Lahat ng Kabanata ng Rejected by My Mate, Desired by His Enemy : Kabanata 141 - Kabanata 150

“Three years is enough.”Donovan said it first.Not because he fully believed it yet.Because somebody had to say it out loud.The kitchen still smelled like burnt butter and coffee from breakfast. Morning light spilled across the counters in soft gold, touching the untouched plates sitting between them.Haven had already gone upstairs.Atlas was whispering questions to Oliver in the living room.The house felt too quiet around the edges now.Iris leaned both hands against the counter.“Enough for what?” she asked softly.Donovan looked at her directly.“To prepare.”The word settled between them.Not comforting.Solid.That was how they survived things.Not hope.Work.Iris closed her eyes briefly.Three years.Her daughter had said it so calmly.Not dramatic. Not frightened.C

“You turned down all three?”Oliver looked up from the papers spread across the dining table.Morning light spilled across the room, pale and cool, catching against the edge of his glasses. He had started needing them six months ago for reading. Atlas still laughed every time he pushed them up his nose because she said they made him look “extra serious.”“I didn’t turn down all three,” Oliver said. “Just two.”Iris crossed the room with a cup of coffee warming her hands.The table smelled faintly like ink and old paper. Medical reports sat in neat stacks beside Oliver’s notebook, organized carefully in his tiny precise handwriting.He had gotten frighteningly good at this.At eleven years old, wolves traveled across territories asking for him by name.Some arrived hopeful.Some desperate.Some carrying family members already halfway gone.Iris hated that part.Not Oliver

“You’re both doing the thing again.”Atlas sat cross-legged in the middle of the couch, holding a mug of hot chocolate with both hands. Steam curled against her face. Morning light spilled weakly through the windows, pale from the storm that had passed overnight.Iris looked up from the table.“What thing?”“The silent parent conversation.”Donovan leaned against the kitchen counter with his arms folded.“We’re talking.”“No,” Atlas said patiently. “You’re communicating emotionally.”Haven snorted softly into her tea.Oliver looked between all of them sleepily.“I hate when she talks like she’s forty.”Atlas ignored him.Iris rubbed one hand over her mouth to hide the smile threatening there.The fear from last night still sat heavy under her ribs.Atlas thought the eastern threat heard her.Maybe it had.No one had slept well after tha

“You resolved the dispute in eleven minutes.”Haven stood in the center of the trial chamber with her hands behind her back.The room smelled faintly like cedar and old paper. Morning light stretched across the long wooden table where the overseers sat reviewing notes.Elder Carrow looked down at the file in front of him.“Fastest resolution we’ve recorded in six years,” he said.Haven waited.Across the chamber, the two wolves from the dispute sat in separate chairs, no longer arguing. One stared at the floor. The other rubbed tired fingers across his jaw.The problem itself had been simple.Boundary rights between two farming territories. Shared water access. One pack claiming overuse. The other claiming false measurements.Haven had reviewed the records, checked the maps, found the accounting error, and issued a corrected distribution order.Technically perfect.Done in eleven minutes.Elder Carrow closed the file.“You los

“You want the child in the room?”The oversight elder did not sound angry.Just confused.Atlas sat in the chair beside Haven with both feet swinging above the floor, completely calm while six adults stared at her like she had wandered into the wrong building.“She’s my consultant,” Haven said.The elder across from her rubbed his forehead slowly. “Your consultant is seven.”“Yes.”“And you believe she can contribute to a formal negotiation exercise?”Atlas looked up before Haven could answer.“I already read the material,” she said politely. “The logging dispute is not actually about territory.”Silence.One of the evaluators blinked. “What is it about, then?”“The river.”Her voice stayed soft. Certain.“The north pack thinks the south pack is taking too much lumber, but they’re actually scared the river route will shift ownership next winter. If that