Chapter 10

The press conference was Ryder's idea.

He explained it at breakfast, concise and unbothered, the way he explained most things that turned her world sideways.

"The Whitmore Alliance and three southern packs need proof of a stable succession before they commit to treaty support. Clause seven of the contract requires a public announcement before the end of week three. We're in week three." He set his coffee down. "We announce the pregnancy today."

Ava looked up from her toast.

"Today," she said.

"The security team has vetted the venue. Thirty-six invited press members, all pack-affiliated. No unknowns."

"Ryder." She put the toast down. "I'm four months pregnant. People are going to do the math."

"Let them." His eyes met hers. "You are my contracted Luna. The pups are mine. That's the narrative and it's also the truth. Anyone who wants to make it a scandal is welcome to do it from a pack with no alliance protection."

She sat back.

He was right. She hated that he was right.

She wore a deep green dress — fitted enough that hiding made no sense, structured enough that she looked like a Luna and not a woman who'd spent the last month sick and frightened. Ryder's stylist worked with efficiency and very few words. By the time Ava stood in front of the mirror, the woman looking back was someone she barely recognized — not in a bad way. Something had changed in her posture. Her chin was up. Her eyes held a spark she hadn't seen there since before the summit.

The golden light was resting, but close.

Ryder appeared in the doorway.

He looked at her for two full seconds and then he crossed the room, picked up her hand, and pressed his mouth to her knuckles. Not for the cameras. No cameras yet. Just the two of them and his lips against her fingers and the warmth in his eyes when he lifted them to her face.

"Ready?" he said.

She thought about the bunker. About the burner phone. About Logan's circled date.

"Ready," she said.

The venue was a sleek private hall on the forty-second floor of the Blackthorn tower. Pack-affiliated journalists filled the room. Camera lights. The low electric buzz of anticipation.

They walked in together.

Ryder's hand was at the small of her back — one palm, steady and warm, and she felt it through the fabric of the dress like it was the only anchor in the room.

He spoke first. Brief. Precise. The announcement landed in the room and she watched the journalists absorb it — surprise on some faces, rapid calculation on others, a few quiet, immediate smiles from the older wolves who understood what a Luna pregnancy meant for pack stability.

Then she saw him.

Second row. Aisle seat. A face she hadn't seen in four months but that her body recognized like a warning siren.

Logan Reed.

He wasn't press. He wasn't pack-affiliated. He was sitting in a chair that had been vetted and cleared and he was looking at her with flat, cold eyes that moved from her face to her belly and stayed there.

His right hand was inside his jacket.

The room kept going around her — questions, camera flashes, Ryder's steady voice answering the first journalist — and none of it was real anymore. Her vision had narrowed to Logan's hand inside his jacket and the sick certainty spreading through her chest.

She pressed Ryder's arm once.

He felt it. She knew he did — his posture changed, barely a millimeter, the slight shift of a man who had fought in enough dangerous rooms to read a warning through skin contact.

But it was too slow.

Logan stood.

His hand came out of his jacket.

The silver dagger caught the light.

People screamed. The room lurched into chaos — bodies rising, chairs tipping, cameras swinging wildly.

The blade was aimed directly at her abdomen.

Ava didn't move.

She couldn't have said afterward why she didn't move — instinct, maybe, or something older, the golden light surging up to replace fear with a terrible, burning stillness.

Logan never reached her.

Ryder shifted mid-leap.

Not fully — a half-shift, faster than a full turn, bones cracking and reforming in the space of a breath. He crossed twelve feet of room in less time than it took the dagger to fall and caught Logan by the throat with one massive hand.

They went down together.

The dagger skittered across the floor. Three security wolves were on Logan before he could roll. Ryder rose from the ground with his eyes blazing red and one hand still locked in Logan's collar, breathing hard, every line of him saying *not one more inch.*

The room was chaos but he stood in the middle of it like a wall that nothing was getting past.

Ava had one hand on her belly and the gold burning fierce in her palms.

The triplets moved — a soft, rolling shift, all three of them at once, as if they knew what had almost happened.

Ryder's head turned.

His eyes found hers across the room.

He released Logan to his security team. He crossed to her in three strides and his hands came up to frame her face — gentle, careful, completely at odds with what she'd just watched him almost do.

"Are you hurt?" Low. Urgent.

"No," she said.

His forehead dropped to hers.

His hands were shaking.

She felt it — just a small tremor, barely there, hidden quickly. The only crack in the War God's surface she had ever seen.

She pressed her hand flat over his chest.

His heart was hammering.

She left her hand there until it slowed.