Caelum’s POV


    2


    +8 Pearls


    The apuse that followed my presentation rang hollow in my ears. For a moment, I thought I had survived it–the quiver in my voice, the crack in my delivery. The officials pped, and Director Leo’s words had sounded like salvation.


    Then Freya’s voice cut through the air.


    Cold. Sharp. Inescapable.


    “Caelum Grafton,” she called me by name, not title, not Alpha, but with a de on her tongue. “I never thought you’d stoop so low–not just clinging to my patent, but stealing the proposal I wrote before I left your Forgeworks.”


    The hall went still. The weight of her words crashed over me, drowning the scraps of approval I had just managed to clutch.


    My lips pressed tight, but instinct forced me to speak, to salvage what pride I could. “This,” I said, holding up the document in my hand like a shield, “is a SilverTech proposal. Freya, you may have left, but what <b>you </b>created while under my banner belongs to thepany.”


    Even as I said it, the lie scalded my tongue.


    Herughter was notughter at all–it was venom. “So that’s what you’ve be. A male who doesn’t even bother with honor anymore.”


    Heat wed up my neck, burning across my face. “Careful,” I snapped, voice shaking though I tried to force steel into it. “If you keep ndering me like this, don’t me me for discarding every shred of history we shared.”


    Her eyes, those storm–born eyes, only mocked me. “History?” she said. “Caelum, you never once gave me loyalty in all those years. If you were capable of honor, would our bond have rotted the way it did? The only one you’ve ever shown care for is Aurora.”


    My throat seized. The hall turned, eyes shifting again to Aurora–my fragile shield, my chosen distraction–and she wilted under the weight of their judgment.


    Freya pressed on, relentless. “And besides,” she said, lifting her chin, “this proposal? It was unfinished when I left.”


    The words pierced through me like a spear.


    “Unfinished?” I repeated, stunned. I had studied every line of that document, lived with it for weeks. To me it had beenplete–more thanplete. The blueprint of our next conquest.


    But Freya <i>only </i>nodded, cold and merciless. “Yes. The patent mentioned there–my patent–is three years old. Useful, yes, but outdated. Technology evolves. So too do the ws raised against it. The interference systems now prowling the skies can cripple those drones. Without a countermeasure, without the newyer of anti–disruption protocols I had already begun, your machines are nothing more than iron carcasses waiting to fall.”


    I couldn’t breathe.


    The apuse that had carried me seconds ago withered into silence. My heart pounded in my chest like a drum of doom. I had gambled everything on this–everything.


    heart as silver Str yoll


    If she spoke truth–and my wolf knew she did–then the very weapon Lhad paraded as Silverfang’s edge was no more than dull steel.


    Her voice pressed the weight harder. “Had our bond not broken, I would have finished the work, strengthened the pack’s weapon, sealed its dominance. But you tore us apart, Caelum. You took what was mine, and so now you may choke on it.”


    My blood iced. I could feel the eyes upon me–wolves, humans, Alphas, and officials alike. The scent of disbelief rippled through the chamber.


    “That’s her work?” someone muttered near the front.


    “So SilverTech’s Alpha built his fortune on his ex–mate’s ws?” another whispered.


    “Three years he’s stood in the Capital’s market, and not one of those ideas was his own?”


    +8 Pearls


    Each whisper was a fang in my hide. I wanted to bare my teeth, to silence them with a growl that would split the air, but I could not–not with Freya watching, not with the truth already bleeding out around me.


    And then Ss Whitmor’s voice, slow and deliberate, drove the de deeper. “So tell us, Director Leo–do we still waste time discussing SilverTech’s bid? Or do we pass to the next, one worth the ink?”


    The official hesitated, gave a brittle smile, and cleared his throat. “Yes… perhaps we move along.”


    The words felled me more thoroughly than ws ever could.


    The host gestured, and I realized toote that I was still standing at the podium, frozen, shamed. My legs felt like stone, but <b>I </b>forced them to move, each step dragging as though the eyes of every wolf in the chamber were weights tied around my limbs.


    I descended, one step, another, and reached the floor.


    Aurora was there instantly, her voice soft, desperate. “Caelum, don’t despair. We can craft another proposal, something stronger. I believe in you.”


    But herfort was a noose. Each word reminded me of the truth I could not speak aloud: that if I had been capable of better, I would never have used Freya’s n in the first ce. My wolves had offered me drafts–weak, useless. My own mind had turned in circles, desperate. And in the end, I had stolen.


    And now, worse, I had been caught.


    My vision blurred at the edges. If Freya was right–if the patent was already obsolete, if the drones could be gutted by a stronger interference–then everything I had woven, all the empire I promised Silverfang, would crumble.


    Not just this project. Not just the isle. SilverTech itself could bleed out in the dirt. My rivals would smell weakness, the Consortium would abandon me, the funding chain would snap. From Alpha of the Forgeworks to beggar in the ashes–it would all unravel.


    No. I couldn’t allow it. I wouldn’t.


    My wolf roared inside me, wing at my ribs, demanding I fight, demanding I tear the smug triumph from Freya’s throat. But I couldn’t–not here, not before this many eyes.


    So I forced my rage down, forced my breathing–steady.


    I lifted my gaze and fixed it on her–Freya Thorne, the mate I had cast aside, the female who had just gutted me with truth in front of every pack and every man of power.


    Her shoulders squared, her expression unreadable, but I knew her well enough to <b>see </b>it–the glimmer of fire, the satisfaction she took in my fall.


    The convocation droned on around us, other voices, other projects<b>. </b>I heard none of it.


    Because already, my mind was spinning. Already, I was searching for a way to w my fortune back from the pit she had


    thrown it into.


    Tonight, the summit would end with a banquet, with donations and dances before the wolves departed the isle.


    And I would find her there.


    One way or another, I would not let Freya Thorne be the death of me.


    Send Gifts