LOGINLillian’s POVDorian stepped fully into the room and put himself between Miranda and me with the quiet authority of someone who didn’t need to raise his voice to make his presence felt. He said her name once, low and firm, and took her by the arm and steered her back toward the doorway with the tight grip that didn’t invite argument. Miranda went, but not before throwing one last look over her shoulder at my closed fist, her eyes burning with something that sat right on the edge of panic.The moment they disappeared down the hallway I moved.I stuck my head out of the door and caught the attention of the two nearest maids, both of them hovering uncertainly in the corridor having clearly witnessed enough of the scene to know something was happening. I pulled them close and spoke quietly and directly. Whatever Dorian said to Miranda, however long it took, I needed them to extend it. Ask her questions, offer her tea, trip over something in the hallway if it came to that. Whatever they
Lillian’s POVI went straight home after the meeting, needing the quiet of my own space before I looked at what my investigator had sent through. The drive gave me enough time to settle the buzzing restlessness that had been sitting under my skin since Dorian’s revelation about Shantel, and by the time I walked through the door and up to my room I felt steady enough to look at whatever was waiting for me on my phone without reacting before I had fully processed it.I sat on the edge of my bed and opened the link.There were photographs, several of them, taken from different locations and at different times based on the varying light and backgrounds. Aaron, in each one. Sometimes alone, sometimes walking alongside people I didn’t immediately recognize, sometimes seated across from someone in what looked like formal meeting settings. Different packs, different territories, the settings shifting from one image to the next but Aaron always present at the center of them, always with that
Dorian’s POVMy first instinct was to follow her. I was already halfway to the door before something stopped me, some quieter and more considered part of my thinking that recognized the particular quality of what I had just watched move across her face. That was not a woman who needed someone coming after her right now. That was a woman who needed four walls and silence and the space to absorb something that had hit her harder than almost anything else could have.I let her go.Instead I walked back to my own office and stood at the window for a few minutes, looking out at the city below without really seeing it, and then I picked up my phone and called my assistant.“I need an emergency board meeting,” I said. “Today. Get everyone in as fast as you can manage.”It took the better part of three hours to pull them all together, between schedules and locations and the general resistance that always accompanied requests that arrived without advance notice. But by mid afternoon they wer
Lillian’s POVI didn’t wait for his answer. I turned and walked out of his office and back down the hallway toward my own, my pulse moving faster than I wanted it to and my eyes burning in a way I refused to give in to.I had barely reached my desk when I heard his footsteps behind me, and then my office door opened and closed with enough force that the sound of it shutting reverberated off the walls. I turned to face him.“Leave please,” I said.“No,” Dorian said, and his voice had dropped to something lower and more stripped back than his usual register, something that had shed the careful professional layer entirely. He stood in the middle of my office and looked at me with an intensity that made it difficult to look away. “I need you to hear me say this. I did not cheat on you. I have never cheated on you. Not consciously, not willingly, not in any way that had anything to do with wanting someone other than you.”I opened my mouth but he kept going.“I don’t know how Miranda is p
Lillian’s POVI was up earlier than usual that morning, dressed and ready before the house had fully come alive around me. After everything that had happened the night before, sitting still was not something my body was willing to do. I needed to move, needed to do something that felt productive, needed to put my hands on a problem I actually had some ability to solve.The company was where I was going. The Hendersons pulling out was not something I could afford to sit back and accept without at least making the effort to change their minds directly.I found Dorian in the hallway near the main entrance, jacket on, keys in hand, clearly also heading out. I fell into step beside him naturally, the way we used to move through mornings together before everything fractured, and asked him if he was heading straight to the office.He didn’t answer immediately, which was already an answer of its own kind.“I have somewhere to be first,” he said.I looked at him. “Where?”“I’ll be at the compa
Dorian’s POVThey were all seated when I walked in, arranged around the east sitting room with the deliberate formation that told me this had been organized before they arrived, not assembled casually. Elder Marcus, Elder Patricia, Elder William, Elder Rex and Elder Carter, all of them present, all of them wearing expressions that sat somewhere between grave and accusatory. The morning light coming through the windows did nothing to soften the atmosphere. If anything it made everything sharper, more exposed, like a conversation that had been waiting too long to happen and had finally run out of patience.I took the chair at the head of the arrangement and said nothing, waiting for them to start whatever brought them here with coldness. Elder Marcus spoke first. “There was a rogue attack last night on the northern border. Three of our patrol wolves were injured, one seriously. The breach lasted nearly forty minutes before it was contained.” He let that sit for a moment before contin
Lillian’s POVDorian’s entire body had gone rigid the moment Sarah mentioned Shantel’s name, and I could see the muscles in his jaw working as he clenched his teeth. He turned to me with eyes that were more wolf than man, golden and fierce with protective fury.“You’re not meeting with her,” he sai
Dorian’s POVThe look on Lillian’s face when that reporter grabbed her made something dark and violent surge inside me. Her eyes had flashed gold, her wolf clearly fighting for control, and I could see her struggling to maintain her composure while everything in her screamed to lash out. The scatte
Lillian’s POVI woke up to sunlight streaming through the curtains, my mind immediately replaying Dorian’s words from last night about executing phase two of our plan to take down Aaron. The thought sent a thrill of anticipation through me as I stretched and got out of bed, ready to face whatever
Lillian’s POVThe drive back to Fangshade Pack felt longer than usual, though the roads were clear and the night stretched endlessly above us. I sat in the backseat with Celeste’s head resting on my lap, her tiny fingers clutching the hem of my dress even in sleep. My mind kept replaying everything







