Chapter Ten

Damien's POV

Marcus returned to us at ten forty-three.

I knew the time because I had been watching the clock the way you watch something when you're managing the urge to act before the moment is right. He came from the direction of the main entrance, unhurried, stopping twice to greet people, and when he reached us his expression was the same careful neutral it had been all evening.

But his eyes were different.

"Walk with me," he said.

We moved toward the quieter edge of the room, the three of us, Lucas falling into step slightly behind. The music had shifted to something slower and the crowd had thinned at the edges as people migrated toward the bar and the tables near the back.

"Selene made a second call," Marcus said. "Voss has been instructed to stand down for tonight."

"She's pulling back," Aria said.

"She's regrouping. There's a difference." He looked at me. "The council member she has in her pocket is Gerald Howe. Northern territory representative, been on the council eleven years. He's been feeding her information about Shadow Pack movements for at least three of them."

I knew Howe. Had shaken his hand at two council summits. Had trusted his vote on three separate pack resolutions.

I kept my expression flat.

"How certain are you?" I asked.

"Certain enough." Marcus glanced at Lucas. "Your contact confirmed it twenty minutes ago. Howe has been receiving payments through a property holding in Vancouver. Same holding company structure Selene uses for everything else."

Lucas nodded once. "It's in the file on the drive."

"Then we have her financially connected to a sitting council member," I said. "That's enough to trigger a formal council review without going through Howe's channel."

"It would be," Marcus said carefully, "if the review board weren't currently chaired by Howe's closest ally."

The clean path closed as quickly as it had opened.

Aria had been quiet through this. She spoke now.

"There's another way to move it." She looked at Marcus. "The Silvermoon Pack. If Elena files a formal complaint directly as a dynasty head, it bypasses the regional council entirely and goes to the full continental assembly. Selene has influence at the regional level. She has none at the continental."

Marcus looked at her for a moment.

"You'd have to be formally recognized as Elena's heir for that filing to carry weight," he said.

"I know."

"That process takes time we may not have."

"It takes seventy-two hours if the dynasty head files an emergency recognition petition." She held his gaze. "Does Elena know I'm here tonight?"

Something moved across Marcus's face. "She knows you're in Seattle. She has known since you founded Silvermoon Enterprises. She has been waiting for you to be ready."

"Tell her I'm ready." Aria turned to Lucas. "Get her on a call tonight. Not tomorrow."

Lucas was already reaching for his phone.

I watched her give instructions with the efficiency of someone who had long stopped waiting for permission from any room she walked into, and felt something shift in my chest that had nothing to do with the broken bond. This was something else. Something that looked a lot like the specific gravity of a person who knew exactly what they were doing.

I had called her ordinary once.

The memory sat in me like a stone.

"Damien."

I refocused. Marcus was looking at me.

"Howe cannot know we've identified him before Elena files. The moment he suspects, he'll move the information and we lose the financial trail." He paused. "Which means you need to behave normally with him for the next seventy-two hours. If he's here tonight, you speak to him. Normally."

"Is he here?"

Marcus tilted his head toward the back of the room.

Gerald Howe was standing near the far table with a group of three others, laughing at something, completely at ease. A man with no idea the floor had already shifted beneath him.

"I'll handle it," I said.

"There's one more thing." Marcus lowered his voice slightly. "Selene approached me tonight. Before I positioned near her. She didn't know I'd been listening to her calls — she initiated contact herself."

That was unexpected.

"What did she say?" Aria asked.

"She offered me a seat at the table she's building. Said the Cross Pack would retain full territory rights under her new structure and that I would be recognized as a senior advisor to whatever council she installs." He paused. "She was very pleasant about it. The kind of pleasant that has a deadline attached."

"She's trying to split us," I said.

"She's trying to determine how unified we are. The offer to me was a test. If I'd shown any interest, she would have known you and I were fractured enough to work with." He looked between Aria and me. "I told her I would consider it. Which buys us perhaps thirty-six hours before she reads the non-answer as a refusal."

Aria did the calculation quickly. "Elena files within seventy-two hours. Selene's deadline on Marcus runs out in thirty-six. We have a thirty-six hour window before she escalates."

"Yes," Marcus said.

"Then we don't wait for her to move." Aria straightened. "Lucas contacts Elena tonight. Marcus confirms the Howe financial trail with your contact before morning. And Damien goes and has a perfectly normal conversation with Gerald Howe right now that gives him absolutely nothing to report."

She said it the way someone closes a meeting.

I almost said something. I stopped myself.

Lucas stepped away to make the call. Marcus moved back toward the room.

I turned to go find Howe.

"Damien."

I looked back.

Aria stood with her arms at her sides, no clutch in her hands now, just the green dress and three years of everything between us and the specific expression of a woman who was choosing her words with care.

"Whatever happens in the next seventy-two hours," she said, "don't make a decision that involves me without telling me first. Not to protect me. Not because you think you know better."

"I won't," I said.

She held my gaze for one more second.

Then she nodded and turned away.

I crossed the room toward Howe and smiled like a man with nothing on his mind.