Seventy-Eight

Mikaela

In all honesty, I didn’t even understand why I was here. Sitting in the council room felt… pointless.

I wasn’t an elder, not a council member, not someone whose voice really mattered in these kinds of meetings.

I should have been anywhere else, maybe with my kids, or in the garden pretending life was normal. Instead, I was stuck in this suffocating room, surrounded by Alphas and elders whose egos were unmatched.

Still, I had had this gut feeling the moment Max came to call me, that this meeting wasn’t going to end well. That someone, somewhere, would eventually throw a jab at me. And like always, my instincts were right.

When that Silvermoon elder opened his mouth and said what he did, it felt like a slap straight to my face. The way he said it too, calm and deliberate as if he was just stating a fact.

I felt every eye in that room flick toward me in a judgy manner, waiting for my reaction. I wanted to walk out. But I didn’t. I sat there.

That's when Ryan spoke.

His voice c