Third Person’s POV


    s


    Freya cast a brief nce at Jocelyn, whose face was pale and drawn, and then nodded slightly. She shifted her gaze toward Kade, who was leaning casually against the wall nearby. “And you?” she asked.


    “I’ll be back to the private room after a quick stop,” Kade repliedzily, his tone smooth but carrying an underlying edge of danger.


    Freya didn’t press further. She and Ss moved toward the private dining area, the air between them calm, taut with the silent confidence of two wolves aware of their shared territory.


    Meanwhile, Kade approached Jocelyn, whose posture stiffened instantly, her wolf bristling against the pressure radiating from him. Her instinct screamed at her to retreat, and she took a cautious step back.


    Kade smiled, a slow, predatory curl of his lips, and then reached forward to grasp Jocelyn’s face. His fingers pressed dangerously close to the scarred eye she had lost years ago, remnants of a reckless confrontation at the Stormveil Primal Hall. The venom in his voice slithered like a serpent’s tongue.


    “You… you. This is the woman who once tripped my sister at the gates of the Stormveil Primal Hall, kept her from entering, wasn’t it? Because of Ss Whitmor, you sacrificed an eye, right?” Kade’s tone was teasing, but beneath it lurked a lethal promise.


    Jocelyn’s breath hitched. Every nerve in her body screamed at the touch of his fingers near her remaining eye. Her wolf trembled, snarling silently, warning of the predator’s proximity.


    “Do you believe me?” Kade continued, tightening his grip just slightly. “If you ever dare speak another word against Freya Thorne, your other eye might not survive either.”


    Fear flooded Jocelyn’s amber eyes. She stammered, “Y-you can’t… if you do that, you’ll go to prison!”


    Kade chuckled softly, the sound dark, wolfish, carrying the weight of controlled violence. “Try me. Let’s see whether I end up behind bars first, or your eye disappears.”


    Jocelyn’s teeth chattered. Even Ss, at his most audacious, had never felt like this-a slow, creeping terror of absolute power, the kind that Kade radiated effortlessly. Her pride, her arrogance, melted into a cold


    sweat.


    “P-please… I won’t say another word about Freya…” Her voice was weak, pleading. She could sense the truth in Kade’s threat-this was no idle bluff.


    Finally, he released her, stepping back toward the sink to casually wash his hands, as if the previous exchange had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience. “I hope you remember what was said here today,” he muttered,


    Jocelyn retreated to the private room where her friends were seated. She pushed open the door, but the reception was far from warm. Their smiles were absent, reced with mockery and thinly veiled scorn.


    “Looks like you’ve lost your anchor, Jocelyn,” one of them sneered.


    “I was wondering why you’ve been so desperate to gather ustely,” another added, “Turns out it’s because you’re out of power in the Thorne family.”


    1:16 pm


    s


    A third chimed in, voiceced with mockery, “So that’s why you’re rushing to start some project, huh? nning to use us as stepping stones? That’s ambitious, isn’t it?”


    Theughter and jabs hit Jocelyn like icy water, a visceral reminder of how fragile her social standing had be. She had alwaysmanded attention, wielded influence with a subtle nce or a whispered word-but now, stripped of Ss’ backing, she was exposed, vulnerable, a wolf without a pack.


    One of her supposed friends, Martong, stepped forward, her expression one of thinly veiled triumph. “Sorry, Jocelyn, I overheard your conversation with Ss in the corridor,” she said, her voice mock-sweet. “We all heard it. And honestly… why didn’t you tell us sooner?”


    Jocelyn’s mouth opened, ready to protest. “I—”


    Before she could finish, Martong grabbed a bottle of wine from the table and emptied it over her. Jocelyn froze, the warm liquid soaking her hair and clothes, a humiliating, public act.


    “You should have told us earlier!” Martong snapped, stepping back with a smirk.


    Jocelyn stared at her, disbelief flooding her senses. “Y-you… what are you saying?”


    Martong’s scorn was tant, wolfish in its intensity. “Jocelyn, you really thought we stayed close to you because of you? Don’t be ridiculous. You were just a private daughter once, trying to im a spot here among us. The only reason we humored you was because of your connection to Ss Whitmor. But now that he’s clearly no longer invested in you, what are you worth? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”


    Theughter that followed was cruel, echoing off the walls of the private room like the howl of mocking wolves. Jocelyn stood there, drenched, humiliated, and utterly alone. In that moment, she was a spectacle, a fallen wolf exposed to the pack she had once believed she led.


    Freya watched from the corridor’s edge, her wolf instinct throbbing in tune with her human awareness. Ss had been beside her moments ago, unyielding, protective, a presence that could crush threats and enforce boundaries with nothing more than posture and scent. Jocelyn, by contrast, was revealed for what she had always been: human frailty cloaked in the illusion of dominance, now stripped away.


    And yet, in this crucible of social and pack dynamics, one thing remained absolute-Freya and Ss were aligned, their wolves intertwined, their territory, their influence, and their bond unchallenged. Anyone who dared to test them would find that crossing them was far more dangerous than Jocelyn or her so- called friends could imagine.


    1:16 pm P