Chapter 27 Maeve
MAEVE
The Silver Fang felt wrong without people.
Maeve sat behind her bar in the dark, nursing whiskey she couldn't taste. No voices. No laughter. No shifters arguing about sports or humans ordering coffee. Just silence and the weight of failure pressing down until she could barely breathe.
Her tavern. Years of building something that mattered. Gone in one Council vote and a pile of forged documents.
The fire had died hours ago. She hadn't bothered relighting it. Cold felt appropriate when everything else had frozen solid.
Her lioness wanted to fight and hunt down Hector so she could tear out his throat for daring to steal what was hers.
But violence wouldn't fix this. Wouldn't bring back her license or undo the suspension. Would only prove Hector right about unstable females who couldn't control themselves.
So she sat. In the dark. Drinking whiskey that didn't warm and trying not to think about amber eyes and the promise she'd seen there before everything crumbled.
The back door opened. Cold air rushed in along with Twyla, carrying a basket and that knowing expression that meant she'd come to meddle.
"Haven’t you heard. We're closed," Maeve said without looking up.
Twyla ignored her as she moved through the dark tavern with fae grace, setting her basket on the bar. "I brought mulled wine. The kind your grandmother used to make."
That got Maeve's attention. "How do you know what my grandmother made?"
"I'm old, remember?" Twyla pulled out a thermos and two mugs. "I've been in Hollow Oak and many other places longer than anyone. Knew your grandmother before she left. Before you were born. She taught me her recipe."
She poured dark wine that smelled like cinnamon and cloves and comfort Maeve didn't deserve. Set one mug in front of Maeve, kept one for herself.
"Drink," Twyla ordered. "Then talk."
"Nothing to talk about."
"There's everything to talk about." Twyla settled onto a barstool, wheat-colored hair catching what little light filtered through snow-covered windows. "You lost your tavern today. Lost your pride. And you're sitting here in the dark like that's where you belong."
"Maybe it is." Maeve sipped the wine. Heat spread through her chest, familiar and painful. "I built this place. Proved I could run a business without pride backing or male oversight. And one Council meeting destroyed it all."
"Hector destroyed it. Using politics and procedure and your own choices as weapons."
"My choices." Maeve's hands tightened on the mug. "Letting him investigate. Sleeping with him when I knew better. Every choice gave Hector ammunition."
"Every choice was yours to make." Twyla's voice gentled. "You're not responsible for how he twisted them. You're only responsible for what you do next."
"Which is what? Wait two weeks for an audit that'll find nothing wrong because there's nothing wrong?
Hope the Council reinstates my license while Hector manufactures more evidence?
" Maeve's voice cracked. "I can't fight forged documents and political manipulation.
I can't win against someone who makes the rules work in his favor. "
"You can." Twyla leaned forward. "But not alone. Not while you're sitting here drowning in shame and anger."
"I'm not drowning."
"You're drowning." Twyla's light brown eyes held hers. "Been drowning since the moment you walked away from that Council meeting. Since you realized Dante's help made things worse. Since you understood that needing someone might've cost you everything."
The words hit too close. Maeve looked away, staring at her reflection in the dark windows. Short black hair mussed. Eyes shadowed. Someone who'd fought so hard to prove she did not need anyone that she'd forgotten how to ask for help.
"I don't know how to do this," she whispered.
"Do what?"
"Need people. Trust them. Let them close enough to hurt me when they leave. I handle everything on my own. I’m the one who gives advice.
" She set her mug down, liquid sloshing.
"I've been alone since I left the pride.
Built this tavern alone. Ran it alone. Proved I was strong enough to handle anything.
And the moment I let someone in, let Dante matter, everything fell apart. "
"Not because you let him in." Twyla's voice carried certainty. "Because Hector saw you getting stronger. Saw you building alliances and partnerships that threatened his plans. He attacked when you started becoming more than a lone lioness running a tavern. When you started becoming a force."
"I don't feel like a force. I feel like a failure."
"You feel scared." Twyla reached across the bar, catching Maeve's hand. "Scared that loving Dante made you weak. That needing him gave Hector power. That opening yourself up cost you everything you built."
"Didn't it?"
"No." Twyla squeezed her hand. "Loving someone doesn't make you smaller, Maeve. It makes you bigger. Stronger. More capable of handling what comes. But hiding from love? Running from connection? That's what makes you small. That's what gives men like Hector power."
Maeve wanted to pull away. Wanted to reject the truth that sat too heavy in her chest. But Twyla's grip stayed firm, fae strength wrapped in human warmth.
"You've already been hurt." Twyla's thumb stroked across her knuckles.
"Walking away from Dante after you chose him twice and ran both times?
That hurt. Sitting here alone in your closed tavern convinced you failed?
That hurts. The question isn't whether you'll hurt.
It's whether you'll let that hurt make you smaller or use it to become stronger. "
"How?"
"By stopping." Twyla released her hand, picking up her mug. "Stop running from what scares you and hiding behind walls and independence and the lie that you're better off alone."
"I've pushed him away at every turn. Accused him of manipulation when he was just being honest. Ran after he confessed. After we—" She stopped, heat flooding her cheeks.
"After you made love and it felt too real?" Twyla's smile turned gentle. "Your lioness recognized its mate and you got scared because you've never let anyone that close."
"Yes."
"That's not unforgivable. That's human. Or lioness. Whatever." Twyla sipped her wine. "The point is you're scared. That's allowed. What's not allowed is letting fear steal your strength. Letting it convince you that being alone is safer than being loved."
Maeve stared into her mug, watching steam curl and dissipate. "What if I trust him and he chooses duty over me again?"
"Then you survive it." Twyla's voice carried hard truth.
"Same as you survived the first time. Same as you've survived everything else life threw at you.
But Maeve? I've watched that lion for two weeks.
Watched him break protocol to tell you the truth.
Fight rogues to protect your territory and look at you like you're the reason the sun rises.
He's not leaving. Not unless you make him. "
She gathered her basket, preparing to leave.
Twyla paused at the door. "You're a lioness who built a business from nothing in a town that wasn't hers.
Who faced down her uncle in front of half the market.
Who's been holding this community together for years through strength and stubbornness and sheer force of will.
You're strong enough for anything. The question is whether you're brave enough to stop proving it. "
She left, the door closing softly.
Maeve sat in the dark tavern, mulled wine warming her hands and truth settling into her bones like stones.
She'd been so focused on proving she didn't need anyone that she'd forgotten what it meant to choose to need someone. To actively decide that having them in her life was worth the risk of losing them.
Maeve looked around her empty tavern. Her pride. Her proof that she could build something that mattered without anyone's help.
But sitting here alone in the dark, she understood what Twyla had been trying to tell her.
She hadn't built this alone. The community had supported her. Callum had vouched for her. Customers had chosen to spend their time and money here instead of elsewhere. Even Dante, in his own frustrating way, had been trying to stand with her instead of control her.
She'd never been as alone as she'd convinced herself she was.
Maybe admitting she needed people, needed him, wasn't surrender. It was just honesty. The same honesty Dante had shown when he'd confessed why he'd stayed behind. When he'd admitted he'd been wrong.
Maeve finished her wine and stood. Her tavern was closed. Her license suspended. Her pride wounded.
But she wasn't broken.
And she was done hiding.
Tomorrow she'd figure out how to fight Hector without violence. How to reclaim her tavern through strategy instead of claws. How to prove to the Council and herself that she was fit to run the Silver Fang regardless of who she chose to be with.
And admitting that was the first step, though painful, at her acknowledging what her lion had been forcing her to see.