The Luna They Replaced Was Their Only Provider

The Greyhollow Pack had planned a retreat to the coastal den-estate, a rare handful of days where the whole household would travel together under a full warrior escort. But when Lena's old neighborhood scent-bond, Tessa Thornvale, caught wind of it, she begged to be included. Without so much as a glance in my direction, Lena pulled my reserved place from the Alpha's private convoy and handed it to her, arranging instead for me to run with the foot warriors on a thirty-six-hour drive through back roads with no guard.

I looked to my mate's pack. Not one of them raised a word of objection.

So I took the arrangement. I took the long road, traveled west, and stayed away for three moons. By the time the silence broke, the entire Greyhollow household had descended into panic.

It was rare for Lena to step away from pack matters. Her minor hunting-ground holdings barely kept her busy, but the appearance of authority demanded her presence, and so genuine time away from the territory was a luxury. When the household settled on a retreat to the villa on the coast, I began planning half a year out. I chose the safehouse, mapped the route, coordinated the convoy, arranged provisions, secured the seaside villa through one of my Ravenfall-controlled front holdings, and handled every detail from vehicles to meals to the warrior rotations.

No one else lifted a finger. They never did.

I didn't mind the work. If the pack was content, if there was a single evening where the tension in the household loosened enough for something resembling warmth, then it was worth it. Arranging a secure convoy of armored carriages was no small task, so I had claimed the seats moons in advance. When Rowan mentioned she had never ridden in the Alpha's private car, the reinforced black sedan with its leather interior and tinted silver-glass, I paid out of my own pocket to upgrade every place in the convoy so the whole household could travel in comfort.

Then, two days before departure, Lena appeared in the doorway of my study. Her scent reached me first, stale leather and cheap copper and that over-sweet wine gone sour, and something in me went still before she even spoke.

"Tessa heard about the trip. She wants to come." She said it the way she said everything, as though the decision had already been made and my role was simply to absorb it. "The convoy's full, so you'll take the long road. I already made the arrangements."

She sent the details to my communicator. A route map. A thirty-six-hour drive. No escort. No armored carriage. Just a place in a civilian vehicle running with the foot warriors.

I stared at the crystal screen, then looked up at her.

"What is this, Lena? This was supposed to be a family retreat. You're bringing Tessa Thornvale?"

"Of course." She didn't even hesitate. "She wants to come, so she comes."

The anger rose in my chest like a slow flame behind my ribs. My wolf stirred low beneath it, hackles lifting, a growl I held behind my teeth. "When my sister asked to join us, you shut it down immediately. You said this was family only. No outsiders. Just us. Now Tessa snaps her fingers and you rearrange the entire convoy?"

"Tessa and your sister are different." She loosened the collar at her throat, a gesture meant to look careless that only showed how little she understood the weight of her own words. "She and I go back to the old neighborhood. She's closer than family. She practically is family."

I scoffed, the sound sharp enough to cut glass. "I arranged the convoy moons ago. Every place, every vehicle, every safehouse along the route. Why should I be the one running with foot warriors?"

"There were no places left. I had to pull yours and give it to Tessa." She shrugged, one shoulder lifting and falling with the practiced indifference of a wolf who had never once earned the comfort she took for granted. "The only thing left was the long road."

I looked at the route again. Thirty-six hours through back highways. No silver-glass windows. No guard at my flank, nothing between me and whatever waited on those roads.

"So Tessa Thornvale rides in a Ravenfall-funded armored carriage, in the place I reserved, while I spend thirty-six hours exposed on back roads with no protection?"

A smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Didn't you say once that you liked the open country? The empty roads? Here's your chance to see it all."

I turned to my mate's pack.

Adrian Greyhollow, the retired patriarch, the Alpha who had once held a seat among the Council Elders before lost territorial wars gutted his bloodline's name, turned his face away. He studied the far wall of the den as though the cracked stonework held the secrets of his vanished hunting grounds. His scent hung thin in the room, ash and old smoke and tarnished silver, the smell of a wolf who had nothing left to defend.

Agata Greyhollow reached for my hand, her grip soft and useless, withered lavender and bitter herbs clinging to her sleeve. "Iris, dear. Tessa and Lena have known each other since they were pups. They have so much history, so much to catch up on. It only makes sense for them to run the convoy together. Just bear with it this once. We'll all meet at the den-estate."

