LOGINA quick notice and sincere apologies to the reader who had unlocked the same content twice, Chapter 20 and 21...it was glitch on my end and I didn't notice that. It's been rectified for future readers but to the affected ones.... I'll be more careful in the future. Thanks for reading and kindly support with your votes, comments and a review on the book so far.
Ivy's POVI opened the envelope.It's a cheque. Folded neatly behind it, a set of land documents. I read the heading on the first page and then I read it again because I wanted to be absolutely sure I was understanding what I was looking at.Iron Veil Territory.I looked up at Athena.Then I laughed. Not because anything was funny. Because sometimes the only appropriate response to the sheer audacity of something is to laugh directly in its face."Iron Veil?" I held the documents up. "You went to all this trouble, you flew into this pack, you came in here with your chest out and your threats ready, and the lands you're offering me are in Iron Veil?" I tilted my head. "Why not Blue Elite? Why Iron Veil, Athena? That's interesting. You were so available, so deeply invested in fixing things, that you went behind my back and coordinated with my ex-husband to give me land that already belongs to me."Athena's expression did not change but something moved behind her eyes.Delinda scoffed. "
Ivy's POVHer name was Athena.Kel whispered it to me through his teeth the second Delinda rushed into her arms and I filed it away fast, because the way people moved around this woman told me everything I needed to know before she opened her mouth. The guards straightened. The staff at the far end of the hall suddenly found urgent business elsewhere. Even the air in the room seemed to reconsider itself."I need to call Liam," Kel said quietly beside me."Don't you dare," I said. "He's handling something. Don't distract him because of his aunt.""Ivy, you don't understand who this woman is." His voice dropped lower. "There are rumors. About Liam's mother. About how she died." He hesitated. "I'm not sure if they're true but I'm not sure they're not either. This woman is not just a bitch, she is a specific kind of danger which led to her death."I looked at him. Then I looked back at Athena.She was watching me the way people watch something they have already decided the value of. Asses
Noah's POVArguing with Liam was the most dangerous thing I could do right now and I knew that before he even sat down. He walked in and everything recalibrated around him without his permission being asked. It was the most infuriating thing about him and it had always been the most infuriating thing about him and sitting across from him in my own office in my own pack while he looked at me like I was a minor inconvenience was doing things to my blood pressure that I could not afford right now.Waging a war against Blue Elite Territory was a risk I could not carry. Not with the pack still rebuilding, not with the council watching every move I made, not with Amy's situation already complicated enough to sink me twice over. So I did what I had always been good at. I set my feelings aside, locked my rage somewhere it would not interfere with my thinking, and I negotiated.When he told me to release Ivy's uncle I laughed."That would be impossible," I said."You don't want a war with me,
Liam's POVI reached Iron Veil Territory by evening.The guards at the border saw my car and looked at each other and made the collective decision to step aside without being told twice. I was not in the mood for a conversation at the gate and the energy coming off me made that very clear to anyone within a reasonable distance. My beta had tried to talk me down on the drive over and had given up somewhere around the second hour because some moods do not want to be talked down from. I needed to be here alone, So I arrived.The pack grounds were quieter than I expected given the state of things. Reconstruction was happening on the far end, the burned sections still raw and dark against the rest.Noah's office was on the second floor.I did not knock.I hit the door so hard it bounced off the wall and two guards inside jumped to their feet with their hands already moving and then they saw my face and their hands stopped moving and they looked at each other and made another collective d
Ivy's POVWhen I opened my eyes the room was dipped in the orange light of evening and Kel was sitting in the chair across from me like he had been there the whole time and was completely unbothered by that fact.I blinked. I sat up and looked at him."Why are you still here?""Good evening to you too.""Kel….You have a whole pack. You have duties. You have a life that exists outside of this room, I assume so don't tell me you've been watching me sleep."He shrugged. "Someone has to be here while Liam is out chasing the Jade Key or whatever it is he's doing.""I can watch myself.""Right." He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. "Is that why you were almost thrown into a river last week? Because you were watching yourself so well?"I opened my mouth and closed it."Thought so." He stood and handed me my shoes. "Come on. You haven't eaten. Get up."I wanted to argue but my stomach chose that moment to make its own point loudly and Kel's mouth twitched and I took the shoes witho
Ivy's POVMy uncle was dead.There was nothing left to leverage. Noah was too smart to threaten a live man who could still be saved. He was dangling a corpse and dressing it up like a bargaining chip."Did you see his body?" Liam asked.I turned and looked at him. "No.""Then you don't know for certain.""Liam—""You don't know," he said again, firmer, and he was not being kind about it, he was being factual, the way he always was when sentiment was trying to make decisions faster than information could. "You are not burying your uncle on Noah's word. That man lies the way other people breathe."I pressed my lips together and said nothing because he was not wrong and I hated that he was not wrong.Rixon cleared his throat from the doorway. "The situation on the ground does require a physical presence. If Ivy isn't there to confirm identity and speak to the witnesses directly, there's a gap we can't fill remotely. The contacts won't talk to anyone they don't already trust.""Then we se
Liam's POVIt’s been one week. I was gone for one week and somehow in that time my brother had decided to use the treasury wing as a personal punching bag, Alpha Edmund had taken his security agreement and his wounded pride I
Ivy's POVI didn't understand what was happening. I didn't understand this place, these people, or why two women who had never seen me in their lives hated me with the specific intensity of something personal. All I knew was that my face was still stinging from the slap, my scalp was burning from w
Ivy's POVI lay on top of the covers fully dressed and I closed my eyes and blocked all of the pack gossip and hallway whispers that pointed and followed me everywhere I walked in this mansion since yesterday. I was not going to give any of them the satisfaction of watching me break
Ivy's POVSleep wasn't coming in this room, in this house, and not with the smell of Noah's pack mansion crawling into my lungs every time I tried to breathe.He had told the guards I wasn't allowed to leave. Not as ala guest but as a hostage. That was what I was now &







