Chapter 12:Nothing to Add

Wren POV

They actually made me come to dinner this time.

Rosalind asked, gentle about it, the kind of ask that isn't really a question. Something about not wanting Alpha Vane to think we were hiding anyone. I knew exactly what that meant. It meant they needed me in the room to look normal, and then needed me to be silent so the story stayed clean.

I sat at the far end of the table, across from Emeric, three seats down from where I used to sit as a kid. Calla sat close to Damian, glowing in that soft candlelight way she always managed without trying.

"So," Emeric said, halfway through the first course, not looking at anyone in particular, "I understand there was some trouble a couple years back. Prison, I heard."

The table went quiet in that way rooms go quiet when everyone's deciding who has to answer first.

"It's a difficult subject," Rosalind said carefully, setting her fork down. "But I suppose you deserve to know, given you're here to consider a match with our family."

"Only if you're comfortable sharing it."

"Wren was involved in a serious incident," Damian said, jumping in before Rosalind had to. His voice had that practiced evenness to it, the kind you get from telling the same story enough times that it stops feeling like lying. "It resulted in real harm to Calla. She took responsibility and served her sentence for it."

"What kind of harm?" Emeric asked.

Calla's fork paused, delicate, like the memory itself was too painful to continue eating through.

"I don't love talking about it," she said softly. "It's still hard, even now. Let's just say it left scars that aren't only physical."

She glanced toward me when she said it, brief, wounded, exactly the kind of look that makes everyone at the table feel like they should apologize on my behalf. I kept my eyes on my plate.

"That must've been awful for you both," Emeric said, and something in his voice made me look up. Not sympathy exactly. More like he was testing the weight of the words, seeing if they held up.

"We're healing," Calla said, reaching over to squeeze Damian's hand like this whole conversation was costing her something enormous. "Family's complicated. I try to remember Wren's been through a lot too, even if what happened wasn't fair to me."

Not fair to me. Like it had simply happened to her, weather instead of a choice somebody made.

"Two years is a long sentence," Emeric said, "for a first offense, especially within a pack family. Usually that kind of thing gets handled internally."

"The circumstances were serious," Damian said quickly. "The council felt formal punishment was necessary."

"Is that so?" Emeric's tone stayed even, but something behind his eyes sharpened slightly. "Who presided over that council?"

"My father," Rosalind said. "Before he passed."

"And Wren didn't contest it?"

"She confessed," Calla said, almost apologetic on my behalf. "She admitted what she did."

I felt every eye at the table drift toward me then, waiting. This was the part where I was supposed to look ashamed. Where I was supposed to nod along, confirm the story, make everyone comfortable with the version they all agreed to believe two years ago.

I didn't say anything.

"Wren," Emeric said, looking at me directly for the first time since the subject came up. "Is that how you'd tell it?"

I could feel Damian go still beside Calla. Rosalind's hand tightened slightly around her water glass. Even Calla's expression flickered, just for a second, some small crack underneath the sympathy.

I thought about a hundred different answers. I thought about telling him the truth right there at that table, watching everyone's story fall apart in real time. I thought about how satisfying that might feel, and how quickly it would turn into a mess I'd have to live inside afterward, a war between my word and Calla's, fought in a house that had already decided whose word mattered before I even opened my mouth.

I thought about two years of learning that speaking up changed nothing except how hard the next punishment landed.

"No," I said. "Nothing to add."

The word came out flat, easy, like I was answering a question about whether I wanted more bread.

Emeric's expression didn't change much, but something behind his eyes did. He expected a denial, I think. Or tears. Or some quiet, bitter defense of myself, even a small one. That's what people expect from someone accused of something they didn't do.

What he got instead was nothing. Just a flat, tired no, and a woman going back to her plate like the conversation had already used up more of her attention than it deserved.

"That's it?" he asked. "No side of your own?"

"What would be the point," I said, not looking up. "You've already heard the story. Doesn't matter much what I add to it now."

Nobody at the table said anything for a second. Rosalind's shoulders relaxed slightly, relieved the moment had passed without incident. Damian was staring at his plate like it had personally wronged him. Calla recovered fastest, sliding back into her soft, wounded expression like she'd never been rattled at all.

"She's been through so much," Calla said gently, filling the silence. "I think it's just easier for her not to relive it."

"Sure," Emeric said,but he was still looking at me when he said it, something calculating behind his eyes now instead of simple curiosity.

I kept eating. Didn't give him anything else to work with.

But I could feel it, the whole rest of that dinner, the way his attention kept drifting back toward me every few minutes, like he was turning something over in his head that didn't sit right no matter which way he looked at it.

I meant that flat no to end the conversation.

Instead, I got the distinct feeling it had only just started one.