All Chapters of Fake Dating The Lycan's Heir: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

VANESSA“Nathan still has the files, and he says he’ll expose Mum and me if I don’t leave Cole.”We were back at the Grayson estate, gathered around the same table where we had spent most of the day uncovering one problem after another. Mum sat beside Dad. Lillian was with her parents. Rose had stayed, and Christopher stood at the end of the table with my phone in his hand.He read Nathan’s message again.“He put the threat in writing.” Christopher handed the phone back to me. “That gives us something concrete.”“It doesn’t tell us where he stored the evidence.” I sat down. “If you confront him now and he has copies somewhere else, we could make him release them.”“What exactly did he show you?” Rose asked.“Enough to prove he wasn’t bluffing about his father’s records. I saw ECL-S1 beside references to the Winter Gathering and something called release failure.”Rose reached for a notebook.“Do you remember the wording?”“One line said continued suppression increases the probability o

VANESSA“What exactly does the officiant control?”Christopher remained in front of the laptop, with the ceremonial authorization still open on the screen.“The officiant opens the renewal ceremony, activates the inner ward, and receives each recognized bloodline representative into the ritual space. Once everyone is inside, the officiant begins the renewal of the Blood Authority Covenant.”“And the renewal is where inherited command is reaffirmed.”“That is what the oldest records indicate.”I looked at the authorization again. An unnamed person had been given access to the center of a ceremony that apparently existed to preserve the same blood authority Lillian and I might be capable of destroying.Nathan threatening to expose me suddenly seemed like only one piece of a much larger problem.“Why could Alistair authorize someone for that position?”“He served as my senior adviser for twenty-six years.” Christopher closed one document and opened the ceremonial administration record. “

VANESSA*Send me proof you ended it with him.*Nathan's message arrived the next afternoon while I was sitting at the kitchen table with an untouched glass of juice beside my laptop.Mum was upstairs. Dad had gone to speak with one of the security men Christopher had stationed outside our house, and for the first time since yesterday, nobody was discussing ancient ceremonies within five feet of me.I had missed being able to walk into my kitchen without finding six people waiting to tell me another terrible thing about my own life.My phone vibrated again.A screenshot of the breakup is enough. Tell Grayson you're done, send it to me, and I'll start giving you the files.I read it twice before typing. *I'm not sending you anything.*His response came almost immediately. *Then you're choosing what happens next.*I set the phone beside my laptop.Thirty seconds later, an image appeared.Nathan had photographed another document from a screen. Most of the page was cropped, although severa

COLE“What command?”Vanessa kept her eyes on Mara’s handwriting.My father moved closer to the register.“The original text may tell us.”Rose turned back several pages and compared Mara’s note with the older description of the renewal ceremony. I stayed beside Vanessa while Lillian remained on the other side of the table, the distance between them suddenly more important than it had been ten minutes ago.“There are three references here,” Rose said. “Territorial command, oath command, and inherited Alpha authority. The modern ceremony binds all three into the renewal.”Vanessa finally looked up. “So Mara wasn't talking about one order given during the ceremony.”“No,” Rose said. “She was talking about the authority being renewed.”Lillian glanced toward the archive door. “And we just watched part of that authority disappear.”“We watched the inscriptions disappear,” Rose corrected. “That distinction matters until we understand more.”“What happens if the same thing occurs inside the

COLE “Keep the changes off the official security schedule.” My father handed one of the guards a list of names. “I want the people on this page contacted directly. No assistants, no pack offices, and nothing through Gathering channels.”The guard took the list and left.My father had been working since the confirmation of Calder’s arrival. He had stopped trying to find Matthias before the Gathering and started preparing for what would happen when the man finally showed himself.Three pack leaders had agreed to cooperate without notifying their councils. Security around the renewal chamber would appear unchanged, while people loyal to my father replaced several ceremonial guards before the event.The Chase family was not supposed to know anything had changed.Rose had taken over the medical side.“I want separate monitoring for Vanessa and Lillian,” she said, closing the case she had brought from her office. “If either of them experiences fever, confusion, unusual sensory changes, mus