Chapter 3

The feast was still going when I got home.

I could hear it through the walls. Music, laughter, the low rumble of warriors toasting their Alpha. Their victory.

I sat on the edge of the bed in the dark. Still in my blue cotton dress. I didn't bother to change.

This morning I'd been Harrison's wife. His fated mate. The woman who ran his Pack from a desk in the back office while he stood in the spotlight. I'd been fine with that. Happy, even.

Now he wanted to throw me away for someone shinier.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Riley's name lit up the screen.

"Is it true?" She didn't bother with hello. "Is Harrison really replacing you?"

Riley was the daughter of one of the Pack elders. My closest friend here, maybe my only real one. She'd been away for months, building her own small business in a neighboring territory. I hadn't expected the news to reach her that fast.

My silence answered for her.

"That piece of shit." Riley was livid. "I knew it. I always knew he wasn't worth a damn."

"He saved my life," I said. The words came out flat, rehearsed. "When no one else would've taken in a rogue with no wolf—"

"And that gives him the right to treat you like furniture?"

I opened my mouth. Closed it.

She wasn't wrong. Harrison had been good to me once. In the beginning, when I was new and broken and grateful for everything. He'd held my hand through the first blood tests. Told me not to worry about the wolf, that he'd protect me.

But that was a long time ago.

The past six months, he'd barely spoken to me at all. Dinners were silence. Mornings were cold. He left for patrols without telling me and came back smelling like bonfire smoke and other people's laughter. The only time he acknowledged I existed was when something went wrong with the accounts.

"He's a good person," I said quietly. Even I could hear how hollow it sounded.

"He's a liar and a coward, and you're too smart to not see it." Riley's voice cracked. "Stay where you are. I'm driving back tonight."

"Riley, don't. You have your business to—"

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone until the screen dimmed. Riley's words sat in my chest like a splinter I couldn't reach.

Had I really been that blind?

---

I didn't sleep.

By morning, a stack of expense reports had already been dropped on my desk. Post-battle accounting: supply costs, medical bills, equipment replacement. The numbers Harrison's Beta couldn't be bothered to track.

I pulled the first report toward me and picked up my pen. My fingertips still had the faint blue-black stains from last week's ink. The desk still had my sticky notes lining the edge of the monitor, my filing system in the drawers, my coffee mug with the chipped rim.

I'd changed into an old linen shirt and work trousers, the clothes I always wore when I was expecting a long day at this desk. Comfortable. Invisible.

The office was the one space in this Pack that had ever felt like mine.

I'd barely opened the first folder when shouting erupted outside. Boots on stone. Someone barking orders.

I went to the door. A Delta was rushing past.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"Alpha Killian." The Delta barely slowed. "From the Nightfang Pack. He's here for the Selene-Blade." He flashed a grin over his shoulder. "This is the kind of opportunity Sasha brought us."

Killian. I knew the name. The Nightfang Pack was the most powerful in the territory, and Harrison had been trying to win their alliance for months. But Alpha Killian had a reputation for being ruthless and unpredictable. He didn't negotiate. He dictated.

Why would he come here in person?

Before I could think further, the office door swung open.

Harrison walked in first. Behind him came a man I'd never seen.

He didn't say a word. But the air got heavier the second he walked in. Every nerve in my body went still.

He was tall, dark-haired, sharp jaw, sharper eyes. He didn't scan the room the way Harrison's warriors did — checking exits, cataloging threats. He looked at everything once, calmly, and dismissed it. Then his gaze found me.

And stayed.

Alpha Killian. I was certain of it before anyone spoke.

But something else tugged at me. Not his face — I'd never seen him before. Something underneath. A pull behind my ribs, faint and steady, that I couldn't name. My wolf had been dormant for over a year, but for a single second, something stirred. A flicker, gone as fast as it came.

He was still watching me. Not the way Harrison looked at me — through me, past me, to whatever mattered more. Killian looked at me as if I was the most interesting thing in the room.

Harrison cleared his throat. "Killian, this is—"

"What's your name?" Killian's voice was low and direct.

Harrison's jaw tightened. "She's nobody. Just a housewife. Not worth your attention."

He turned to me, and his tone dropped to something cold and sharp. "What are you doing in here, Vera? This is an office for Pack business. Know your place." He glanced at Killian. "Or do you want to embarrass me in front of our guest?"

My hand tightened around my pen so hard the cap cracked.

But I didn't get the chance to answer.

"Just a housewife?"

The voice came from behind Killian. Loud and furious.

Riley shoved past the doorway, her coat still on, her bag still slung over her shoulder. She'd driven all night. Her eyes were red-rimmed and blazing.

"Did you just call her a housewife?" Riley planted herself between me and Harrison. "Your Delta does less work in a month than Vera does in a week. Your Beta hasn't filed a single report correctly since she started. You want to tell me who the real housewife is?"

Harrison's eyes flicked to Killian. A muscle jumped in his jaw. "Riley. This is not the time. We can discuss—"

"Discuss?" Riley laughed, sharp and bitter. "When this Pack was drowning in debt, who stayed up every night balancing the books? Who built the supply agreements with the border Packs from nothing? Who turned your budget from red to black so you could afford the war that made you a hero?" She jabbed a finger at me. "Her. Your wife. The one you just humiliated in front of the most powerful Alpha in the territory."

The room went very quiet.

Harrison's face had gone dark. His hands hung at his sides, fingers twitching.

"Riley," he said. His voice shook with the effort of keeping it low. "Shut your mouth."