After My Mate Rejected Our Dying Daughter

The restaurant smelled like money. Polished wood, soft lighting, and the kind of silence that only comes when people are too aware of their own status to speak above a murmur. I stepped through the entrance with Amias half a step behind me, and the host's eyes flicked up from his podium—then widened, just slightly, as my aura brushed the room.

I didn't do it on purpose. The Lycan bond had changed things. Where I used to have to project authority deliberately, now it simply existed around me like a second skin. The host straightened without thinking, his wolf recognizing something in me that his conscious mind hadn't yet processed.

"Good afternoon," I said quietly. "I'm here to finalize the venue arrangements for the Crown event."

His throat bobbed. "Of course. Right this way, please."

Amias followed in that way he had—present but not intrusive, his attention already cataloging exits and sight lines. We'd worked together long enough that I didn't need to look back to know he was doing it. The host led us toward a private dining room in the back, his pace just a fraction too quick to be casual.

I was reviewing the layout in my mind—capacity, acoustics, how the space would feel with Kyson's Lycan Guard positioned at the perimeter—when the front door opened behind us.

The shift in the air was immediate.

Alpha dominance rolled through the restaurant like a wave, and I felt every unmated wolf in the room instinctively still. I knew that aura. I had lived with it for years. My body knew it before my mind finished processing, and for one terrible second, my lungs forgot how to work.

Vance.

I stopped walking. Turned slowly. Made myself look.

He stood in the entrance with Lyric at his side, both of them dressed like they were attending a political function rather than securing a dinner reservation. Vance's hand rested at Lyric's lower back in that territorial way he'd always had—the same way he used to touch me, before.

Lyric saw me first. Her gaze swept over me with the practiced assessment of a woman who categorizes other she-wolves by threat level, and I watched her dismiss me in real time. No pack scent. Alone except for a single Beta companion. Elegantly dressed, but not flaunting wealth. She smiled, and it was the smile of someone about to do a good deed.

"Oh, sweetheart," she said, her voice dripping sympathy as she stepped forward. "Are you here alone? You look a bit lost."

I said nothing. Just looked at her.

Something flickered behind her eyes—confusion, maybe, that I wasn't responding the way lone she-wolves usually did when a Luna addressed them. She recovered quickly, turning to Vance with a little laugh.

"Darling, we should help her. She's probably trying to find work." Back to me, that patronizing warmth still firmly in place. "We run the Ironveil Pack, dear. If you need assistance, we have programs for rogues. I can have someone put together a care package for you."

Behind me, I felt Amias go very still.

Inside my chest, Solene stirred. Not a whisper this time—a low, rolling growl that I felt in my bones. Golden heat flickered behind my eyes, and I had to pull her back gently, carefully. Not yet.

Vance hadn't spoken. He was staring at me with an expression I couldn't quite read—confusion, mostly, but something else underneath it. His nostrils flared slightly, and I watched his hand reach up to touch the Alpha seal at his collar. An old tell. He did that when he was unsettled.

He was scenting something.

I met his gaze and held it. Let him look. Let him wonder why a lone she-wolf would meet an Alpha's eyes without flinching, why her aura felt like it was pushing back against his instead of yielding.

Recognition flickered across his face—tentative, uncertain, impossible.

"Do I..." He trailed off. Tried again. "Have we met?"

Lyric's smile faltered. She looked between us, her Luna instincts finally catching up to what her eyes had missed.

I could have said it then. Could have watched her face crumble in real time. But revenge, I'd learned, was best served in courses. This was only the first.

"I don't believe so," I said softly. My voice was calm, pleasant, utterly empty of anything he could use. "If you'll excuse me, I have business to conclude."

I turned back to the host, who looked like he desperately wished he were anywhere else. "The Crown event will require exclusive access to the venue for the evening. I trust that won't be a problem?"

"No, ma'am. Not at all."

"Excellent." I didn't look at Vance or Lyric again. Just walked past them toward the exit, Amias falling into step beside me. The host scrambled to follow, already pulling out contracts.

Behind us, I heard Lyric's voice, sharp now, the sweetness gone. "Vance, what was that? Why were you looking at her like—"

The door closed, cutting off whatever he said in response.

Outside, the afternoon air was cool against my face. I kept walking until we reached the car, and only then did I let myself breathe.

Through the bond, I felt Kyson's presence pulse—a question without words. I sent back warmth and steadiness, the emotional equivalent of I'm fine.

Amias opened the car door for me, his expression carefully neutral. "He recognized your scent," he said quietly. "Under the Lycan marking. He's not sure, but he knows something."

"Good," I said.

I slid into the seat and let him close the door. Through the tinted window, I could see the restaurant's entrance. Vance stood in the doorway, staring after us, his hand still on that Alpha seal.

Solene stirred again, satisfaction and fury braided together into something that felt almost like anticipation.

Let him wonder, I thought. Let him lose sleep over it.

By the time he figured it out, it would already be too late.