All Chapters of From Cast-Off Daughter to Lycan Queen: Chapter 31 - Chapter 40

I opened the door before he could knock a second time.“Your Highness.”I watched it land on him exactly as I'd meant it to — a flinch he tried to cover, and mostly failed to, like I'd struck him somewhere he hadn't braced for.“Raven. Please don't.”“Don't what? Address you correctly?” I stepped back to let him in, mostly because the alternative was having this conversation in a hallway where anyone could hear it. “I'm told that's the appropriate form. I'd hate to get it wrong twice in one night.”He shut the door behind him, and for a long moment he just stood there, like a man working out which of a dozen prepared explanations was least likely to make things worse.“There's an investigation,” he said finally. “Border negotiations with the territory east of here — the one my family's been at odds with for longer than either of us has been alive. Part of brokering that peace meant I couldn't move through the world as myself. Too many people on both sides would have used my name to de

“You're avoiding him.”Selina said it without looking up from her coffee, the two of us alone at the kitchen counter while the rest of the house slept off the ball. I hadn't heard her come in.“I'm not avoiding anyone.”“You changed your training time to match Nathan's early shift instead of Julian's. You took the long hallway to breakfast instead of the one that passes his door. You've been in this house four hours and I've counted at least three separate maneuvers.” She finally looked at me, unimpressed. “I raised two younger siblings, Raven. I know what avoiding someone looks like.”I didn't have a clear answer, so I didn't fabricate one.The truth was simpler and more embarrassing than anything I could have dressed it up as: I knew exactly what he felt. He'd told me himself, hours ago, hand at my jaw and gold bleeding into his eyes, every word of it raw enough that I hadn't doubted a syllable of it. And I still hadn't said a single true thing back to him.“I don't know what to do

Michael Perspective“Sit down, Michael.”My father hadn't raised his voice once since I'd walked into his study, which was somehow worse than if he had. Beta Callahan stood at the window with his arms crossed, and Emilia was already seated by the fire, one hand resting over the curve of her stomach like she needed the reminder more than either of the men in the room did.I sat. Standing had stopped feeling like a position of strength the moment my father's silence started doing more damage than his temper ever had.“Do you have any idea what you've cost this family?” he said finally. “Three border delegations watched my son lose control of his wolf in a public garden and put his hands on a woman under royal protection. The Bureau has opened a formal inquiry into this house. Into me, Michael. Into every choice I've made as Alpha for the last twenty years, because my heir couldn't hold himself together for one evening.”“I didn't plan for it to happen.”“That's the problem,” Callahan sa

“He's here.”Selina said it from the study doorway, low enough that it wouldn't carry, but the words still landed in my chest like a dropped weight. I didn't have to ask who.“Already?” Damon was on his feet before she'd finished the sentence, jacket half-buttoned, the easy warmth he usually wore around this house replaced by something colder and more careful. “Callahan said this afternoon. It's barely past breakfast.”“I think that was the point.”Julian appeared in the hallway behind her, dressed like a man who'd expected exactly this and still hadn't slept enough to face it properly. “Where's Raven?”“Right here,” I said, before anyone could decide for me whether I should be. “If this is about what happened at the ball, I'm not hiding in a bedroom while you three negotiate my own life without me in the room.”Nobody argued, which told me more than an argument would have.Julian fell into step beside me on the stairs, close enough that his sleeve brushed mine, and the contact settled

Julian's POV “You're about to crack that cup.”I looked down. The clay mug of mulled wine in my hand had a hairline fracture running up one side, and I'd been following it with my eyes for a full minute without registering what it was.“Sorry.” I set it on the log between us. Raven's fingers slid beneath my sleeve and settled over my pulse before my hand was fully empty.“Better?” she asked.“Yes.” It was the truest word I'd said all day. Under her thumb, the burn that had been climbing my forearm since sundown ebbed back to a dull ache. “Don't move your hand.”“I wasn't planning to.”