All Chapters of THE ALPHA WHO SCENTED MY SECRET: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Wren's POVRhydian lets go of my wrist before Adrian rounds the corner, fast enough that I almost believe I imagined the whole thing, except my skin is still humming where his fingers were, a warmth that doesn't fade even after he's stepped back a full pace and folded his hands behind him as if nothing happened at all.I busy myself with the nearest counter, wiping down a surface that was already clean, the old habit rising automatic and useless the second I feel exposed, and I hate myself a little for how quickly my body remembers that particular defense even here, even now, even with a man who's never once raised his voice at me the way Callum used to before he learned quiet worked better."Cousin," Adrian says, appearing in the doorway with a look that misses nothing. "I didn't realize you made kitchen visits a habit.""I don't recall needing to explain my own house to you," Rhydian says, even, though there's an edge under it now that wasn't there a moment ago."Of course not." Adr

Wren's POVThe dream starts the way it always used to, before I trained myself to wake before it went too far. Smoke first, thick enough to taste, curling low along a floor I recognize even in sleep, the front hall of the house I grew up in, before the fire took it and turned every corner of that home into something I could barely stand to walk through.I know this floor the way I know the ache in my own wrist. Third board from the door, warped just enough to catch a bare heel if you're not careful. I used to run across it barefoot as a child, my mother calling after me to slow down before I split my head open, and even in the dream some small distant part of me registers the wrongness of hearing that same warm, exasperated voice now, tonight, with smoke already climbing the walls behind her.Except this time it doesn't stop where it used to stop. This time it keeps going.I see my mother's hand, reaching for something on a high shelf, and I hear her voice, muffled and far away, sayin

Rhydian's POVWord reaches me before I've even finished my morning rounds, one of the gate guards jogging up with the particular urgency of a man who'd rather not be the one delivering the news. A rider, alone, from Ashgrove, requesting an audience at the front gate, no advance notice given.I know before I get there who's likely waiting, and I know it isn't going to be a friendly visit dressed up as one.The envoy is waiting in the front courtyard by the time I reach the gate, a lean, unremarkable man in Ashgrove colors who introduces himself as Ferris, the same advisor I remember hovering nervously at Calloway's dinner table two days ago, though his nerves have hardened into something more careful now, more rehearsed."Alpha Vane." He bows, precisely correct, nothing in his posture that gives me a clean reason to object to his presence. "Alpha Calloway sends his regards, and a formal request regarding a clerical matter in your recent contract.""Clerical," I repeat."The addendum tr

Wren's POVThree days pass slower than any three days I can remember, each one built out of small, careful politeness between us, meals eaten at the same table without quite meeting each other's eyes, corridors where we both find sudden urgent reasons to be somewhere else. I tell myself I don't mind the distance. I spend a great deal of energy telling myself that, which is usually a sign it isn't true.I catch him three days later in Corwin's study, voices pitched low enough that I only hear the tail end of the conversation before they notice me in the doorway, but it's enough. Enough to hear the words Ember Wolf spoken plainly for the first time, not as rumor or half-suggestion, but as fact, discussed the way you'd discuss a diagnosis.They both go silent the moment they see me."What," I say, standing very still in the doorway, "is an Ember Wolf?"Corwin and Rhydian exchange a look, the same wordless conversation I've watched pass between people in this house a dozen times now, alwa

Wren's POVI don't cry. I want to note that clearly, if only for my own sake, because five years ago I would have. Some part of me is almost proud of the fact that I don't, even as another part wonders whether that's just a different kind of damage: learning to file grief away instead of feeling it properly.I am, in fact, packing a bag, my hands moving through the motions with a strange, hollow efficiency, folding clothes I've barely had time to unpack in the first place, the small carved bird from my mother tucked carefully into the same spot at the bottom where Maren hid her note.I don't know where I'm going. That's the part I haven't let myself think about too closely, because the honest answer is nowhere; there is no safe direction to walk in, not back to Ashgrove, not forward into whatever Rhydian's been building around me without my knowledge. But staying suddenly feels impossible too, standing in a house where even kindness comes with a use attached to it, where my own worth