Chapter 25

IRIS POV:

"But Nicholas wants to run my family down. He got my father arrested, made me lose my job, and got my mother fired," I said.

"I can definitely fix all that," he stated confidently. But his expression suddenly shifted to a serious one. "But I need something from you in return," he said.

I put my glass down. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I am going to help your family, but you're going to do something for me in return," he said.

I had never imagined a man like Aurelian would even think to ask for something in return, but I had no choice.

"Go on," I said.

"In four days, there is a gathering," he said. "Not a pack meeting. Something larger. Alphas from seven different packs will be attending. Pack and territory discussions." He paused. "My father will be there. My brother too."

I looked at him. "Your family."

"Yes."

"And you need something from me for this gathering," I said slowly.

"I need you to attend with me," he said. "As someone close to me. Someone who matters."

I frowned. "You mean like a date."

"Like more than a date," he said.

I sat back. "Aurelian…"

"My father has been pushing for something for a long time," he said. "He thinks stability makes a man stronger in these rooms. A partner at his side, a woman who stands with him, it changes how other Alphas read you." He looked at me directly. "I need them to believe you are with me. Fully. Not as a guest. Not as an associate."

"As what then?" I asked.

He held my gaze. "As someone I have chosen."

The suite was very quiet.

"You want me to pretend," I said.

"I want you to stand beside me and let them believe what they will believe," he said.

"That's the same thing," I said.

He didn't argue that.

I looked at him for a long moment. "Four days. That's not very long to convince anyone of anything."

"You convinced a highway full of people you were fine in a wedding gown at midnight," he said. "I think you can manage a dinner."

I almost smiled. Almost.

Then he said, "There is one more thing."

I waited.

He looked at me carefully, like he was choosing the next words carefully.

"At this gathering," he said, "you will need to answer to a different name."

I frowned. "What name?"

"Fiona," he said.

The air in the room changed.

I stared at him. "Fiona."

"Yes."

"That name," I said slowly. "That's the same name your man mentioned at your estate. The one that made you go completely silent. The one that made you tell him to leave the room."

Aurelian said nothing.

"Who is Fiona?" I asked.

He was quiet for a moment too long.

"She was someone my family knew," he said finally. "Someone my father approved of. Someone he has been waiting to meet again for a very long time."

"And she doesn't exist anymore," I said.

He looked at me steadily. "No. She doesn't."

"So you want me to walk into a room full of Lycans and Alphas, next to you, answering to a dead woman's name, convincing your father and your Lycan brother that I am someone I am not." I laid it out plainly. "That's what you're asking."

"Yes," he said.

I laughed quietly. Not because it was funny. Because I genuinely did not know what else to do with it.

"You know I don't know anything about her," I said. "I don't know how she talked or how she stood or what she meant to your family. I don't know what your father is expecting when he sees her walk through a door."

"I'll prepare you," he said.

"And your brother?" I asked. "Does he know her too?"

"My brother and my father only knew her from what they heard, not from having seen her," he said.

"So I have to convince someone who knew this woman that I am her." I looked at him. "Aurelian. I'm a twenty-one-year-old wolf from the Calloway family who was working a client assistance job a week ago. I'm not…"

"You stood in front of your father and a convoy of police vehicles and didn't flinch," he said quietly. "You pushed me away in a room where no one has ever pushed me away. You walked out of a ceremony that every person in this pack wished they could stand at." He looked at me. "You are exactly who I need for this."

I sat with that for a moment.

"And meeting your father," I said. "Just like that. Four days from now."

"Yes."

"You don't think that's fast?"

"I think everything about this has been fast," he said. "That hasn't stopped either of us yet."

I looked at my water glass. Then at the city through the windows. Then back at him.

"So what if I say no?"

He looked at me for a moment.

"Then I won't pressure you at all," he said simply.

I stared at him. "So you happily watch my family get ruined?"

He laughed a little.

"I made a call this morning," he said. "Before I came to your office. Before any of this conversation." He held my gaze. "Your mother's position has been reinstated. With a promotion. And your father's case has been reviewed. The charges are being dropped."

I couldn't speak.

"Whether you agreed to any of this or not," he said quietly, "I was not going to leave them in that situation. It wasn't right, and it was done using my name and my operations without my permission." He picked up his glass. "I just wanted you to agree, thinking that if you didn't, it would change anything."

My phone buzzed on the table.

I looked down at it.

Mum.

I picked it up and answered.

"Iris." My mother's voice came through, and I could hear immediately that something had changed in it. That sad sound in her voice that had been in every word she had spoken for days was gone.

"They just called me. The hospital. They said they made an error in the restructuring and they want me back. They're offering me a senior position, Iris. Senior. Twenty-two years and they're…" She stopped. Her voice cracked. "And your father. They just called the lawyer. They're releasing him. They said the evidence was insufficient and he should be home by tonight."

I pressed my lips together hard.

"That's wonderful, Mum," I managed.

"Are you alright? You sound strange."

"I'm fine," I said. "I'll explain everything when I get home. I promise."

I hung up.

I sat with the phone in my hand and didn't look at Aurelian for a moment.

Then I looked at him.

He was watching me quietly.

"You did that before you even knew if I would say yes," I said.

"Yes," he said.

"Why?"

"Because it was right," he said.

I looked at him for a long time.

At everything he was. At everything he had just done.

"Fiona," I said quietly, trying the name out loud for the first time.

He went very still.

"I'll do it," I said. "I'll be there. I'll stand beside you and I'll answer to that name, and I'll do whatever you need me to do in that room." I held his gaze. "But you are going to tell me everything about her before we walk through that door. Everything. I need to know who she was."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Something moved through his expression that I had never seen from him before. Not quite pain. Something older than pain.

"Maybe," he said quietly.

"Okay," I said.

He picked up his glass.

And for the first time since I had known him, Aurelian Virex smiled. Not a small almost-smile. Not the corner of his mouth smirking.

A real one.

It lasted only a second before he composed it back into stillness.

But I saw it.