Chapter 12: The Gossip Column

Maya's POV

I found out about the article the same way most of the pack did — through Elias slamming a tablet down in front of me at seven in the morning, coffee still in hand, looking personally offended on my behalf.

"Read it," he said. "Then get angry with me."

The headline alone did most of the work.

*WOLFLESS AND WORKING IT: Rejected Bride Lands Cushy Job in Supreme Alpha's Bed — Sources Say She's Already Angling for Luna.*

"Oh, come on," I said, scrolling past a photo of me and Damon leaving the mansion together three days ago — professional, entirely innocent, and somehow captioned like evidence in a trial.

"There's a quote," Elias said grimly, "from an anonymous 'family friend.'"

I found it near the bottom. My stomach dropped before I even finished reading.

“She's always had big ambitions for someone without a wolf. First she tried to trap the Cross Alpha, now she's moved on to bigger prey. Her own family says she'll do anything for status."

"Karen," I said flatly.

"Almost certainly Karen," Elias agreed. "Anonymous family friend who happens to know exact, specific details about your engagement to Xavier? Not exactly a wide suspect pool."

I set the tablet down harder than necessary. "She lost the house fight, so now she's trying to win the humiliation fight instead."

"Some people really commit to a bit."

The door opened before I could respond, and Damon walked in already reading something on his own phone, jaw tight in a way that told me he'd seen it too.

"I want to know who wrote this," he said, no greeting.

"Already on it," Elias said. "Give me an hour."

"Give me thirty minutes."

"It's fine," I said, though it very much wasn't. "It's gossip. It'll blow over."

"It won't," Damon said, "because pack elders read gossip columns with more attention than actual policy briefs, and half of them are already skeptical of a wolfless woman living under my roof." He looked at me directly then, something steady and certain in his expression that steadied something in my chest too. "This isn't nothing, Maya. I want it handled."

"Handled how?"

"Statement," Elias said, already typing. "Official. From the Alpha's office. Something that shuts down the 'angling for Luna' angle without confirming or denying anything else."

"Do it," Damon said.

"On it." Elias was gone before either of us could add anything else, tablet clutched like a weapon.

Silence settled in the room, heavier than it should have been for something as small as a gossip article.

"I'm sorry," I said finally. "This is my family dragging your name through something you didn't ask for."

"I asked for exactly this the moment you kissed me on that terrace." A ghost of a smile. "Consequences included."

"That's a very generous way of describing a smear campaign."

"I've had worse written about me." He moved closer, close enough that the room felt smaller in the way it kept doing whenever he stood near me for too long. "What I care about is whether it's actually bothering you."

I considered lying. Decided against it. "A little. Mostly because it's not even creative. 'Angling for Luna' — Karen couldn't even come up with something original."

"Would you prefer more creative slander?"

"I'd prefer no slander," I said, "but if we're ranking options, sure, at least give me something with better writing."

That got an actual laugh out of him — quiet, surprised, like it had escaped before he'd decided to allow it — and something about hearing it loosened the knot that had been sitting in my chest since Elias slammed that tablet down.

"For what it's worth," he said, "nobody who's spent five minutes in a room with you believes you're angling for anything except maybe better duck seasoning."

"The duck was fine."

"The duck," he said, "was mediocre, and you know it."

"I have a reputation to maintain as a professional food critic. I can't just go around calling things mediocre."

"You called mine 'aggressively fine' once. Elias told me. In detail."

"That was your suit, not your duck. Completely different category."

"Is it?"

"Obviously."

He was standing close enough now that I had to tilt my head back slightly to keep looking at him, close enough that the air between us had gone thick with something neither of us seemed inclined to name out loud, professional rule or no professional rule.

Elias's voice cut through the moment from down the hall, entirely too loud, entirely too well-timed. "Statement's drafted! Also, I ordered more duck, since apparently we're doing this again tomorrow!"

Damon stepped back first, the moment dissolving as quickly as it had built, though something in his expression suggested it hadn't gone far.

"Read the statement before it goes out," he said, voice back to business. "Make sure it sounds like you, not like Elias trying to sound diplomatic."

"Copy that."

He paused at the door. "Maya."

"Yeah?"

"Karen picked the wrong week to underestimate you twice."

He left before I could ask what, exactly, that meant — though something in the set of his shoulders told me Karen's gossip column was about to become the least of her problems.