Rowan, fifteen and not yet through her first shift, draped across the settee like she owned the territory and didn't even look up from her crystal communicator. "Tessa has a delicate constitution. There's no way she could survive that kind of run. You, on the other hand." She flicked her gaze toward me, a dismissive sweep from head to foot. "You're strong. Built like a Pack Warrior. You can handle it."

I laughed. The sound came out bitter and hollow, echoing off the marble floors I had paid for. Somewhere beneath my ribs my wolf went very still, the way she did when she'd heard one insult too many.

"Who is actually part of this pack? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like Tessa Thornvale is your real Luna."

Lena's expression darkened, and the sour-wine edge of her scent sharpened. "It's just a run. It's not a death sentence. Tessa is practically one of us. It's only right we make sure she's comfortable. Can't you show a little grace? Set an example for the den?"

The bell at the gate sounded.

Rowan sprang from the settee with more energy than I had seen from her in moons and ran for the entrance. She hauled the heavy oak door open, and there stood Tessa Thornvale, framed in the evening light like something carved for a shrine. Two oversized leather bags sat at her feet. Her scent reached me first, honeysuckle laid too thick, and underneath it that faint thread of rot the others never seemed to notice. My wolf's hackles lifted without my asking.

"Tessa! You're here!" Rowan seized the handles of both bags and dragged them in, her voice bright with the kind of warmth she had never once turned on me. "I've been waiting for you all day!"

She threw her arm around Tessa's waist and pulled her close, cheek to cheek, scenting her like a packmate welcoming home a lost littermate.

"Oh, Tessa, I missed you so much. If only you hadn't fled the territory when things went bad, you could have taken my brother as your mate. We'd all be real pack by now."

Agata rose from her chair and crossed the room. She took Tessa's hands in both of hers, clasping them like a wolf greeting a returning Luna.

"Exactly. I always thought you and Lena were meant for each other. In my heart, I've always seen you as my true Luna." Her eyes glistened. Her voice dropped to a reverent whisper. "No one else could ever compare."

They said this openly. In my presence. In the den I had purchased. Surrounded by the furniture I had bought, beneath the great-hall lantern I had restored, in a territory kept running on Ravenfall resources funneled through Ravenfall trade dens.

Not a hint of shame.

Something inside me went cold. Not the sharp cold of anger, but the deep, settled cold of a woman who had finally stopped pretending the fire would ever warm her. My wolf did not snarl. She simply turned away from them, the way you turn away from a den that was never yours.

Tessa Thornvale and Lena Greyhollow had been an old scent-bond from the lower territory. Every wolf knew it. But when the Greyhollow Pack crumbled, when Adrian's lost wars left them half a million gold moons deep to blood-creditors who did not accept apologies, the Thornvales had run. They vanished in a single night, fleeing the hunt, abandoning the Greyhollows to their ruin without a backward glance.

It was my mother, Nora Ravenfall, who had brokered the salvation. She absorbed the Greyhollow blood-debt, all five hundred thousand gold moons of it, and sealed the alliance the only way the old ways permitted: with a mating. I became Iris Greyhollow in name, though I never stopped being a Ravenfall in blood.

I had given everything to this pack.

Adrian and Agata's health had been failing for years. I managed their healers, their tonics, their daily needs. I had taken Rowan under my wing when she was ten, a wild, undisciplined pup with no prospects and no pack-craft. I placed her in a private academy. I ran her there every morning and brought her home every afternoon. I sat beside her while she studied, stood through every meeting with her teachers, bought her clothes and books and anything she pointed at. For five years I raised that pup. I was her brother's mate in name, but I had been more mother to her than Agata ever was.

I gave Lena's pack a monthly tithe of ten thousand gold moons. I handled every den expense, every meal, every patrol's provisioning. I ran the legitimate holdings, the trade dens and the coastal hunting grounds, that generated the resources keeping the Greyhollow name alive. One hundred thousand gold moons a moon-cycle, run clean through Ravenfall channels. I was the backbone of a territory that existed only because I held it together.

I never felt like a Luna. I felt like a servant-omega. A servant who paid her own wages and still wasn't permitted to sit at the high table.

And despite all of it, despite every coin and every hour and every sacrifice scraped from the marrow of my loyalty, they still treated me as less than packless.

Tessa crossed the den toward me. Her steps were unhurried, her smile polished to a shine that didn't reach her eyes. She stopped close enough that her scent reached me first, honeysuckle laid too thick over something faintly sour, a brittle copper underneath the sweetness she wore like armor.

