A younger Alpha at the far end decided this was his moment. Pushed back on the eastern border patrol schedule, said the routes were outdated, the rotations too thin, talking fast and gaining confidence with every sentence while the rest of the table watched.
I let him finish. Every word. Sat still, face blank, giving him nothing to react to. When he was done and the silence settled, I released just enough of my pheromones to fill the room. Not aggressive. Just present. A reminder of who sat at the head of this table.
His posture dropped. Chin dipped, shoulders curved inward, his wolf submitting before his brain caught up. A few of the other Alphas shifted in their chairs too.
“The patrol routes were updated six weeks ago,” I said, level. “If you have a specific concern, bring it to Luca with data. I don’t change strategy based on feelings.”
He nodded and the room went quiet. Meeting adjourned.
Luca fell into step beside me as I walked through the estate corridor toward the study. Hands in his pockets, easy slouch, looking for all the world like someone out for a casual stroll and not the man who’d just spent an hour cataloguing every power play in that room.
“Aldric is going to be a problem eventually,” he said.
“Aldric has been a problem since my father’s time. He’ll push until I push back and then he’ll fall in line.”
“Fair.” He glanced at me sideways. “There’s another thing.”
“What.”
“Lorraine.”
Goddamn it. “What did she do.”
“Told the Hale family that you and her are engaged. Formal announcement coming by the end of the year, according to her.” He paused, and I could hear the restrained amusement under his next words. “Also told the pack liaison coordinator that she’s the future Luna and expects to be consulted on all social event planning.”
I stopped walking. “She said what.”
“Direct quote from the coordinator: ‘Ms. Ashtor informed me that as the incoming Luna, she expects to approve all event details going forward.’ Coordinator had no idea what to make of it. Came to me. I told her to disregard it, but the damage is spreading. The Hale family has been telling people congratulations.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes. Lorraine had been doing this for as long as I could remember. Growing up, she was always there, at every dinner, every holiday, trailing after me and George and our friends. Her mother Regina and my mother Margaret had planned this marriage since before either of us could walk, and Lorraine absorbed it as gospel. I’d declined her invitations, dodged the subject, flat-out told her I wasn’tinterested. None of it landed. She heard what she wanted and discarded the rest.
The worst part was I remembered when she wasn’t like this. When we were kids, before the mothers started whispering about weddings and bloodlines, Lorraine was just a girl who showed up at our house and followed George around and stole food off my plate at dinner. Annoying in the way kids are annoying. Normal. Then around sixteen, seventeen, something shifted. She started dressing differently when I was around, showing up at events I attended, manufacturing reasons to be alone with me. And every time I pulled away, her mother and mine pushed harder, like my disinterest was a phase they could wait out.
I didn’t hate her. She was someone who was at my father’s funeral, who brought my mother flowers every week for a year after he died. Cutting her off felt less like setting a boundary and more like pulling out a foundation, and I didn’t know what would collapse once I did.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said.
“You’ve been saying that for months.”
“I know.”
“Her family carries weight. If you don’t shut this down publicly, the pack is going to treat it as fact. Some already are.”
“I know, Luca.”
“Do you? Because from where I’m standing, you’ve known for months and you haven’t done shit about it.”
I turned to look at him. He didn’t flinch. That was Luca. Anyone else in the pack would have dropped their eyes or backed off, but Luca just stood there with his hands in his pockets and that look on his face that said he’d known me too long to be intimidated by the Alpha bullshit.
“Then do it,” he said. Quiet. Final.
I didn’t answer. Because shutting Lorraine down publicly meant going through my mother first. Margaret would cry, invoke my dead father, lecture me about duty and legacy. The truth was I’d been trained since birth to put family first, always, no exceptions. For a long time before Andrea, I’d looked at my future and seen exactly what my mother wanted. Not because I wanted Lorraine, but because I didn’t want anyone. Relationships were a distraction. A strategic partnership with a strong Alpha family made sense on paper, and paper was how I’d been trained to make decisions.
Then Andrea walked into that interview room and my wolf recognized her and everything I thought I knew went to shit in three seconds.
“I’ll handle it,” I said.
It sounded hollow. Luca’s face said everything.
