Semua Bab The Alpha's Lost Mate.: Bab 121 - Bab 130

Vivienne stood at the edge of the long dinner table stretched across the terrace, watching the whole household settle into their seats with an ease that would have been unthinkable a year ago, and found herself, for a long moment, simply too moved to join the easy chatter already filling the evening air."You're standing there looking sentimental," Miriam observed, passing by with a tray of bread still warm from the oven. "That's not like you.""I'm allowed one sentimental evening a year," Vivienne said, smiling despite herself. "I've decided this is it."The table had been set for no particular occasion, Sophie's idea originally, a dinner meant simply to gather everyone who mattered under one roof, with no ceremony, no formal seating arrangement, no political weight attached to who sat where. Ethan and Tessa sat together near one end, already deep in some elaborate discussion about the compass Gerald had given him. Rowan and Lena sat close, her hand resting easily on his arm, neither

Sophie sat at the drafting table in the finished studio, the skylight Dominic had commissioned now cutting a clean column of afternoon light directly across Richard's old, careful handwriting, and found herself, for the first time since she'd first opened his sealed card all those months ago, actually able to think about him without the accompanying ache of grief overwhelming everything else."You look like you're working through something," Vivienne said, finding her there, settling into the second chair Sophie had added to the room once Ethan's small desk proved not to be quite enough space for the whole family to gather comfortably."I've been thinking about Richard," Sophie admitted. "About everything that traces back to him, actually, now that I've had time to sit with all of it properly.""Tell me what you've been thinking," Vivienne said, and Sophie noticed, gratefully, that she asked without any of the careful hesitation that used to color conversations about Richard in this h

Dominic stood at the edge of the training field, watching his son close his eyes and breathe through the exercise Brooke had been running him through for months now, and found himself, for the first time since that terrifying morning in the garden, genuinely calm watching it unfold rather than braced for something to go wrong."He's come a long way," Brooke said, standing beside him, her own posture relaxed in a way it hadn't been during those early, uncertain sessions."He has," Dominic agreed. "I remember how frightened I was, that first time. I couldn't imagine how we'd ever get him to a place where this felt safe rather than dangerous.""Early instinct like his rarely stabilizes on its own," Brooke said. "It usually requires exactly this, patient, consistent guidance, someone helping the wolf learn it doesn't need to surface out of fear or crisis alone. I think what happened at the warehouse actually helped him, in a strange way, once we worked through it properly. He learned his

Sophie stood in the doorway of the finished studio early that morning, straightening a stack of fabric swatches for the third time in ten minutes, and found herself, despite months of working in this exact room alone, genuinely nervous about finally sharing it properly."You're rearranging things that are already arranged," Vivienne observed, arriving first, exactly on time, as she always was."I know," Sophie admitted. "I think I wanted everything to look exactly right, though I'm not entirely sure what exactly right even means for a room this personal.""It already looks exactly right," Vivienne said, stepping fully inside and turning slowly to take in the space properly, the drafting table, the new shelving built to match Richard's original uneven joinery rather than replace it entirely, the skylight cutting a clean column of morning light directly across the room. "Richard would be so proud, seeing this finished.""I keep thinking that too," Sophie said. "Every time I sit down to

Gerald sat alone in the library for three straight evenings with the same blank sheet of paper in front of him, and by the third evening he had come to understand that no amount of staring at it was going to produce an answer that felt easy, because there wasn't one."You've been sitting with that same page since Tuesday," Vivienne said, finding him there again, settling into her usual chair without waiting to be invited."I know," Gerald admitted. "I keep starting to write down what I actually think, and then I stop, because I'm not entirely certain what I actually think yet.""Tell me what you're weighing," Vivienne said."On one side, I've already told the full truth to a regional council," Gerald said. "Rosalind's name entered a formal record months ago, read aloud in a chamber full of people whose judgment mattered enormously to this family's standing. I survived that. I understood, going in, exactly what it would cost me, and I paid it willingly, because I believed the council d