ログイン[Selena’s POV]I hadn’t stopped moving since sunrise, and it showed in the state of my hands, ink on the left, a hairline paper cut on the right, three messages already sent and two more still waiting on my signature before the household woke fully into the day. Word had reached me twice this week that the Alpha had taken to sparring with his wife personally, every morning now, the two of them thick as thieves in that training yard while the rest of the North Pack watched Eileen Hayden become exactly the kind of untouchable I’d promised Lucian she wasn’t.I didn’t have much time left to be right about anything.Elena’s report about the garden was still sitting folded in my desk drawer, the wooden cord and the promise Kade had made Lumi in front of witnesses neither of them realized were watching. Useful, not useful enough to spend today, not when there was a bigger fire to light first.I found Lucian exactly where his message said he’d be, a room above the tailor’s on the merchant roa
[Alaric’s POV]Kade hadn’t said two words to me since storming out of the east corridor that afternoon. Found him near the stables anyway, he just shook his head, told me to leave it, and I let him, because whatever happened between him, Lumi, and Selena wasn’t mine to untangle tonight. Not with a war council still chewing through supply numbers, not with a training yard I’d been avoiding for three days, for reasons I hadn’t let myself look at directly.I found Eileen already there. Wrapping her knuckles with the kind of care nobody teaches a Beta’s pampered daughter, not in West Pack, not anywhere I’d ever served.“You’re staring.”“I’m deciding whether to believe what I’ve been hearing.” I pulled off my jacket, threw it at the bench, missed. “You put Ethan on his back last week without breaking a sweat.”“Ethan fell.”“Ethan doesn’t fall”, I rolled my shoulders. “Show me why he did.”She straightened, and something in the way she squared her weight, low, centered, already braced for
[Lumi’s POV]The South Pack envoy’s horse was barely past the gate when Kade came through it instead, still dressed for the council, ink smudged dark along the side of his hand from whatever he’d been signing an hour before.“You’re supposed to be listing everything Thornfield cost us.”“I already gave my part. Left before they got to the boring half.” He dropped onto the bench beside me, close enough that our knees touched, and caught my hand before I could go back to the shears. “Eileen handled the envoy herself. Alaric says he’ll owe her for that one.”“Good.” I meant it, let myself feel glad for exactly one breath before the rest of the week crowded back in. “Kade. We haven’t actually talked, not since the soldier came and your hands started shaking and I…”“Flinched.” He said it plainly, no flinch of his own this time. “I know.”“I didn’t mean to.”“I know that too.” His thumb found the fresh blister along his own palm, worried at it instead of at me, a habit I recognized from ev
[Eileen’s POV]Alaric found me in the corridor outside the council chamber, still fastening the cuff of his sleeve, moving too fast for a man trying to look unhurried.“The South Pack’s envoy is early,” he said. “Twenty minutes, maybe less.”“You told me midday.”“He told me midday. He’s already walked the gardens without waiting on an invitation.” Alaric’s teeth pressed together hard enough that I heard the faint grind. “Half the war council’s waiting on me to finish counting what Thornfield actually cost us. I need you in that receiving hall in my place.”“You want me handling a kingdom’s envoy alone.”“I want the Luna who out-argued my own council on refugee grain to remind a stranger exactly why that seat isn’t wasted on you.” His hand caught mine before I could answer, quick, warm, thumb pressing once into my knuckles like he could push the confidence straight into my skin. “You’ll be fine. You always are.”“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one about to sit across from
[Alice’s POV]“You’re really doing this.” I stood in the doorway of the study, arms crossed, watching him yank his shirt over his head like the room was on fire. “Writing to Selena. Tonight.”“I already sent it,”he said.“You sent it.”“An hour ago.” He grabbed his jacket off the chair, wouldn’t look at me. “Before I even told you.”I laughed, and it came out sharp enough that he finally turned around. “Three years I draft every word you send that woman. And the one letter that matters, you write in the dark without me.”“It wasn’t a strategy letter.”“I know what it was.”That stopped him. His hand went still on the sleeve, and the room went quiet enough I could hear the fire snapping behind him.“Say her name,” I said. “Go on. Say it to my face instead of a piece of paper.”“Alice, don’t.”“Say it.”He didn’t. He looked at the floor instead, jaw working, and something in me wanted to cross the room and shake it out of him with my bare hands.“I want to see her.” His voice came out l
[Lucian’s POV] Three years ago I stood on a cliff and watched a woman stop existing, and I have not once, in three years, said her name out loud to another living person. Some nights I stay wake, reaching for a body that isn’t there, fingers closing on cold sheets, my own heartbeat slamming loud enough that it takes a full minute to remember where I am, another minute after that to remember why my hand always goes to the wrong side of the bed first. Alice noticed the letter before I did. She always did. “You’ve been staring at that seal for twenty minutes.” She didn’t move from the doorway, arms crossed, reading me the way she read everyone, cataloguing which version of me she was about to be dealing with. Years of watching me build this territory from the ground up had made her good at that, good enough to know exactly how much of it was actually hers if I ever stopped needing her the way I needed her now. “That’s nothing, Lucian. What is it.” “A letter from my sister.” “You







