Lahat ng Kabanata ng Claimed by my Sister's Fiancé : Kabanata 151 - Kabanata 160

DRIAN POV"I need to introduce you to someone, and I'd very much like you to be honest with me afterward, even if what you have to say isn't entirely what I'm hoping to hear."I said it to Elira the morning after the twins' ceremony, nervous energy building steadily in my chest as Freya waited a short distance away, having arrived with Kestra's delegation the previous evening."Of course," Elira said, warmth and genuine curiosity evident in her expression as she crossed the garden to properly meet the young woman I'd been writing to for the better part of a year.Freya, pale haired and steady eyed in the particular way most Frostbound wolves seemed to carry, offered a formal, careful bow that Elira gently waved away in favour of a warm handshake instead."Adrian speaks about your family constantly," Freya said, something wry and genuine in her tone. "I feel as though I already know Rhys and Wren personally, given how often their names come up in his letters.""All good things, I hope,

KIAN POV"I want to write it down. All of it. Not for anyone else, exactly. For them, someday, when they're old enough to want the whole truth instead of the careful, gentler version we've given them so far."Elira said it quietly one evening, several weeks after Priya's son had been welcomed so warmly into the family, a fresh notebook open on the small desk in our study, her pen resting thoughtfully against the first blank page."The whole truth is considerably more complicated than most bedtime stories," I said, settling beside her."That's rather the point," Elira said. "I don't want Rhys, or Wren, or Lyra, or Adrian, growing up believing the version of this family's history that only includes the parts we've made comfortable for them so far. I want them to understand what it actually cost, all of it, the betrayals and the grief and the impossible choices, so that when they eventually face their own difficult chapters, they understand exactly what genuine courage actually looks lik

ELIRA POV"My name is Corvina. I speak for what remains of the Umbral Court's council, though I confess our council is considerably smaller now than it once was, generations of careful isolation having cost us more than we ever intended to lose."She sat across from us in Ashgrove's formal receiving room, her delegation small, no more than a dozen wolves, considerably more modest than the grand political entourages I'd grown accustomed to across years of complicated diplomacy."Why isolation, originally," I asked. "If I may ask directly.""You may," Corvina said. "My ancestors watched the schism that split the Ironfang and Frostbound lines apart, watched the centuries of grievance and conflict that followed, and made a choice that seemed wise at the time. Rather than risk being drawn into a war they hadn't started, they withdrew entirely, choosing obscurity over any political entanglement whatsoever." Something rueful crossed her expression. "I don't believe that choice was wrong, pre

KIAN POV"A formal, ongoing exchange. Young wolves from each territory spending time within the others, learning the histories, the customs, building genuine familiarity rather than simply careful, occasional diplomatic contact."Corvina outlined the proposal carefully across the council table, and I watched Elira absorb it with the particular focused attention she brought to every genuinely significant decision."That's an enormous undertaking," Elira said. "For a people who've spent generations in careful isolation.""It is," Corvina acknowledged. "Which is precisely why I believe it needs to begin slowly, deliberately, built on exactly the kind of genuine trust your son and our own young dreamer have already begun establishing, rather than any formal treaty rushed into being for the sake of appearances.""Rhys and Sable," I said, understanding settling into place. "You want them to help lead this.""If they're willing," Corvina said. "Not as any kind of formal obligation. Simply be

ADRIAN POV"Frostbound tradition says the couple exchanges a token carved from winter wood, something that survives the cold to prove the bond will too. Ironfang tradition says the couple binds their hands with a length of woven cord, dyed the deep red of the old bloodline's original banners. I don't see why we can't simply do both."I said it to Freya three months before our wedding, both of us bent over careful sketches of a ceremony we were determined to build from scratch rather than borrow entirely from either single tradition."Kestra will have opinions," Freya said, though she was smiling. "So will Eleanor, probably, given how seriously she's taken every piece of Ironfang custom since she finally rejoined this family properly.""Then we'll listen to their opinions," I said, "and still do exactly what feels genuinely right to us. I think that's rather become the family tradition itself, honestly. Taking the old customs seriously enough to understand them, and then building somet