The Guests

The whole house went to war over one dinner.

By Thursday, the Aurexian estate had turned into something I barely recognized. Florists hauled in armfuls of white roses. Men on ladders polished chandeliers. Greta ran the kitchen like a general, shouting orders over the hiss of pans, and every member of staff moved twice as fast as usual.

“Alliance dinners aren’t about food,” she told me, sliding a tray of pastries into the oven. “They’re about showing the other pack exactly how much more you have than they do.”

“So it’s a threat.”

“With dessert.”

I spent most of the week in Fenris’s study, but he let Greta borrow me in the afternoons, folding napkins, polishing glasses, counting silver.

Fenris didn’t mention the hallway again. Neither did I.

But sometimes I’d look up from my work and catch him watching me. And he never looked away first.

On Saturday morning, Greta handed me a new uniform.

Same starched white blouse. Same long skirt, but crisp and new, the blue a shade deeper. A thin white ribbon to tie back my hair.

“Alpha’s orders,” she said. “If you’re standing behind his chair, you don’t stand there looking like you’ve been scrubbing floors.”

“I have been scrubbing floors.”

“But you don’t want to look like you have been, right?”

I took the uniform back to my room. I didn’t let myself think about why Fenris cared what I looked like.

At four o’clock, Greta sent me down to the wine cellar for the bottles the Alpha had chosen.

The cellar was cool and dim, stone walls lined with racks that went back further than the light reached. I found the right row and was reaching for the top shelf, on my toes, when the air changed behind me.

Warmer. Heavier.

I knew who it was before I turned around.

“You’ll pull the whole rack down,” Dax said.

He was leaning against the end of the row, arms folded, in a black dress shirt for the dinner. Sleeves still shoved up, of course. The tattoos looked even darker against the dim light.

“Then help me,” I said.

He pushed off the rack and came down the aisle.

The rows were narrow. There wasn’t much room for two people. He reached over my head for the bottle, and suddenly he was all I could see. Black shirt. Broad chest. He smelled good too, which was distracting.

He took the bottle down. Didn’t hand it to me.

Didn’t step back either.

“They’re coming tonight,” he said quietly. “Nightreach.”

“I know.”

“The Alpha’s son.” His voice dropped. “Draven.”

I didn’t answer.

“Orion said he took you to the lake.” Dax’s dark green eyes held mine. Gold flickered at the center. “That night.”

My face burned. Of course Dax had heard. Half of Nightreach had heard. Orion had shouted it across a clearing.

“It was one kiss,” I said. “It didn’t mean anything. Clearly.”

Dax was quiet for a moment.

Then he leaned in. Slowly. One hand braced on the rack above my head. Close enough that I felt his breath against my ear, warm, and every nerve in my body went bright and still.

“Have you ever been with a man before, Flora?”

His voice was low and rough, barely above a whisper.

I should have told him it was none of his business. I should have pushed him away. I should have done a dozen things.

Instead, I heard myself whisper, “No.”

He drew back just enough to look at me.

And he smiled.

Not the almost-smile from the kitchen. A real one. Slow. Dangerous. It changed his whole face, and something low in my stomach turned over.

He pressed the cold wine bottle into my hands.

Then he turned and walked away up the cellar stairs, and didn’t look back once.

I stood in the dark between the wine racks, clutching the bottle to my chest, my heart racing hard enough to hurt.

What was that?

I had no idea.

But I was very sure I’d be thinking about his question and that smile for the rest of the night.

By seven, the house was glowing.

Every window was lit. Candles lined the long dining table under the chandeliers. White roses spilled from silver bowls. Staff stood in two neat lines in the front hall, and I stood with them, in my crisp blue skirt with my hair tied back in its ribbon, my hands folded in front of me so no one could see them shake.

The three brothers came down the stairs together.

I’d never seen them all dressed like this. Fenris in black, flawless, his face carved from ice. Rhys at his left in a dark suit with an open collar, rings catching the candlelight. Dax at his right, sleeves finally rolled down, though he looked like he hated it.

They looked like a warning.

Fenris’s gaze swept the line of staff and stopped on me. On the new uniform. On the ribbon in my hair.

It stayed there a beat too long.

Then headlights swept across the windows.

“They’re here,” someone whispered.

Three cars came up the long drive. Nightreach’s best, washed and polished. They looked small in front of this house.

Alpha Hale climbed out of the first car with his Beta. He smiled too widely and shook hands with Fenris too eagerly.

Then Draven.

He stepped out in a navy suit, and for one strange second, I waited to feel what I’d always felt when I looked at him. That pull. That hope.

Nothing came.

He looked smaller here. Younger. Like a boy dressed up as an Alpha.

Nyssa climbed out after him in a gown of pale gold silk, diamonds at her throat, her dark hair swept up. She took Draven’s arm and looked around the grand entrance with her chin high.

Then her eyes found me in the line of staff.

And her red lips curved.

“Oh,” she said, loud enough for the whole hall to hear. “Flora. Look at you.”

Someone behind her laughed.

I kept my hands folded. I kept my chin up. I didn’t look away.

Rise so high they’re forced to watch. I told myself.

Draven’s eyes landed on me too. He opened his mouth like he might say something. Then his gaze flicked to the brothers, to Dax’s cold stare, and he shut it again.

I thought that was the worst of it.

Then the door of the third car opened.

And my mother stepped out.

She was wearing her best pearls. My father followed, straightening his tie. Neither of them had told Orion they were coming. They hadn’t bothered to tell me either.

My mother walked up the front steps. Smiled at Fenris. Curtsied to Rhys. Admired the roses.

She passed within three feet of me.

She didn’t even turn her head.