LOGINBy morning, Rhea was finished waiting.She had spent too many hours inside the blue sitting room listening to other people decide the shape of her life. Maddox questioned, the council demanded, Isolde warned, Scarlett measured, Rowan hid behind silence, and even the guards watched her as if the truth might break through her skin if they stared long enough. Everyone had something to say about what Rhea Moonmere might be.Danger.Disruption.Mistake.Influence.Problem.They had words for everything except wife.Rhea stood before the sealed window while pale light stretched over the black pines, and for the first time since waking in the stripped Alpha suite, her grief shifted into something steadier. She could not force Maddox to remember. She could not make the council honest by bleeding in front of them. She could not shake Isolde hard enough to loosen the fear beneath her perfect face.But she could stop sitting in a r
Scarlett Holloway came without guards.That was the first thing Rhea noticed when the door opened after a soft knock and the woman from the supper stepped inside alone. Darian was not behind her. Holt did not stand at her shoulder. Even the maid who usually appeared with trays had vanished from the corridor, as if the house itself had stepped back to let two women speak without witnesses.Rhea rose from the chair near the hearth.The blue sitting room seemed smaller with Scarlett inside it. She brought the quiet elegance of old bloodlines with her: pale gold skirts, dark red hair pinned with silver, a throat held straight, hands folded with perfect grace. Everything about her looked carefully taught, and that alone made Rhea’s chest tighten.Scarlett looked like a woman prepared for the life Rhea had lost.“You should not be here,” Rhea said.Scarlett’s gaze moved once around the stripped room before returning to her.
For one long moment, nobody moved.Maddox stood between Rhea and the council guards, his body angled toward the table while his wolf filled the chamber like a storm held inside skin. The elders stared at him with the stunned offense of men who had expected obedience and found a wall instead. Isolde’s face had gone pale beneath her perfect control, and Rowan Solmere watched from near the shelves with the grim stillness of someone who had known the ground would crack and had still hoped it might wait another day.Behind Maddox, Rhea stood very still.She could feel his power pressing through the room, dark and protective, and some broken part of her wanted to lean into it. That was the old instinct, the one that remembered him stepping in front of her during council disputes, border hearings, and ceremonies where the elders smiled too softly before trying to cut her apart with etiquette. Her body remembered safety beside his back.Her heart knew bette
By morning, the Obsidian Pack had stopped whispering and started choosing sides.Rhea felt it before anyone told her. The pack house had a different rhythm when fear became a decision. Servants no longer lingered outside her door pretending to adjust trays or straighten linens. Guards stood with sharper backs and quieter mouths. Even Darian avoided her eyes when he brought breakfast, and that told her more than any official message could have.Something was happening below.She sat at the small table in the blue sitting room, the untouched breakfast growing cold in front of her, and listened to the house breathe around her. Somewhere beyond the walls, doors opened and closed too often. Boots moved toward the council wing. Voices lowered whenever they passed too near her room. The pack was gathering around a judgment before she had been invited to defend herself.Rhea wrapped both hands around the cup of tea and let its warmth press into her palms.
Maddox did not sleep after the private dinner.He told himself it was because of council pressure, because of the elders watching him too closely, because of Isolde’s warnings, because of Scarlett’s silent questions, and because of the woman locked in the blue sitting room who moved through his house like a wound nobody could name. He told himself many things through the night, but none of them explained why every time he closed his eyes, he saw Rhea.The first flash came near midnight.He was standing by the window in the Alpha suite, staring out at the black pines while the moon hung thin and cold above the mountains. The room behind him was silent. His bed remained untouched. The fire burned low in the hearth, and every shadow seemed to carry her scent though she had not been there.Then the world shifted.Rain fell through dark trees.Rhea stood beneath them, laughing, her hair soaked and clinging to her face while moonlight
Maddox sent the order an hour before dinner.Rhea was standing by the sealed window when Darian knocked and stepped inside with the expression of a man who wished someone else had been chosen to deliver the message. He held a folded black card in one hand, sealed with the Stormhaven crest, though the formality of it almost made Rhea laugh. Yesterday, Maddox would have walked into the room himself if he wanted her at dinner. He would have leaned against the door, watched her pretend not to notice him, and asked whether his Luna planned to keep him waiting long enough to offend half the council.Today, he sent a guard with a card.“The Alpha requests your presence at dinner,” Darian said.Rhea turned from the window. “Requests?”Darian’s mouth tightened. “Requires.”“That sounds more honest.”He held the card out, and she took it only because refusing would not change anything. The m







