Chapter 27

Thorne agreed to meet two days later, on neutral ground at the edge of Voss territory, a clearing chosen because it belonged to neither pack and both at once.

Ivy stood beside Kade and Odalys, security spread wide but not crowding close, and watched Thorne walk into the clearing flanked by four of his own people. He was younger than Ivy expected, sharp-eyed, carrying himself with the same restless energy she'd felt in Corin the night he'd broken into her mother's house.

"You came," Thorne said, eyes moving over the three of them, lingering longest on Ivy. "Braver than I expected, coming to me instead of hiding behind Voss walls."

"I'm not hiding from anything," Ivy said. "I came because this is my choice to make, not something to be decided around me by people who've never actually asked what I want."

"And what do you want?"

"Peace," Ivy said simply. "Between my bloodlines, both of them. Not a war fought over me like I'm territory to be claimed."

Thorne's jaw tightened. "Ashgrove was erased, girl. Records burned, elders scattered, a whole pack forced into hiding for sixty-one years because one Voss alpha decided we were inconvenient. You want peace? Peace is easy to ask for from the side that already won."

"I didn't win anything," Ivy said. "I found out three weeks ago that I even had a bloodline worth fighting over. I've spent every day since then trying to survive decisions other people made before I was even born." She held his gaze, steady, feeling that new sense hum quiet and certain in her chest. "You want justice for what happened to Ashgrove. I understand that. But taking me by force doesn't give you justice, Thorne. It just makes you the next person deciding my life without asking me first."

Something flickered behind Thorne's sharp eyes — not agreement, not yet, but the first crack of doubt Ivy had seen from him.

"Voss owes Ashgrove a debt," he said. "That doesn't disappear because you're uncomfortable with how I'd collect it."

"No," Kade said, stepping forward. "It doesn't. I'm not disputing the debt. I'm disputing your right to collect it through my mate without her consent." He kept his voice level, careful, none of the challenge-fight fury from two nights ago showing through. "Odalys and I have already begun discussing formal recognition. Territory rights. A voice on this council for Ashgrove's remaining people, permanent, written into pack law where it can't be erased again by whoever holds this seat next."

Thorne looked to Odalys, something searching in his expression. "Is that true?"

"It's true," Odalys said. "I've spent sixty-one years trying to rebuild what patience and diplomacy could recover. You've spent your whole life angry that patience hasn't been fast enough. I understand that anger, Thorne. I've felt it myself, more nights than I'd like to admit. But taking that child's mother by force doesn't rebuild Ashgrove. It just proves every story Voss ever told about us being dangerous enough to erase."

The clearing went quiet, wind moving through the trees the only sound for a long moment.

"Formal recognition," Thorne said finally, testing the words like he didn't quite trust them yet. "Territory. A voice on the council. Not just words in a hearing that gets forgotten the moment the danger passes."

"Written into law," Kade said. "Permanent. I'll have the council ratify it within the week, with Odalys as Ashgrove's formal representative until your people choose their own."

Thorne studied all three of them a long moment, weighing something Ivy couldn't fully read.

"I still don't trust Voss," he said finally. "Sixty-one years doesn't undo itself in one conversation."

"I'm not asking you to trust us," Ivy said. "I'm asking you to give this a chance to become something worth trusting, instead of deciding it's already failed before it's even started."

Something in Thorne's face eased, just slightly, the sharp edges of his anger softening into something closer to tired resignation.

"Fine," he said. "A chance. That's all I'm offering. If Voss breaks this promise the way it broke the last one—"

"It won't," Kade said. "You have my word, and I intend to spend the rest of my life making sure that word means something."

Thorne looked at Ivy one last time, something unreadable passing behind his eyes.

"For what it's worth," he said, quieter now, "I hope you're right about him. Ashgrove's waited sixty-one years for someone to be right about a Voss."

He turned and walked back into the trees without another word, his people falling in behind him, and Ivy let out a breath she felt like she'd been holding for three straight weeks.

"That's it?" she asked. "It's over?"

"It's a start," Odalys said. "Peace usually is. The rest we'll build one careful year at a time."