Chapter 2 #2
Elias moves behind me, silent but present. A reminder that I’m not alone in this. But I don’t take his help now. We’re attracting an audience. I sense other pack members coming closer. I’m sure they’re eager to see how I’ll react to the disrespect.
Certainly, not how I’d like to.
I inhale slowly. “Rowan ran with me this morning because I needed it. Because my wolf needed it. I can’t lead if I’m on edge. And she’s part of this pack now, whether you like it or not.”
The words are honest.
They are also, apparently, the wrong ones.
Jerome’s eyes flash dark gold. “There it is. Whether we like it or not.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“That’s exactly what you meant,” Fiona says sharply. “You don’t care how we feel. You don’t care that you vanished without a second thought to the consequences we’d face. You don’t care that we held this place together while you—”
“While I survived after our prior council killed my mother,” I snap before I can stop myself, and I’m met with silence.
My own words echo in the hallway, ugly and sharp.
I exhale, forcing my voice back down. “I know my choices weren’t the best, and I’m not asking you to forget what I did. I’m not asking for blind loyalty. I’m only asking for time and a modicum of respect. We can’t move forward without it.”
“Time,” Paul repeats, like it’s poison. “You’ve had time. We’re the ones who didn’t.”
I can feel it—my calm unraveling, my wolf snarling, my patience stretched thin across years of regret.
Still, I try again, staying softer than I feel on the inside. “I’m here now, and I’m not leaving again. I’m doing everything I can—”
“It’s not enough!” Fiona blurts. “It never will be.”
The crowd that’s grown around us starts to part, and all I can do is tense, preparing for more of a fight, but then the scent hits—warm, familiar, and threaded with something wild and bright.
Rowan.
I don’t move. I can’t. Yet, I don’t want her walking into this and taking their bitterness like it’s hers to carry.
But she’s already there, standing a few paces back in the hallway, her presence cutting through the tension like a blade.
Her gaze flicks from my face to theirs, taking in the scene in half a breath.
“What’s going on?” she asks, voice almost too steady.
No one answers her at first.
Then Jerome says, frankly and carelessly, “We’re talking about how our alpha has time for his mate but not his pack.”
Rowan blinks once, slowly.
Then her brows knit—not in anger, but in confusion. “What are you talking about? I wake up every day alone. He’s here, in this pack house, doing everything he can to right the wrongs—”
“He’s here making sure he has an army to protect his mate who just might kill us all anyway,” someone shouts from the back.
I can’t see their face, but I catch their scent, and I won’t soon forget it.
“You’re joking, right?” She throws her hands in the air. “No, he’s here, making things right with you all before we go back to deal with the shitstorm your prior, and idiotic, wolf council allowed to be made worse.” She glances around, meeting tense faces. “He’s choosing you over everything else.”
“Lies.” Paul spits on the floor in disgust. “He has everything he needs right here.”
That’s when Rowan’s wolf peeks through, and before things can escalate, I step back in.
“Enough.” Alpha power bleeds through my voice. “You can heckle me and blame me all you want, but you won’t disrespect my mate. Not now, not ever. Do I make myself clear?”
Nobody says a word, and heads begin to bow.
At least they can still feel my strength even if they don’t like it.
Rowan moves to my side, her palm settling over my bicep like an anchor—steady, grounding, and entirely deliberate. The warmth of her touch cuts through the tension coiling in my chest, even as I feel what she’s about to do before she says a word.
“They don’t know what you’re sacrificing by being here, do they?”
“This isn’t the time,” I murmur under my breath, but she doesn’t pull back. If anything, she leans in, like she’s already made the decision for both of us.
She turns to face them fully.
“You’ve all heard of Malrik by now,” she begins, her voice calm but carrying, the kind that doesn’t need to rise to be heard. “The sorcerer who’s been manipulating things behind the scenes. And I’m sure you also know he hasn’t been dealt with yet.”
No one interrupts her. They’re listening, even if they won’t meet her gaze.
“What you don’t know,” she continues, “is that he has my mother.”
That gets their attention.
Rowan doesn’t rush the next part. She doesn’t soften it either.
“He’s been using her to bait me. Holding her somewhere I can’t reach yet, making it very clear that when I come for him… it’s exactly what he wants.”
Paul’s mouth parts slightly before he looks away. Fiona’s stance shifts, her arms loosening just a fraction, though her expression stays guarded.
