chapter 9

FREYA

The Ashford ceremonial hall had been dressed for a celebration that was never going to happen the way everyone expected.

White drapery hung from every column, threaded through with gold, the scent of lilies so thick in the air it made my head swim. Guests packed the hall shoulder to shoulder, every notable family from the Nine Northern Yorkshire packs crammed into rows of gilded chairs, all of them here to watch the girl who’d humiliated herself online crawl back and beg for the mate she didn’t deserve.

I knew exactly what they expected because Damien had told me on the drive over, reading the pack gossip off his phone in a flat, furious voice until I finally asked him to stop. They expected tears. They expected an apology delivered on my knees, my voice breaking, my father standing over me with that satisfied look he got whenever a plan of his came together exactly as designed.

I had dressed for none of that.

The black gown had been Damien’s idea, pulled from somewhere in that closet of clothing he never quite explained, fitted and severe and about as far from the pale, hopeful colors I’d worn for Lucian my entire life as it was possible to get. When I stepped through the doors of the hall, the low hum of conversation didn’t just quiet.

It stopped completely.

I felt every eye in the room land on me at once, felt the ripple of shock move through the crowd like wind through wheat. Somewhere near the front, I saw Lilith in white, radiant and smug, clearly having assumed I would arrive in something meek and apologetic to match the role she’d already decided I would play. Her smile faltered the second she saw what I was wearing, just for a moment, quickly smoothed back over, but I caught it.

Lucian stood at the center of the dais, and for the first time since I’d known him, something other than boredom crossed his face. His eyes went wide, just slightly, just enough that I caught it from across the hall, and I watched him glance toward my father as if checking whether this was some plan he hadn’t been told about.

I walked the length of the aisle slowly, deliberately, my chin level, my hands loose at my sides instead of clasped in front of me the way I’d always held them, the way that made me smaller. I didn’t cry. I didn’t falter. Somewhere in the back of the hall, I heard my mother’s sharp intake of breath, and I didn’t turn to find her face. I couldn’t afford to, not yet.

I was smiling, and it wasn’t the brittle, desperate smile I used to give this room when I still thought their approval meant something. It felt different on my face, unfamiliar, like trying on a coat that belonged to someone stronger than I’d ever let myself be.

Lucian’s throat worked as I came to a stop several feet in front of him, close enough that the entire assembly could see us both clearly, far enough that I didn’t have to smell whatever perfume Lilith had drenched herself in tonight.

“Freya,” he said, low, testing. “You came.”

“I did.”

“Good.” Something like relief flickered across his face, and he reached for my father’s script without even seeming to notice he was doing it. “Then let’s put this unfortunate business behind us. Apologize, and we can still salvage the evening, still—”

“I have a request,” I said, cutting him off, and the murmur that ran through the crowd told me nobody had expected that either.

My father’s face darkened from somewhere near the front row, but I didn’t look at him. I looked at the elder standing beside the dais instead, the same one who’d separated Lucian and me the night before all of this began.

“I would like permission to address the assembly,” I said, pitching my voice to carry, steady in a way that surprised even me. “Before anything else happens tonight.”

The elder glanced toward my father, some old habit of deference, and I watched my father’s jaw tighten before he gave the smallest, most reluctant nod, clearly assuming whatever came out of my mouth next would be the apology he’d demanded.

The elder turned back to me. “Permission granted.”

I looked past him, out at the sea of faces who’d spent the last two days tearing me apart from behind their screens, and felt something settle into place inside my chest, cold and clear and entirely my own. Whatever they’d expected from tonight, it was not going to be this.