchell said. His voice went rough. "After William—"
"William is over." I kept my tone level. "This is different."
"Is it?" Mitchell's jaw tightened. "Because from where I'm sitting, I've arranged for you to mate with someone you've never met. Someone who might see you as a political asset. Someone who—"
"Someone who isn't William Gray," I interrupted. "That's enough."
Mitchell stared at me. Then he exhaled slowly and sat back in his chair. "I struck him," he said after a moment. "At the gathering. In front of the entire pack. When he announced he had no mate—when he erased you like you'd never existed—I hit him."
I blinked. "You what?"
"Beta or not, alliance politics or not, I wasn't going to stand there and watch him do that to you." Mitchell's voice was flat. Final. "So I struck him. And then I escorted you off Silverfang territory myself."
Something warm and painful moved through my chest. I pressed my thumb against my wrist beneath the desk where he couldn't see.
"Thank you," I said.
Mitchell noticed anyway. His gaze dropped to where my hands were folded. "You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"That thing you do when you're holding something back." He paused. "You don't have to hold back with me, Camille. If you're not ready for this—if you need more time—"
"I don't need more time," I said. "I need to move forward."
Mitchell studied me for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly and pushed the documents across the desk. "The ceremony is in three days. Morrison will be there. So will half the packs in the region. William will probably show up too, if only to see what you're doing."
"Good," I said.
Mitchell's eyebrows rose slightly. "Good?"
I picked up the documents and looked at the Morrison seal again. The wolf's head. The crescent moon. "Let him see," I said quietly. "Let him see exactly what he threw away."
---
The photos arrived two days later.
I was in my room at the Stormridge guest house when my phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number. No text. Just an image file.
I opened it.
Victoria and William. In what looked like his bedroom. Her arms around his neck. His hands on her waist. The angle was intimate. Deliberate. Staged to look candid.
Another message came through. Then another. Six photos total. All of them carefully constructed to suggest a relationship that had never stopped. That had always been there, just waiting for her to come back.
I looked at each one. Studied them. Then I set my phone face-down on the nightstand and went back to reviewing the ceremony schedule Mitchell had given me.
My thumb pressed against my wrist. Once. Twice.
Then I released it and kept reading.
---
The pregnancy news came the next morning.
Mitchell told me himself, his expression grim. "Victoria visited the Silverfang pack healer yesterday. She's claiming she's pregnant. William's, obviously."
I was standing at the window of the guest house, looking out at the Stormridge training grounds. Wolves were running drills in the early light. Their movements were synchronized. Purposeful.
"How far along?" I asked.
Mitchell paused. "She's saying six weeks."
Six weeks. That would put conception right around the time Victoria returned from Ironveil. Right around the time William was still keeping me close, still using me as bait.
"I see," I said.
Mitchell came to stand beside me. "Camille, if you need to postpone the ceremony—"
"No."
"If this is too much—"
"It's not." I turned to look at him. "I'm not postponing anything. The ceremony happens as scheduled."
Mitchell searched my face. Whatever he saw there made him nod slowly. "All right. But if you change your mind—"
"I won't," I said.
He left after that. I stayed at the window, watching the wolves train, and pressed my thumb against my wrist one more time.
Six weeks. Pregnant. William's.
I noted the date in my mind and felt nothing at all.
---
The letter arrived that afternoon.
It was delivered by a Black Moon Court messenger—a young wolf in formal livery who handed it to me with a slight bow and left without a word. The envelope was heavy cream paper, sealed with the same Morrison crest I'd seen on the alliance documents.
I opened it carefully.
The letter inside was brief. Four sentences. Typed on formal stationery.
*Miss Wagner,*
*I acknowledge the engagement arrangement and confirm my attendance at your Come of Age Ceremony on the scheduled date. The alliance terms are acceptable. I will see you then.*
*A. Morrison*
That was it. No elaborate declarations. No romantic phrasing. Just a terse, precise confirmation that read more like a business contract than a mating announcement.
I read it twice.
Then I folded it carefully and set it on the dresser beside the photos Victoria had sent.
The contrast was almost funny. Victoria's staged intimacy versus Morrison's clinical formality. William's three years of silence versus four sentences that said exactly what they meant.
I looked at the letter again. *I will see you then.*
For the first time in days, I felt something that wasn't ice or emptiness.
I felt curious.
Who was August Morrison? What kind of Lycan Prince sent a four-sentence engagement letter? What kind of wolf agreed to a political alliance with a she-wolf he'd never met?
I didn't know.
But in three days, at the ceremony, I would find out.
I pressed my thumb against my wrist one last time. Then I released it and started getting ready.
