Semua Bab HE CALLED HER PLUMP, NOW HE’LL BEG TO KEEP HER: Bab 1 - Bab 5

POV: Evana“Breathe out, Luna.”I let the air go slow, and Rosalind pulled the zipper another inch. It stopped hard against my ribs and refused to move further, the seam pulling tight enough that I could feel my own pulse against the fabric.“It won’t close,” I said.“It has to close.” Rosalind didn’t look up from the zipper. She never looked up when she was working, thirty years serving this house had taught her that eye contact with a Luna wasn’t owed unless it was asked for. “The Alpha ordered this dress for tonight. There is no second option.”“Then loosen the seam.”“I was not given permission to alter the Alpha’s order.”“You have my permission. I’m standing in it.”She hesitated, needle already between her fingers, waiting on a word that outranked mine. That was the real chain of command in this house, and we both knew it. My permission meant nothing until someone with Arthur’s blood confirmed it.“Rosalind.” I kept my voice even. “Let the seam out at the side. An inch, maybe l

POV: EvanaArthur didn’t come back to the hall.I gave it twenty minutes before I stopped pretending to enjoy the wine Corwin kept refilling and went looking for him myself, slipping through the same side door I’d watched him disappear through with the stranger, down a corridor that led toward his study rather than back to the party. The birthday continued behind me without either of us, Delphine had already stepped in to smooth the gap, laughing too brightly at something Ashford had said, buying the room a story that didn’t involve her son vanishing mid-celebration.The study door was shut. I heard voices behind it, low, Arthur’s clipped in a way I recognized and the stranger’s even, unbothered, like a man discussing weather rather than whatever this actually was.I didn’t hear words. I heard tone, and tone told me enough, Arthur wasn’t in control of this conversation, which was its own kind of information, because I had never once, in eleven months, seen my husband not in control

POV: EvanaI found Arthur in his study two nights after our last conversation had gone nowhere, sitting behind his desk with a glass of something amber he hadn’t touched, staring at a folder he also hadn’t opened. I’d learned enough in eleven months to recognize when Arthur was performing work and when he was actually doing it. Tonight was the former.“You’ve been avoiding me,” I said, closing the door behind me.“I’ve had pack business.”“You’ve had four dinners you didn’t eat and a study door you’ve kept locked past midnight. That isn’t pack business, Arthur. That’s you deciding you told me too much and trying to take it back.”He looked up at that, and something in his jaw tightened the way it always did when I said something he couldn’t easily argue with. “I told you his name. That’s more than anyone outside this house has gotten from me in nine years.”“You told me a name and half a sentence about a fire you’re still standing in the middle of.” I crossed the room and sat in the c