I asked Andrea to come to the council meeting over breakfast. She was eating toast with one hand, scrolling through her phone with the other, Buddy lying across her feet under the table.
“I have a council session this afternoon,” I said. “I’d like you to be there.”
She looked up from her phone. “At a council meeting. With the pack elders.”
“Yes.”
“The same elders who have never met a human in an official capacity.”
“That would be them.”
She set the toast down. “What exactly would I be doing there?”
“Standing beside me while I introduce you as my fated mate and the mother of my child.”
“Casual.”
“It needs to happen. The council needs to know about you, about us, about the baby. They’ve been hearing rumors for weeks and I’d rather they hear the truth from me than the version Lorraine’s been spinning.”
She chewed her lip. I could see her turning it over, the nerves fighting with the part of her that never backed down from a room full of people who didn’t think she belonged.
“Will they be hostile?” she asked.
“Some of them will have concerns. Brennan will ask hard questions because that’s what Brennan does. Aldric will be neutral until he decides how he feels. The younger two will follow the room.”
“So I’m walking into a room of wolves who might not want me there and I need to convince them I belong.”
“You’ve been doing that your whole life, Andrea.”
She knew I was right, and she seemed to be contemplating the pros and cons. Then she picked her toast back up. “Fine. But if anyone growls at me, I’m leaving.”
“Nobody is going to growl at you.”
“You say that, but I’ve seen your meetings. You growl at people professionally.”
“That’s different.”
“Is it?”
I didn’t answer because she wasn’t wrong.
The council chamber was the oldest room in the estate, stone walls and an oak table my father’s father had commissioned, iron sconces someone fitted with electric bulbs decades ago that still looked medieval. I’d grown up in this room, first watching my father preside from behind a servant’s chair, then sitting at the table myself at twenty-four with the crown barely settled on my head. Five senior Alphas were already seated when we walked in, their attention shifting to Andrea the second she crossed the threshold.
She was in a blue dress that hid most of the bump, hands clasped in her lap. I could see her thumb pressing hard against her opposite palm, the tell she didn’t know she had. Nervous, but she didn’t look it. Her spine was straight, her chin level, her green eyes moving around the table like she was cataloging every face and filing it for later.
I introduced her without preamble. “Andrea Grey. My fated mate and the mother of my child.”
Every Alpha at the table turned to her. Five pairs of eyes, five wolves assessing a human who was sitting in a room where no human had ever sat. She was visibly pregnant, completely unprotected, surrounded by shifters who could snap her in half, and she met each of their gazes without flinching.
“Welcome, Ms. Grey,” Aldric said. Carefully neutral.
“Thank you for having me.” Her voice didn’t waver. “I know this is unusual. A human in the council chamber.”
“Unprecedented,” Brennan said. He’d served my father longer than any of them, gray-bearded, patient, an elder who said little and meant all of it.
“Then I’ll try not to set a bad precedent.”
A beat of silence. Brennan’s mouth twitched. Beside me, my wolf was practically preening.
