apter 46
“Is Logan coming to the wedding?” she asked casually.
I exhaled. “He’s… busy. Alliance Summit and all that.”
I really didn’t want to field more questions about Logan and our “upcoming” nuptials.
Her brow lifted, but she let it go. “Well, I was going through old letters the other day and guess what I found?”
I blinked. “Do I want to know?”
“A letter from you. We were fifteen. You promised that if I got married first and you had kids, your child would be my flower girl or ring bearer. Do you remember that?”
My mouth opened. I didn’t, not clearly. But a flicker of something–warmth, joy, a memory of laughing in the garden while braiding each other’s hair–surfaced and made my heart
ache.
“You think Aiden would be interested?”
“In being a ring bearer?” I asked.
From the doorway, a little voice rang out: “I accept!”
I turned to see Aiden grinning, arms crossed triumphantly like he’d just accepted a royal
commission.
Dawn burst out laughing. “Well, that settles that.”
Later, after she’d gone and Aiden had launched into an intense debate with the kitchen
staff over which kind of cake was best suited for weddings, I found myself staring out the
window, wondering how everything had changed in so many ways.
Six years ago, I was Mia. A name, a mask. A rogue.
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Now I was planning diplomacy strategy between packs, hosting dignitaries, trying to protect a child who didn’t even know the full truth of his own origin.
And Mason… was nowhere to be found.
I texted him for the third time that day. No reply. My jaw clenched.
If he was lying to me–if he was hiding something–I’d drag it out of him myself.
***
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CASSANDRA
“My daughter.”
J
My father’s voice rasped through the old landline, rough with whiskey and disappointment.
“Yes, Father,” I said, pacing the sun–drenched porch of the guest estate, one hand pressed to my temple.
“I read the reports. The attack near Silverclaw. Rogues tightening their grip. You do realize how exposed we are? We’re not like them, Cassandra. We don’t have warriors to spare.”
I looked out over to the fieldhouse where even now Derek’s warriors were training, sharp voices ringing out interlaced with the occasional snarl. My pack–my home pack–didn’t have facilities even remotely like it.
I sighed. “I know.”
“Then do something.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re dragging your feet. That’s what you’re doing.”
How had it come to this? Seven years ago, Derek and I had planned a trip around the world -I would have come home with a ring on my finger and been Luna of the most powerful
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pack in the northern hemisphere. But it had all fallen apart.
“I have a plan-”
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“You’ve been hanging on Derek King’s coattails for years,” he snapped. “It’s time you secured the bond. Make it official. Marriage. Alliance. Do you know what that would mean for us? No one would dare lay a finger on Eastern Ridge.”
“He’s distracted.” I seethed, thinking of Elena. Always Elena.
“Then distract him back. Do whatever it takes.”
I closed my eyes, exhaling slowly.
“You’re my only child, Cassandra. My only heir. If you can’t secure this alliance… everything we’ve built–everything–will fall.”
“I said I have a plan.”
He didn’t answer. But he didn’t hang up, either.
I stood there in silence, listening to him breathe. Listening to the weight of what he was
asking crash down around me.
Derek still looked at Elena like she was the sun.
But if I couldn’t make him look at me the same way, I’d burn her out of his sky myself.
One way or another.
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Chapter 47
