Not Yours

I capped my pen and set it beside the manifest. I did not stand.

Blake held out his palm like a man collecting a debt. Behind him, six enforcers fanned across the trust’s marble lobby. Catherine and Evelyn stepped in from the third SUV, Catherine in her pearls and Evelyn in a white coat, one hand pressed to her chest as if every breath hurt.

Alder stood frozen behind the desk. The other clerks had gone very quiet.

I did not reach for my power. I knew what this marble floor meant.

“This is Ashford and Sterling,” I said. “Neutral ground under the Treaty of Oakhaven. No Alpha may draw claws here.” I glanced at the nearest enforcer, whose fingers were already curling. “Not even yours.”

The man stopped. Blake’s jaw tightened.

“I am not here to fight,” Blake said smoothly. “I am here to collect what is owed. Under mate law, any wealth a she-wolf gains within thirty days of a rejection is held for her Alpha. Forty-two million dollars, Iris. You have been doing well without me.”

“Have I?”

“Do not play games.” His eyes flashed, but only a little. “This morning you had nothing but your coat. Now you are signing leases. Where did you find royal coin?”

“My family.”

“You have no family.” Catherine’s voice cracked like a whip. “And whatever you found belongs to the pack. We have debts, girl. Salaries, repairs, the sanctuary array. That money goes into the pack account today.”

Evelyn coughed, small and fragile, and swayed against Blake’s arm. “Blake, I feel dizzy. Maybe Iris could just...” Her eyes slid to me, wet and hopeful. “A little aura. For old times’ sake.”

Blake did not look at her. He looked at me.

“Heal her,” he said. “Then we will talk about your money.”

Yesterday I would already have been on my knees.

“No,” I said.

The word dropped into the silence like a stone.

“I am not your healer. And I did not come here without a plan, Blake. I told Alder to let the registry flag the sale because I wanted you to come here, where the law stands on my side, instead of finding me alone on some road.”

His smile faltered.

I knew Alder had sent a sealed notice to the Treaty Court as soon as the funds cleared. I only had to keep Blake talking until the magistrate arrived.

The front doors opened.

A tall man in a charcoal coat walked in, carrying a thin leather case stamped with the silver scales of the Treaty Court. Two court wardens followed him. The enforcers stepped back without being told.

“Magistrate Aldric Thorne,” Alder said, with visible relief. “The notice went out the moment the funds cleared.”

“And reached me two hours ago,” Thorne said. “Lady Silvermere asked me to attend if the steward came.” His gaze settled on Blake. “Alpha Westwood. You are the registered steward of the Silvermere trust, are you not?”

“I am,” Blake said stiffly. “And this woman is my mate, who has stolen...”

“She is no longer bound to you.”

Thorne opened his case.

“The temple bond stone recorded Lady Silvermere’s rejection shortly after eight this morning. The elders’ signatures only close the pack’s paperwork. They cannot mend a broken bond. The coin sale was logged shortly after midday, so whatever she gained afterward, she gained as a free wolf.” He lifted a page. “And the thirty-day holding you cite applies only to a she-wolf who has sworn the Luna oath. She has not. Your ceremony was set for three days from now.”

Blake’s face tightened. “The coins came from...”

“From the Silvermere holdings, under the Silvermere seal.” Thorne’s voice stayed level. “They were never pack property, never marital property, and never yours. They belonged to her family long before you met her.”

Catherine stepped forward, her pearls rattling. “Impossible. Blake’s father managed that estate for twenty years!”

“As a steward,” Thorne said. “Not the owner.”

He turned a second page and read aloud, and the lobby seemed to shrink around us.

“According to Article 9.2, should a royal heir swear the Luna oath to the Alpha whose pack holds her family’s territory, stewardship becomes ownership. All royal holdings, including the sealed vault, pass to that Alpha’s line.”

Silence.

Evelyn’s hand slid off Blake’s arm.

“The oath,” Catherine whispered. “That is why you kept pushing for the ceremony.” She stared at her son. “You told me it was for love.”

Blake said nothing. The color left his face, and his hands began to shake. Then, very quietly: “You knew. You threw it away on purpose.”

“I did,” I said.

He stepped toward me, and a warden’s hand settled flat against his chest. Evelyn, I noticed, had stopped coughing.

“Alpha Westwood,” Thorne said, without raising his voice, “a steward who seizes trust funds commits a breach of trust, and the court will treat it as one. Take one more step toward Lady Silvermere’s accounts and you will answer to me.”

I watched Blake fight his fury and lose, then bury it under something colder. He straightened his coat and stared at me with open hatred.

“This is not over, Iris.”

“It never was,” I said.

The steward’s copy of the registry notice had landed on his phone while the magistrate spoke. Blake glanced at it, as if only to look away from me, and went still.

“Struck in the northern province,” he read, almost to himself.

Then he turned his head and spoke to the enforcer beside him, too low for the room. A wolf’s ears do not miss what lowered voices hide.

“Every scout we have. The northern ridges, every cliff and cave. Tonight.”

He had no exact location, only a direction. But as the steward of the valley, he knew the northern ridges well enough to begin narrowing the search.

I had known the registry would flag the sale. I had not counted on it naming the mint.

Sixty days remained before the Great Frost, but now I had another deadline: my first supply convoys were scheduled to pass through the very foothills Blake intended to search.

And beneath Blackwood Ridge, a door that only my blood could open was about to be tested.