“I want to go after her,” Rowan says, and this time there’s no hiding the weight behind it. “Every hour of every day, that’s where my mind is. It’s where my instincts are pushing me. And if it were just about me, I would have already gone.”
Her hand tightens slightly on my arm—not for comfort, but for emphasis.
“But it’s not just about me.”
Silence swallows the hallway, and it isn’t comfortable either.
“Cade brought me here because this is his home,” she says. “Because you matter to him. Not out of guilt or obligation, but because this pack is part of who he is, no matter how long he’s been gone.”
Fiona’s eyes finally lift, and Rowan holds her gaze.
“And whether you believe it yet or not,” she adds, quieter but no less certain, “you matter to me now too.”
The air shifts.
“I don’t know everything you’ve been through,” Rowan continues, her voice steadying into something deeper, something that doesn’t waver. “But I do know what it feels like to have your life ripped out from under you. To be forced into something you didn’t choose.”
Silence presses in around us, heavier now, but not hostile.
“I know what it feels like to be left behind, and I’m not going to let that happen here again.”
That’s the moment something cracks. Not visibly, but it’s there.
“So, if you’re angry,” Rowan continues, her tone firm but no longer sharp, “you have every right to be. But don’t mistake why we’re here. It isn’t because we had to. We did so because this pack is worth fighting for.”
The silence that follows is different.
Still heavy and complicated, but no longer closed off.
Jerome looks down, his jaw working like he’s trying to swallow something that won’t go down easy. Fiona’s shoulders drop another fraction, her posture losing just enough rigidity to matter. Paul still won’t look at us, but he hasn’t walked away.
It isn’t forgiveness. Not yet. But it’s something.
It’s the first real crack in the wall they’ve built around themselves since I stepped foot back in Solara.
Rowan shifts closer to my side, her presence steady and unwavering, and my wolf presses hard against the inside of my chest—drawn to her in a way that feels deeper than instinct.
Not just my mate.
Something more.
Something maybe even the pack is starting to see too.
Elias exhales behind me, slow and quiet, like he’s been holding his breath for weeks.
Jerome finally clears his throat. “Alpha,” he says, rougher than before.
It’s the first time he’s used the title without venom.
I nod once. “We’ll have a full pack run,” I say, keeping my voice level. “Soon. When it serves the pack, not when it proves a point.”
He hesitates, then gives a short nod.
The three of them drift away, not meeting Rowan’s gaze now, nor mine, but also not spitting their anger on the floor on the way out.
It’s something.
When they’re gone, and everyone else has dispersed, I finally let myself breathe fully.
Rowan’s hand brushes mine, brief and grounding.
“I didn’t mean to—” she starts.
“You did exactly what I should have,” I say quietly. “I should have been more honest with them instead of trying to kiss their asses.”
Her mouth tightens, like she doesn’t agree, but she also doesn’t say more.
Instead, another presence appears at the end of the hallway.
A scent I know too well. A scent that doesn’t belong here, even after everything.
Iris.
She walks toward us with the calm of someone who has already decided what happens next.
Her hair is cut short now—spiked and sharp, silver threaded through dark like she’s stopped pretending she’s anyone’s grandmother. Her clothes are different too. No floral prints. No soft layers. Practical, clean lines that make her look smaller somehow, yet far more dangerous.
Rowan goes still beside me.
Even Elias straightens.
Iris stops a few feet away and looks between us, her gaze clear and focused. Visible proof that the fog in her mind has burned away and left nothing but steel.
“Well,” she says, voice dry as bone. “Look at you two. Playing alpha and luna like you were born for it.”
Rowan’s breath catches.
I watch the old woman carefully, every instinct screaming that this is not the Iris we left behind, or even a version of her that I’ve met before. Whether that’s a good thing or not remains to be seen.
Rowan’s hand tightens around mine, then she releases it.
“We should talk,” Rowan says to her, voice low.
Iris’s mouth curves—almost a smile, but not soft. “Why do you think I’m here?” She gestures back outside. “Shall we, sugarplum?”
Rowan looks up at me, and I lean down to kiss her forehead. “I’ll see you back at the cabin shortly.”
“Not soon enough,” she mutters before following her grandmother outside.
I almost wish I could join her. As much as I’d like to strangle Iris most days, I have a sinking feeling that old kook didn’t finally reappear because she’s feeling better.
She came out to hunt.