Lahat ng Kabanata ng Unexpected Mate: The Cruel Alpha’s Little Wolf: Kabanata 161 - Kabanata 170

"Now what?" Aurelia asked. I glanced at the recipe. "We mix the dry ingredients first." She nodded very seriously. "That's easy." "It should be." I reached for the bowl. "So..." "Flour." "We've already done that." "Baking powder." "A little salt." As I measured each one... Aurelia repeated the names quietly under her breath. As though committing them to memory. Kael leaned slightly closer to read the recipe over my shoulder. "And sugar?" I looked down. "Not yet." His brow furrowed. "It says—" "It says after we finish measuring the dry ingredients." He looked again. A second later... A resigned smile appeared. "It does." Aurelia giggled. "Daddy." "You skipped ahead." "So I did." She folded her arms with exaggerated importance. "We're not supposed to skip steps" Kael nodded. "You're right, we're not supposed to." Aurelia nodded approvingly. Satisfied that order had been restored... She reached for the wooden spoon

Monday mornings always carried a different sort of energy. The estate seemed to wake earlier. Servants moved through the corridors with practiced purpose. Messengers arrived at the front gates before breakfast had even ended. By the time I reached my office... Several files had already been neatly arranged across my desk. Some things, it seemed... Would never change. I smiled faintly to myself. Neither, apparently, would Elias. A fresh stack of correspondence rested at the centre of the desk. Petitions from villagers. Requests for estate supplies. Reports from the eastern farms. And, judging by the thickness of one folded ledger... Another month's financial accounts. I had barely settled into my chair when there was a knock. "Come in." The door opened. Elias stepped inside carrying yet another bundle of documents. "Good morning, My Luna." "Good morning, Elias." He placed the papers neatly beside the others. "I hope you had a restful weeken

The following morning... Nothing looked different. The servants began their work before sunrise. The kitchens bustled with their usual rhythm. Messengers arrived at the estate gates carrying letters from neighbouring villages. Blackwood... Appeared exactly as it always had. Which, I was beginning to realise... Was precisely what made it dangerous. After breakfast... I found myself thinking about the conversation I'd had with Kael the previous evening. "Don't begin with people." "Begin with the process." At the time... The advice had seemed almost disappointingly simple. This morning... It made perfect sense. I wasn't trying to prove someone guilty. I was trying to understand how the quarterly summaries came to exist in the first place. If I understood that... Everything else could wait. --- My office door stood open. Several clerks moved quietly between the adjoining rooms, delivering correspondence and collecting completed documents. It

The following afternoon... I found myself standing before a part of the estate I had only visited once before. The Administrative Records Office. Unlike the council chambers... Or the reception hall... There was nothing particularly impressive about the building. It wasn't meant to impress anyone. It was built for one purpose. To remember. Shelves lined every wall from floor to ceiling. Ledgers. Bound reports. Bundles of correspondence tied neatly with ribbon. Everywhere I looked... Someone was writing. Sorting. Copying. Or carrying another stack of records from one room to the next. The entire office moved with a quiet efficiency that reminded me of a beehive. No raised voices. No wasted movement. Only the steady scratching of pen against paper. An older man looked up from the ledger he had been cataloguing. Recognition crossed his face almost immediately. "My Luna." He set his quill aside and bowed respectfully. "I wasn't expecting

For the remainder of the afternoon... I couldn't settle my thoughts. Every report I signed. Every petition I approved. Every routine decision... My mind kept drifting back to the same question. Not... Who was changing the quarterly summaries? I was already convinced someone was. The question that refused to leave me was different. Why? I reached for the notebook that had become my constant companion over the past few days. Opening it to the first page... I read through everything I'd written. Border Office records. Temporary Residence figures. Quarterly summaries. Working sheets. Small observations I'd been collecting one after another. My eyes travelled slowly down the page. Until they reached the final section. Questions. I had written them almost absent-mindedly. Yet seeing them together... Made something feel strangely out of place. Missing ledger pages. Quarterly summaries. Unaccounted temporary residents. Then... One fina