LOGINIvy's POV
I lay on top of the covers fully dressed and I closed my eyes and blocked all of the pack gossip and hallway whispers that pointed and followed me everywhere I walked in this mansion since yesterday. I was not going to give any of them the satisfaction of watching me break down twice in the same building.
The test was a success and the test results will be out soon so I just needed to sleep right now, when the door slammed open hard enough to hit the wall.
Liam's POVThe Gerald estate at night was something else entirely.What had been elegant and understated in the afternoon had transformed by seven o'clock into something that commanded attention.String lights ran the full length of the garden, warm gold against the dark sky. The hall doors were thrown open wide, the sound of live music bleeding into the courtyard where Alphas and their entourages moved between conversations with the careful choreography of powerful people who were always, always working even when they looked like they were celebrating.I stood near the main entrance in the charcoal suit, a glass in my hand that I had not touched, watching the room do what rooms like this did.Gerald found me within ten minutes of the doors opening. He was in deep navy, gold at the collar, the kind of man who aged into his authority rather than away from it, broad-shouldered, silver at his temples, eyes that missed very little. His wife moved
Tulip's POVShe was gone.I watched from the upper corridor window until Colt's SUV cleared the outer gates, until the tail lights disappeared between Gerald's trees, until there was nothing left of Ivy but the faint trace of her perfume still sitting in the hallway like a reminder I did not need.I exhaled.Something unknotted in my chest, slow and deep, the release of a tension I had been carrying since the moment Liam walked into that courtyard with her on his arm like she was something he had chosen deliberately. Like she was something he intended to keep.She was gone now.Finally.I turned from the window, straightened my cream blazer, checked my reflection in the corridor mirror. Hair still perfect. Composure intact.The evidence of everything that had happened in that room already packed away behind my eyes where no one who did not know me would think to look. I had learned that early, how to put things away quick
Ivy's POVTessa moved first."Tulip." Her voice was controlled but it had edges. "You walked into the personal space of the Luna of Blue Elite Pack without knocking. That is not how guests behave in this estate, regardless of who your uncle is."Tulip's bright smile flickered. Just once. "Aunty, I just need a moment with—""I heard what you need." Tessa rose from her seat slowly, the way women with real authority moved, without urgency, without performance, just the quiet certainty of someone who did not require volume to be heard. "There is a way to do things, and barging through closed doors is not it."For a second, just one, Tulip looked like a child who had been caught.Then the second passed.Something cracked open behind her eyes, all that polished composure splitting right down the middle, and what came out of it was raw and ugly and clearly had been sitting there for a very long time waiting for exactly this room.
Ivy's POVI was still staring at her when Rixon appeared at my side like he had materialized from thin air, which was honestly his most reliable talent."Luna…." He kept his voice low, professional, his eyes doing a very deliberate job of not looking at Tulip sitting in the front seat like she owned the vehicle. "The Alpha is ready. You'll be riding with him in this car. I'll take the SUV with the rest of the team."I looked at him. He looked back at me with the practiced neutrality of a man who had seen everything and was currently pretending he had seen nothing."Okay, that's Perfect," I said and turned towards the car. Toward the front passenger door, specifically. The one Tulip was currently occupying with her cream blazer and her designer bag and her whole settled, unbothered energy.I did not say anything. I just stood there.Tulip looked up from her phone. Looked at me then back at Rixon. Something moved across her face, quick and involuntary, the expression of a woman recalcul
Ivy's POV"We have an event to attend. It's far… and we leave early."That was Liam's full announcement. He said it from the doorway of the bedroom in a grey fitted shirt and dark trousers, his jaw carrying the particular tension of a man who had already lost an argument with himself and was not happy about the outcome. Then he walked back out like the conversation was over.I stared at the empty doorway.Rixon appeared ten minutes later. He knocked twice, stepped in, closed the door behind him with the careful energy of a man on a mission he needed to complete quickly and cleanly. He was already dressed, dark jacket, expression pressed into something between professional and desperate."I need you to make him go," he said."Good morning, Rixon.""Ivy…." He exhaled. "Alpha Gerald's ceremony. Every major Alpha in the region will be in that room. Council members, border Pack leaders, people we need on our side before we can make any move against what happened with Noah. If Liam skips thi
Liam's POVThe whiskey in my glass had gone warm.I hadn't touched it in twenty minutes. I was sitting behind my desk in a black fitted shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows, staring at the wall like it had personally offended me, while Rixon stood on the other side of the desk looking like a man delivering news he had rehearsed three times on the way here and still wasn't ready to say out loud."Just say it," I told him.Rixon exhaled. He was dressed sharp as always, dark jacket, collar open, his braids pulled back, the kind of man who looked composed right up until you looked at his eyes. Right now his eyes were telling a different story. "Noah was released."The room went very quiet."Released? As what…" I repeated."This morning. His grandfather petitioned the council directly, bypassing the tribunal entirely. Three elder votes, sealed decision." Rixon shifted his weight. "They couldn't strip his position either. His grandfather sits on the founding council, Liam. Politically it was
Noah's POVI stood there and watched them wrap the chains around her and told myself it was necessary.It was necessary. Ivy was not the woman I married. The woman I married would never have looked at me the way this Ivy looked at me, with that specific fury in her eyes that had no apology in it, n
Ivy's POVI laughed at his words and I watched Noah's face go through about six different emotions in four seconds and laughed harder."What?" he said."Nothing." I pressed my lips together and failed. "Nothing, it's just—" I shook my head. "Do you remember March? The heavy rain? The night the east
Liam's POVI couldn't sit still.I had been going through files for the last two hours, every record of every Alpha who had stood in that hall today and opened their mouth against my union, every pack affiliation, every alliance history, every debt owed to the Lycan Crown that had somehow not stopp
Ivy's POVAmy sat across from me with her hands clasped and her voice doing that thing it always did when she was about to say something she had rehearsed, and I watched her and I thought about every single meal I had cooked in this house while she sat at my table and every time I had smiled through







