Chapter 7

MIRA’S POV

Being the daughter of a prominent figure in the Ashgrove pack came with several benefits. One of them was having a private dormitory for myself. 

I sat before the mirror, combing the oily strands of my while counting down the number of days I’d waited to be assigned to a pack. 

It was literally every wolf's dream—to be sent to another pack where they would learn better leadership skills and find their true self. 

Who would believe that my dream would slip away from my hand and rest on that of my best friend—Nyvara. 

Her name alone made her presence fill the space in the room. Only that it couldn’t take the space on the bed because Kael was there. 

I looked at his reflection in the mirror for some time before he noticed. 

“You’re staring again,” Kael said. 

I looked away, back to combing my hair. “You hated us,”

“No. I hated Nyvara, not you. Quite unfortunate she turned out to be my mate, and not you,”

“Well, you rejected her,” I chimed. 

“And you didn’t wait close to a week after her assignment to fuck her ex mate.” He boasted with a smile. 

I was about to give him a response when familiar footsteps echoed a few meters away from my door. I listened carefully until they stopped before my door. 

 Two knocks followed. 

“Mira?” My father’s voice called. 

“Hide,” I belled, pulling away from the vanity with speed. 

Kael was too slow. Before he could slip his pants on, my food swung open  and my father waltzed in. Time froze for a few seconds. Just three of us staring at each other before my father took the first step. 

“Kael…” he coughed with surprise. “Didn’t expect to see you in my daughters room,” 

“We were just going over the exercise taught earlier today,”  Kael lied.

“Sure you were.” My father said with a slow nod, tilting towards me. 

I lowered my head and fixed myself to the wall, waiting for the silence to be interrupted. Kael read the room. He hurriedly grabbed his shirt and made his way out. 

My father blocked  him with an arm just before he crossed the door. 

“Your shoes,” he muttered. 

“Ohh…true.” Kael sighed. He returned with a buried head, picked his shoes and left. 

The door shut softly behind Kael, but the silence he left behind was loud…deafening.

I didn’t dare lift my head.

My father didn’t say anything at first. He simply walked further into the room, the familiar weight of his presence pressing down on me. I could feel his disappointment like a physical thing, even without seeing his face.

“Mira,” he said at last, quietly.

That was worse than shouting.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, my fingers curling into the fabric of my dress. “I didn’t think—”

“No,” he interrupted. “You didn’t.”

I finally looked up. His expression wasn’t angry the way I expected. It was tired. Deeply, painfully tired.

“Do you know how easily rumors grow in a pack like this?” he asked. “How quickly respect is lost?”

I swallowed. Of course I knew. I had grown up watching it happen to others, never imagining I would be one of them.

“Kael is not just any wolf,” my father continued. “He is Nyvara’s rejected mate. Your best friend’s rejected mate.”

The words burned.

“I didn’t plan it,” I said weakly. “It just… happened.”

He studied me for a long moment, as though searching for something in my face—regret, defiance, understanding. Whatever he was looking for, I wasn’t sure I gave it to him fully.

“You’re being assigned soon,” he finally said. 

My heart stuttered. “Where?”

“Davenport city,”

I’d heard of the city. I’d heard of the packs within the city as well. 

“What pack?” I asked. 

“Moonstone Pack,” 

A breath left my nostrils. Relief. 

“That’s something,” I muttered. “Yet you don’t look happy. Why?” 

“I was only able to pull the strings I could for you,” he said, walking across the room and standing by the window.  “The people I met have agreed to send you off to Moonstone pack. You’ll work and train beside Alpha Hail,”

“But…” I helped him draw the line. 

“They want something in return,” 

“Let me guess,” I cut him short. “They want the moonstone pack?”

“Even worse,” Father said. He turned to me with eyes carrying some kind of weight that I couldn’t predict. “Your alliance with Moonstone and Alpha Hail comes with a responsibility that would set your friendship with Nyvara apart,”

“Apart?” I breathed the word like it meant something different. “How? What do you mean? What do they want?”

“MIRA’S POV (continued)

“What do they want?” I repeated, my voice barely steady.

My father looked away again, his jaw tightening. The silence stretched, heavy and deliberate, as though every word he withheld was a stone placed carefully on a scale.

“An understanding,” he said at last. “An alliance built on more than goodwill.”

“That’s not an answer,” I snapped before I could stop myself. Then, softer, “Father… you’re scaring me.”

He turned fully this time, and I saw it—the restraint, the conflict. Whatever this was, it wasn’t something he had agreed to easily.

“There are things I cannot say,” he replied. “Not yet. Not here.”

I pushed off the bed and stood. “You just said this would set my friendship with Nyvara apart. You don’t get to drop something like that and expect me to smile and pack.”

A muscle ticked in his cheek. “Lower your voice.”

I did, but only barely. “Is this about Kael? About what you walked in on?”

“This is bigger than Kael,” he said firmly. “Bigger than you”

That made my stomach twist.

Realization crept in slowly, cold and unwelcome. “Is this about Nyvara?”

But he didn’t answer. 

I scoffed. 

“What? The weakling goes away for a day and automatically becomes special,”

“She was born special,” he corrected. “Only delayed,”

“Born special? Nyvara? How?”

His gaze softened, just a fraction. “That,” he said quietly, “is what I can’t fully tell you.”

I laughed under my breath, sharp and humorless. “So I’m to walk into another pack blind?”

“You won’t be blind,” he said. “Alpha Hail will explain the rest when you arrive. He was… very clear that the terms must come from him.”

I searched his face, hoping—foolishly—that he would change his mind. That he would say this was all a test, a threat meant to scare me straight.

But my father was already retreating behind duty and necessity.

“You leave at dawn tomorrow,” he added. “Pack only what you need,”

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