Chapter 3

The next morning, I left the signed territorial charter on Aldric's desk while his assistant stepped out for coffee. I was halfway down the hall when my phone buzzed—a message pushed through the pack's encrypted comm channel.

All senior members report to the main lodge. Immediate. New appointment to be announced.

I stopped mid-stride. A new appointment? Nobody had breathed a word.

I drove to the Voss estate on the ridge above Ravenhold. The great hall was already packed when I arrived—Betas, enforcers, ranked wolves, all standing in loose formation beneath the timber-vaulted ceiling. Cain stood at the front beside Aldric and two senior advisors. He wore a charcoal jacket, jaw set in that expression of practiced authority I'd spent five years memorizing.

Aldric raised one hand and the room went quiet the way rooms only go quiet for the very old and the very powerful.

"As you all know, the pack's been restructuring its diplomatic operations." His voice carried without effort. "We need a new liaison—someone who knows our inter-pack contacts and can manage relations with the independent territories." He gestured toward the arched doorway. "Celeste Dray."

The room stirred. I couldn't move.

She swept in like she'd been choreographed—fitted jacket, dark trousers, heels that struck the stone floor with the precision of a metronome. She crossed directly to Cain's side and placed her hand on his arm as if it had never left. As if the muscle memory was still there, preserved perfectly across five years and a thousand miles.

"Some of you remember me," she said, voice warm and practiced, pitched to carry to the back of the room. "I ran the southern territory under Cain before my assignment to the Ashfen pack. But here I am—back where I belong." She tilted her head toward him, and her smile carried the easy confidence of a wolf who already knows how the story ends. "Some things are just meant to be."

A murmur moved through the crowd. Behind me, one of the younger enforcers leaned toward his packmate: Those two were inseparable. Looks like nothing's changed.

Cain smiled—not the guarded, careful expression I knew, but something open and undefended. The kind of smile I hadn't seen directed at me in weeks.

He didn't step away from her. Not even an inch.

My nails carved crescents into my palms. I turned and slipped out through the side door before anyone noticed.

That evening, the welcome gathering was held at the pack's private lodge in the eastern quarter—stone walls, low firelight, no sign on the door and one of Aldric's men checking names at the entrance. I hadn't planned on going, but Rhen and a few others practically dragged me out.

"Come on, Mara," Rhen said, steering me by the elbow. "Everyone knows you've had a thing for Cain, but this is pack business. You have to show face."

I sat in the far corner, nursing a glass of red I had no intention of finishing, and watched Celeste work the room like she owned it. She touched Cain's shoulder when she laughed. Leaned close to murmur in his ear. Let her fingers trail down his sleeve as she moved away—and every time she did, I caught the deliberate edge of it. She was scent-marking him in plain sight, and no one at the table so much as blinked.

It was unbearable. In five years, Cain had never once let me stand that close to him in front of the pack. We can't give anyone ammunition, he'd always said. In this world, a weakness gets you killed.

I'd believed every word. Now I understood—the rule was never about safety. It was about me not being worth the risk.

"Those two were something else back in the day," said Gareth, the territorial enforcer seated beside me, swirling his whiskey. "When Celeste took the Ashfen post, Cain nearly stepped down. Told Aldric he'd dissolve the whole alliance before he let her go alone. If the old man hadn't talked him down—"

"And the claiming." Nessa, one of the pack's senior trackers, leaned in with the relish of someone who'd been waiting years to tell this story. "He called a full moon gathering at the Ashridge overlook. The whole pack watching. Got down on one knee and offered her the first mark. In front of everyone."

My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass. A public claiming—the most binding declaration a wolf could make, short of the mate bond itself. Every grand gesture I'd believed was ours alone—the private dinners, the whispered promises, the certainty that I was the only one—all of it had been rehearsed. A performance he'd already given once before, for someone else, in front of an audience that still remembered every detail. The entire pack knew their story. Not a single soul knew about ours.

Celeste circled back through the room and stopped in front of me, extending a manicured hand with a smile polished smooth as river stone.

"You must be Mara." Her eyes held mine a beat too long—reading my scent, cataloguing my reaction, filing it away. "I've heard so much about you. Think of me as the older sister you never had."

The audacity was almost impressive. The same wolf who'd been sending me her voice notes was standing here performing warmth for an audience.

"Charmed." I grazed her fingertips and withdrew.

Her smile tightened for just a flash before she recovered, pivoting back toward Cain. He was watching her approach—lips curved in that soft, private expression I used to think was mine alone. He never glanced my way. Not once.

I stood, murmured something about a phone call, and left.

Just past the threshold, Celeste's voice reached me—pitched perfectly to carry without seeming deliberate.

"Cain, I don't think your Beta likes me very much. She left before they even brought the food out."

A brief silence. Then Gareth's voice, helpful and oblivious: "Don't take it personally. She's been carrying a torch for Cain since she first ranked up. Five years running at his side, and now that you're back—of course she's rattled."

Sympathetic murmurs. Then Celeste, soft and theatrical: "That's not fair to her. We're all pack here."

I pressed my back against the cold stone wall and let out a soundless laugh. So that was my reputation. The desperate Beta. Lovesick and pathetic, orbiting an alpha who'd never look twice.

Fine. In eleven days, this desperate wolf would be gone. Not a single person at that table knew I'd been sharing Cain Blackwell's den for half a decade.

I'd made it to the front entrance when his footsteps caught up with me. Heavy. Quick. Edged with something sharp.

"Mara." His voice was low and controlled, but only just. "What was that? Walking out of a pack gathering—you know how that looks. Celeste is new to this position. You made her feel unwelcome."

I stopped. Turned. Looked him dead in the eye.

"You're so concerned with making her comfortable—is that because she's new to the position? Or because she's the ex you never bothered to tell me about?"