Chapter 3- Clara

The next hour disappeared exactly the way hours tended to disappear when too many people needed too many things at once. 

Ashford's new rooms required three separate changes, two calls and argument with housekeeping over luggage tags that had already been printed. While Rachel handled those, I discovered that one of the floral arrangements in the main hall had lost an entire branch of eucalyptus and looked as though something had taken a bite out of it. 

Gamma Hayes caught me near the stairs to report that Alpha Bellamy's delegation had crossed our western border forty minutes ahead of schedule. 

I was carrying two of the relocated Blackstone welcome baskets through the entrance hall when the door to my father's office opened. 

He stepped out while speaking to one of his senior warriors and I felt my body register him before my thoughts did. My shoulders straightened almost automatically, an old response I disliked enough that I had spent years trying to train myself out of it. 

He dismissed the warrior and then his eyes landed on me and more importantly, on my bare throat. 

"Clara." 

I stopped, shifting the baskets more securely against my hip as he approached. My father was fifty-three and still carried the kind of physical presence that made people move when he entered a room. He was tall, broad through the shoulders and disciplined enough through training that age had done little to soften him. Silver had begun threading through the dark hair at his temples, but otherwise he looked much as he had throughout my childhood: immaculate, controlled and entirely accustomed to being obeyed. 

He didn't ask where I was going or what I was carrying. "Where is your mother's necklace?" 

I hesitated and he arched a brow. "It's upstairs. Ashford changed his delegation before breakfast. I've been rearranging rooms ever since." 

His gaze lingered on the bare skin beneath my collarbone. "You knew you were expected to wear it this week." 

"I know. I didn't deliberately leave it upstairs." 

"That wasn't what I said." 

I took a slow breath. Arguing over distinctions with Marcus rarely improved anything, but exhaustion had worn my patience thin enough that I could feel the endge of my temper waiting beneath it. "I'll find it before the formal welcome." 

"Bellamy is already here." 

"Yes, and he arrived forty minutes early." 

"...And you weren't downstairs to receive him and his delegation." His eyes stared straight into me.

The baskets dug into my forearm. I adjusted them again, partly because they were heavy and partly because having something to practical to do with my hands kept me from reacting to quickly. "I was fixing room assignments because Alpha Ashford added four people after we'd finalized the rooms. Rachel received Bellamy and Gamma Hayes let me know as soon as they crossed the border." 

My father looked at me as though I'd explained a problem rather than solved one, "You should have anticipated changes." 

For a moment, I genuinely thought I misheard him.

There were a hundred answers I could have given. Most of them would have made the situation worse. I settled for the one that required the least effort to keep civil.

"I did anticipate changes. That's why I was able to mkae room for four additional guests without putting anyone outside the packhouse." 

His expression hardened slightly, and I knew I'd let too much irritation into my voice. 

He stepped closer. "You are representing this family this week, Clara. More importantly, you are standing in your mother's place. When visiting Alphas enter this house, I expect a member of the Westbrook family to receive them properly. That means you are downstairs when the arrive, you are dressed appropriately, and you are wearing the necklace I gave you. I shouldn't have to chase you through my own packhouse to remind you of any of it." 

"I can't be in two plaes at once," I said. "If you need me standing in the entrace hall every time someone arrives, someone else needs to take over accommodations and the last-minute changes. I can do either job well, but I cannot physically do both at the same time." 

His eyes narrowed. I knew that look, and some sensible part of me urged retreat. 

I was too tired to listen to it. 

His hand closed around my upper arm before I saw him move. Pain shot through my hard enough to catch my breath. Three nights earlier, he'd grabbed me in almost the same place after an argument in his offfice. The bruise had faded from purple to yellow beneath my sleeve, but his fingers found it with brutual accuracy, compressing already tender skin until my stomach tightened. 

Lyra came forward so violently that the edges of my vision sharpened. 

Let me out.

There was no humor in her now. No patience either. Her anger flooded through our shared body, bringing familiar pressure beneat my fingernails as my wolf pushed close enough to call my claws. 

I forced my hand to remain human around the basket handle. 

No. 

Clara, he's hurting you.

The entrance hall wasn't empty. He knew it. That knowledge was part of what made me hate the calmness in his face. 

"You don't tell me how this house will be run," he said quietly. "You do what you're told, and you do it without the attitude." 

Lyra pushed harder, furious enough that for one dangerous moment I wanted to give her exactly what she was asking for. He must have felt how close she was, because his gaze sharpened and his grip tightened.

"Control your wolf." 

The words weren't an Alpha command. He didn't lace them with the supernatural force that cuold drive obedience straight through my bones. He didn't have to. We both knew he could. 

That knowledge moved through me like cold water, and Lyra felt it too. Her fury didn't disappear, but she stopped pushing toward the shift. 

I held my father's gaze. "I understand." 

Marcus kept his hand on me for another second, perhaps waiting for something more submissive. When it didn't come, he released me. 

The sudden absence of pressure made the bruise throb beneath my sleeve. 

"Blackstone is due at ten-thirty," he said, as though nothing had happened. "You will be downstairs." 

"I still have to finish moving their rooms." I said, keeping my voice neutral. 

"Then I suggest you finish quickly." He glanced at my throat once more. "And find the necklace." 

My father turned away, leaving me standing in the middle of the entrance hall with two welcome baskets pressed against my ribs. 

The conversation around us had never stopped, but it had changed. I had lived in Westbrook long enough to recognize the difference between ordinary noise and the careful noise people made when they were pretending not to notice something happening nearby. Nobody looked directly at me, Nobody asked whether I was all right. 

I didn't blame them as much as perhaps I should have. 

