Chapter Fourteen: Bitter Tea And Whispers

Kadence was gone before dawn.

Asha knew he was gone because the heavy, electric pressure that had filled the third-floor corridor all night simply vanished, leaving the air feeling cold and empty. Ronan had dropped by briefly to mention that a border skirmish with the Castellane patrols needed Kadence’s immediate Alpha presence, leaving the internal pack house duties under the management of the senior house staff.

By nine in the morning, Asha’s room felt suffocating.

She decided to take a step out. The key turned smoothly in the lock, and this time, the two guards outside didn't block her path with drawn blades. They simply watched her with cold, dismissive eyes, stepping aside just enough to let her pass into the sunlit grand hallway.

Asha walked down the broad marble staircase, wrapped tightly in Kadence’s oversized fleece jacket. The scent of pine and rain clung to the shearling lining, offering a strange, grounding comfort as she navigated the unfamiliar halls.

She followed the distant clatter of silverware down to the lower level, reaching the estate's wide, open-concept domestic wing.

In the bustling kitchen, four women in linen aprons were prepping trays of roast meats and fresh bread for the mid-day guard shifts. The moment Asha’s canvas sneakers squeaked against the polished stone floor, every single knife, spoon, and wooden bowl stopped moving.

The kitchen went dead quiet.

A thick, suffocating wave of casual contempt washed over the room.

The head housekeeper, a tall, middle-aged wolf female named Mara with sharp gray hair and a stern face, set her carving knife down on the wooden block with a loud, deliberate thud.

Mara swept her gaze down Asha’s frame, lingering on the worn denim jeans, the scuffed sneakers, and finally, the massive Alpha jacket drowning her body. Mara’s lip curled into a sneer of pure, unadulterated disgust.

"Well," Mara said, her voice sharp enough to slice glass. "Look what crawled out of the Alpha’s quarters."

The three younger kitchen maids snickered, exchanging amused, nasty glances as they wiped down the marble counters.

Asha’s chin went up instantly. Her street-honed survival instincts kicked in, her posture growing rigid and dangerous. "I came down for a glass of water."

"Water?" Mara let out a harsh, barking laugh, walking around the central island with her arms crossed over her apron. "You hear that, girls? The border street girl wants service. She thinks because our Alpha was soft enough to throw his coat over her shoulders, she owns the estate."

"I don't want your service," Asha said, her dark eyes narrowing into cold slits as she stepped toward the sink. "I can pour my own glass."

Before Asha could reach the glass pitcher on the counter, one of the younger maids quickly reached out and snatched it away, holding it out of reach.

"Pack supplies are for pack members, human," the maid sneered, her eyes flashing a faint, hostile yellow. "Or did nobody teach you manners down in the gutter where you come from?"

Asha stopped dead in her tracks.

The air in the kitchen suddenly grew heavy. A faint, silver static prickled against Asha’s fingertips, humming right beneath her skin. She didn't cringe, and she didn't step back.

"Say that again," Asha said, her voice dropping into a deadly, quiet register that made the youngest maid's sneer falter for a fraction of a second.

"I said," Mara interjected, stepping directly between Asha and the maid, "you don't belong here. Look at you. Standing in our Alpha’s house, wearing his scent like a cheap prize, while his real betrothed, Lady Seraphine, is at the border defending our borders. You are an insult to this pack."

Mara picked up a bowl of cold, congealed soup from the counter and shoved it toward Asha’s chest.

"Take your scraps and go back upstairs, stray," Mara spat, her voice dripping with toxicity. "Before someone remembers that humans without pack marks aren't protected by law."

Asha looked down at the bowl, then up into Mara’s arrogant, mocking face.

She could have taken the bowl. She could have walked back to her room and cried in the dark. But Asha had survived the ruthless streets of the border district, where showing fear meant getting eaten alive.

Instead of taking the bowl, Asha reached out, grabbed Mara’s wrist with a grip so fast and surprisingly strong that the housekeeper gasped.

The silver heat beneath Asha’s skin flared instantly, not as a blinding burst, but as a searing, ice-cold electric charge that surged directly into Mara’s arm.

Mara shrieked, dropping the porcelain bowl. It shattered onto the stone floor, spraying cold soup across the polished floorboards. Mara pulled her hand back, clutching her wrist, her eyes wide with sudden, terrifying shock.

"Touch me or insult me again," Asha whispered, leaning in closer, her dark eyes flashing with an ancient, terrifying intensity that made the three maids back away in pure instinct, "and you'll find out exactly what kind of 'stray' I am."

The kitchen fell into a stunned, frozen silence.

Mara stood there, trembling, staring at Asha’s palms in genuine fear, unable to comprehend how a human female had just made a wolf’s blood run cold.

Asha slowly turned around, picked up a clean glass from the drying rack, filled it with cold water from the tap, and took a slow, deliberate sip.

She turned back to Mara, looking her dead in the eye.

"Thanks for the water," Asha said softly.

She walked past them, her head held high, leaving the pack house servants standing in the ruined soup and deafening silence.