Jealousy

Celestine stood at the junction long after they had turned the corner.

The silk of her dress felt suddenly too thin against her skin. The champagne color that had looked perfect in the mirror that morning now seemed washed-out under the corridor light. She kept the smile on her face until a pair of visiting Alphas passed, then let it fall like something heavy and useless.

She had seen the expression on Leander’s face.

Not the polite, distant interest he usually offered staff. Not the controlled calculation he gave other Alphas. Something sharper. Something hungry. Something that had no business being directed at the girl who scrubbed the floors of this house.

Her house.

Her father’s house, yes—but hers in every way that mattered. Her mother had made certain of that long ago.

Celestine turned and walked toward her private rooms on the second floor, heels striking the marble harder than necessary. The fear sat low in her stomach, cold and unfamiliar. She disliked the sensation intensely. Fear was for weaker wolves. Fear was for girls who had nothing and expected nothing. She had never been that girl.

She was beautiful.

She had always been beautiful. Desired. Chosen. The one every important wolf in a room looked at first. From the moment she had stepped into Mosswood as a child, people had noticed her. Soft hair, clear eyes, the kind of face that opened doors and closed them behind her. She had refined it carefully over the years—every gesture, every smile, every carefully timed laugh. Beauty was a weapon, and she had learned to wield it early.

Elowen was a shadow that moved through the service corridors. Thin. Quiet. Broken. A shell with no wolf and no future. A living reminder of a woman who had been soft enough to die.

Her mother had used that woman’s life to make sure of it.

Celestine still remembered the night it happened, though she had only been thirteen. The low voices behind a closed door. The smell of something sharp and chemical that never fully left the study. The way her mother had come to her afterward, calm and certain, and told her that everything was arranged. That the silver wolf would never surface again. That the bond would settle where it was meant to settle. That the girl left behind would be nothing more than a quiet, useful ghost in her own father’s house.

“She will never be a threat to you,” her mother had said. “We made certain.”

The spell had been precise. Expensive. Irreversible. A rare silver wolf suppressed so completely it might as well have never existed. A mate bond redirected with careful, bloody accuracy. The sacrifice had guaranteed the outcome. Elowen would remain diminished. Celestine would stand beside the most powerful Alpha in the realm and take everything that should have been hers by right of survival.

The bond was unbreakable.

Her mother had promised it.

Celestine reached her rooms, closed the door, and leaned against it for a long moment. The fear had not left. It had only settled deeper, mixing with something darker and more familiar.

Jealousy.

She hated the word. It felt small. Petty. Beneath her. Yet the image would not leave her—Leander’s eyes locked on Elowen’s face in that corridor, the barely leashed violence in his posture when that mid-rank patrol wolf had put a hand on her neck. The way he had followed her afterward, matching her steps like a man already half-claimed and refusing to admit it.

That girl was nothing.

She was nothing.

Elowen had spent six years on her knees—literally and otherwise. She cleaned. She served. She kept her eyes down and her mouth shut. She had no rank worth speaking of, no wolf to protect her, no allies inside the pack. Every important person in this house looked through her the way one looked through furniture. Celestine had made certain of that. A quiet word here, a carefully placed complaint there, a reminder to the staff that the omega was not to be treated as family. It had been easy. Almost boring.

And yet Leander Thorncrest—who could have any unmated wolf in the realm, who was three days from standing in front of every major pack and claiming her—had looked at that broken thing like he wanted to devour her.

Celestine pushed away from the door and crossed the room. Her private chambers were large and carefully arranged: soft light, expensive fabrics, a tall mirror that dominated the far wall. She had chosen every piece herself. The space was a reflection of what she intended the rest of her life to be—controlled, beautiful, untouchable.

She stopped in front of the glass.

The woman who looked back at her was perfect. Clear skin. Carefully painted mouth. Eyes the color of expensive whiskey. The kind of beauty that made people forget to ask difficult questions. She had spent years refining it. She had spent years making certain no one looked past it.

Elowen had no such armor. Elowen had only silence and a dead wolf and the stubborn, quiet refusal to break completely. That refusal was beginning to look like a threat.

Celestine’s hands curled slowly at her sides.

If the little omega was going to become a problem, then it was time to remind her exactly where she belonged. Not with violence—violence left marks and questions. Something quieter. Something that would put her back on her knees where she was meant to stay. A public humiliation carefully timed. A task designed to exhaust and diminish. A whispered rumor that would make even the staff look at her with renewed contempt. There were many tools available inside a house that still, officially, belonged to her father.

Her mother would approve.

Celestine tilted her head, studying the reflection. The fear was still present, low and cold, but it had been joined by something cleaner. Determination settled over her features like a second skin. The smile that curved her mouth was beautiful, cruel, and certain.

She spoke softly to the glass, as if Leander could hear her through it.

“Whatever fantasies you have with her end on the day of the mating ceremony. My mother made sure of that the night we killed her mother.”

The words hung in the quiet room.

Celestine held her own gaze a moment longer, watching the certainty settle deeper into her expression. Then she turned away, already deciding the first small, precise way to put Elowen back in her place before the Summit progressed any further.

The bond would hold.

It had to.

She would make certain of it.