Riley‘ POV


    Their presence… Lucien, Matriarch Duskgrave, Mrs. Beck, Mia…


    They were the reason I hadn’t gone full monster.


    The reason I hadn’t dragged my enemies down into the grave with me.


    Finished


    They’d kept one small, stubborn spark of conscience alive in me. They let me believe–just barely–that there was still something in this world worth protecting.


    But even that hope was like a dying ember, a candle in a storm. One wrong gust, and it would be gone forever.


    Lucien reached across the low table, took a thick envelope from Duke, and tossed it onto the dark wood with a casual flick of his wrist.


    “The agreement’s here,” his voice was deep, resonant–an Alpha’smand disguised in silk. “Sign it, and you two can leave.”


    He was talking to Dean Elira and Caden.


    The pair blinked at him, surprise flickering in their eyes. They hadn’t expected the Stormridge Alpha Prince to let them walk


    out.


    But when they saw what was written… I smelled the shift in their scent, the sudden plunge into despair.


    Every asset, every drop of wealth, transferred to me–no loopholes, no conditions.


    Without their hoarded gold, they were nothing. And their son abroad? He’d be just as vulnerable.


    Still, they didn’t have a choice. Not with Lucien in the room. His reach was long, and if they didn’tply… their precious boy would pay in blood.


    Dean Elira’s hands trembled as she picked up the pen. The scratch of her signature was a wolf’s scrap of property Alpha ric had stolen from me was nowing back where it belonged.


    Lucien slid the papers toward me, his expression solemn.


    The envelope felt heavier than stone in my hands–because it wasn’t just wealth. It was justice.


    death howl in ink. Every


    I looked up, meeting those warm, velvet–dark eyes. The kind of gaze that could melt frost from a winter night. My chest tightened with an ache I didn’t want to name.


    He’d nned this from the start. He’d wanted me to have back everything the Ebonw Pack had ripped away from me. He’d been ready for this moment long before I was.


    “Lucien… thank you. You’ve done so much for me, I don’t even know how to repay you, my voice cracked, the words rough in my throat.


    A slow smile curved his lips. “You really want to repay me?”


    I nodded Hard.


    I already owed him too much. He’d pulled me off that bridge when I’d been ready to let the current take me. He’d given me shelter, paid for my treatment, stood in my corner when I had no pack left to call my own.


    Now this. This was beyond anything I could bnce.


    “Anything you ask.” I said, my voice steady this time. “I’ll give it everything I’ve got.”


    The gleam in his eyes deepened, a hunter savoring the moment the trap snaps shut. “Then bring this wealth as your dowry… when youe to the Duskgrave estate as my mate.”


    The words were calm, deliberate–yet theynded in me like a thunderp.


    <b>3:33 </b>PM P P


    My face burned.


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    D


    Finished


    Last time, he’d spoken in Italian. I hadn’t understood, but somehow I’d said yes anyway. Now… there was no mistaking him.


    I should have been happy–gods, I wanted to be happy. But the tears came anyway, unstoppable.


    Because the moon had given me the right male at the wrong time.


    I loved him. I loved his grandmother. I wanted, more than I’d ever wanted anything, to belong to their pack.


    But my body was broken. And an Alpha like him deserved a strong, unscarred mate–not someone who’d been gutted by life and stitched back together with too many jagged


    The tears fell harder.


    Lucien’s brows drew together, and he reached for a cloth, wiping my cheeks with careful, almost reverent hands. “Don’t cry,” he murmured.


    I tried to stop. I couldn’t. The truth was, even after bringing Scarlett to her knees, there was no joy in me.


    Because once I finished embroidering The Imperial Bloom, I’d be leaving with Carmen–far from Mooncrest, far from him, far from everything in Stormridge that had be home.


    The thought was a de in my chest.


    And I broke.


    I lunged into his arms, burying my face against his scent–wolf, cedar, the faint heat of iron.


    He froze for half a heartbeat, then wrapped me in those strong arms, one hand moving slowly up and down my spine. “It’s alright,” he whispered, knowing I couldn’t hear him, but saying it anyway.


    That’s when I felt it–another presence.


    Ronan Duskcliff stood there, his gaze sharp enough to cut.


    The jealousy was rolling off him in waves, fouling the air.


    “Duskgrave,” he growled, his voice carrying that dangerous Duskcliff Pack edge, “let her go. She’s mine–we have a betrothal. I’in her fiancé.”


    I almostughed.


    Because that im… was more pathetic than anything Scarlett had ever said


    Send Gifts