Marcus was their Alpha. He had been their Alpha for decades, and people became skilled at surviving the things they couldn't change. 

Apparently, so had I. I started toward the stairs, keeping my pace even because the last thing I wanted was for anyone watching to see me hurry away. 

He's our father.

Her response came so quickly I knew she'd been waiting for me to say it. 

He's your father. He's my Alpha. Those aren't the same thing.

The second-floor landing gave me access to most of the guest accommodations, but I continued up another flight to the third floor. Housekeeping had already completed the changes, and the guest-room doors stood open while the final baskets and luggage cards were distributed. I carried the first basket into Room Thirty, the closest. 

Kieran Blackstone's new room. 

Blackstone had been strangely easy to prepare for. 

Several of the visiting Alphas had sent preference sheets long enough to qualify as short novels. Specific liquor. Particular mattress toppers. Foods that had to be available at all hours. One Luna had requested six additional pillows and another wanted the curtains in her room to be removed because disliked them. 

Blackstone's office had sent names, security requirements and dietary information. 

That was it. No preferred whiskey. No special linens. No insistence that their delegation receive the best rooms in the building. 

Given everything I'd heard about Kieran Blackstone, I'd expected more. 

At twenty-four, he was the youngest sitting Alpha attending the Council and one of the most powerful. He had taken over Blackstone four years earlier after his father's unexpected death, taking control of the largest pack in our region before most men his age had decided what they wanted to do with their lives. 

The stories that followed him varied depending on who told them, but the same words surfaced often enough to stick.

Ruthless. Cold. Unforgiving. 

My father respected him, which probably told me more than the rumors did. 

I had never met him. My father had attended the last several council gatherings without me, and while I knew Kieran Blackstone's name as well as I knew the names of every other Alpha arriving this week, I'd never bothered searching for photographs. There hadn't been a reason. He was another guest whose room needed to be ready, whose delegation had to fit into the security plan and whose named appeared on enough schedules I was already tired of typing it. 

My phone vibrated in my pocket while I was checking the contents of the basket. 

Blackstone has crossed the north border. Convoy is through the first checkpoint. Estimated arrival is ten minutes. 

I checked the time and frowned. Early. Not dramatically so, but early enough that the other two baskets were still downstairs and the revised luggage cards may or may not have been delivered. 

I sent Rachel a quick message asking her to have someone bring the remaining two baskets up, then slipped my phone back into my pocket and reached for the empty packaging on the chair. 

Lyra had been quiet since the encounter with my father. She finally seemed to be coming out of the foul mood he'd left her in. I felt some of the tension ease from her as I checked the contents of the basket one last time. 

I checked the time on my phone one last time and swore under my breath. 

Blackstone had crossed the first checkpoint several minutes ago. Even if the estimate had been generous, I didn't have enough time to finish here, go through and search for my necklace and make it back downstairs before the delegation arrived. 

After what had happened in the entrance hall, showing up late without the necklace was a spectacularly bad idea. 

I considered abandoning the baskets and going to my room anyway, but footsteps sounded in the corridor before I'd made the decision. Rachel appeared in the doorway carrying a folder and one of the missing baskets. 

"Please tell me that you're finished in here." She said, looking harried enough that whatever she needed was unlikely to be optional.

"Almost. Why?" 

"Maddox Prescott's office called about the training grounds. He and the Blackstone Gammas wanted to know whether they'll have unrestricted access while they're here. Hayes says it's fine, but security needs their names added before one of them tries to use the north entrance and gets stopped by the patrol." 

I took the basket from her and carried it into the corridor, mentally rearranging the next several minutes. "Add Prescott and the Gammas. Alpha Blackstone should already have unrestricted guest clearance because of his rank, but have Hayes verify it anyway." 

Rachel nodded as she followed me toward room thirty-two. "Already asked him." 

"Okay. And?" 

"He's checking on it and will confirm once he does." 

I sighed. "Good." 

I set the basket on the table inside the room, adjusted it so the card faced outward and stepped back to make sure housekeeping hadn't missed anything obvious. The room looked ready. So did the next room next door, but his basket was still downstairs. 

My phone vibrated again. 

Blackstone is arriving. Where are you?!

My stomach dropped. "Shit." 

Rachel looked over. "What??" 

I showed her the message. Her expression changed immediately. She enough about my father not to tell me it wasn't a big deal. 

"Go," she said. "I'll finish these." 

I hesitated. "The other basket..." 

"Clara. I've got it. Go."  She gave me a gentle nudge toward the doors. 

I handed her the list and started toward the stairs, only to remember the necklace as I passed the double doors leading into the family wing. 

My room was right there. 

Close enough that I could probably search the dresser and the bathroom again in under two minutes if I ran. 

The smarter part of my brain reminded me that Blackstone was already outside. 

There wasn't a version where my father was going to be pleased with me. By the time I reached the second-floor landing, voices were carrying up from the entrance hall below. There were enough of them that introductions had clearly begun, which meant the delegation wasn't merely arriving anymore. They had arrived and were inside. 

I quickened my pace down the final flight, trying not to look as though I was running while very definitely running. 

Several unfamiliar men stood near the open front doors with members of Westbrook security, their luggage already being brought in behind them. Maddox Prescott was easy enough to identify from the delegation photographs and previous council meetings. 

My father stood several feet away. He saw me immediately. There was no mistaking the moment his attention found me. His gaze moved from my face to the clock mounted discreetly above the reception-room doors and then, with awful predictability, settled on my bare throat. 

He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. The look he gave me promised me that neither the failure of being late, nor the lack of the necklace had gone unnoticed. 

I straightened my shoulders and crossed the hall toward them anyway. Whatever my father intended to say to me about it would have to wait. 

For now, I had guests to welcome.