"I'm sorry, Iris." Her voice dripped with a sweetness so manufactured it could have come off an assembly line. "If I hadn't decided to join the run at the last moment, you wouldn't have lost your place in the convoy. Honestly, I almost stayed behind when I heard there were no spots left. But Lena insisted she'd handle it. I had no idea she'd make you take the long road on foot." She pressed a hand to her chest in mock sympathy. "I even offered to make the crossing alone, but Lena wouldn't hear of it. She was so worried about me traveling through open territory for that long. So I suppose I should thank you for taking the inconvenience."

Rowan hooked an arm through Tessa's and leaned against her shoulder. "Exactly. Can you imagine Tessa on some back trail for thirty-six hours? All kinds of rogues out there. If some packless lowlife marked a she-wolf like her, what would we do?" She looked at me, and her lip curled with something that lived in the cruel space between amusement and contempt. "Iris, on the other hand, has that look about her. Like a warrior. She'd scare them off before they got within ten feet."

The two of them dissolved into laughter, bright and careless, their voices ringing through the foyer like bells in an empty cathedral.

Lena must have caught the fury settling across my face, because her tone softened. A calculated retreat, not an apology.

"Look. I know this arrangement isn't ideal. But it's the best solution we have." She paused, reaching for something she thought would placate me. "Last moon you were eyeing that pelt-cloak at the trading post on the high road. Why don't you go ahead and get it?"

I held out my hand, palm up. "Fine. Five thousand."

Her expression curdled. "Five thousand? I already said you could get it. Now you want me to pay for it too? Don't push your luck."

I let my hand drop. A smile crossed my face, thin and sharp as a stiletto.

"Since when do I need your permission to spend my own moons, Lena? Tell me. How much do you bring into this den each cycle?"

The flush hit her face like a slap. Her jaw tightened. Her eyes cut away from mine, and beneath the stale leather and souring wine of her scent, something curdled with shame.

"That's not fair," she muttered.

It was perfectly fair.

Lena Greyhollow drew three thousand gold moons a cycle from a handful of minor protection claims, pocket coin that barely covered her cheap wine and her vanity. I generated one hundred thousand a cycle through the Ravenfall-controlled holdings and operations I managed single-handedly. Her earnings didn't cover her own expenses. I had been funding this den, this pack, this entire charade of a bloodline dynasty from the very beginning.

When we were mated, there was no bride-gift. No tribute from the Greyhollow side. Nothing. I had absorbed the five-hundred-thousand-moon blood-debt, added thirty thousand as a mating tribute, and bought the den-estate we lived in with Ravenfall power. Every comfort they enjoyed, every meal on the table, every coin in their pockets, every thread of respectability still clinging to the Greyhollow name, all of it came from me.

If they loved Tessa Thornvale so much, if she was their true Luna, their old neighborhood darling, their precious returning queen, then they could have her.

Let her fund the territory. Let her run the holdings. Let her keep the Council enforcers at bay and the blood-creditors satisfied and the den fed.

Let them see how long the Greyhollow name survived on Thornvale moons.

"Iris, get to the kitchen and start the evening meal. The moon's already high, and the den is hungry." Agata's voice cut through the great room like a dull blade, more habit than authority behind it.

I didn't spare her a glance. Instead, I turned to Tessa with a smile so polished it could have graced the front of the spirit network. "Tessa, you and Lena ran together as pups in the old territory. I imagine you used to take your meals here all the time back then?"

"Of course!" Tessa's voice lilted with practiced sweetness, that honeysuckle scent of hers laid on thick enough to mask whatever sat beneath it. "Back in those days, Lena and I shared nearly every meal. Her mother's cooking, the full-moon feasts, all of it."

"So after all those moons away, you must really miss Agata's cooking." I let my gaze drift to the pack matriarch, my tone warm as honey poured over a blade's edge. "Agata, shouldn't you start the meal for your guest? She's traveled such a long way to be welcomed back."

I crossed the room, settled into the worn leather of the long couch, and reached for the crystal screen's control. The screen hummed to life, filling the silence I'd left behind me. I could feel the air in the den shift, the quiet recalibration of everyone's expectations, the way lower wolves sense a current change before they understand it.

It didn't take long. Lena appeared beside me within minutes, jaw tight, irritation simmering behind dark eyes, that stale-leather-and-souring-wine scent curling off her in waves. "How could you make my mother cook? You know her health isn't what it used to be." Her voice dropped low, meant to sound commanding but landing somewhere closer to petulant. "Get up and handle the meal."

I widened my eyes, letting just the right amount of concern bleed through. "Agata, you're unwell? Is it serious? Why didn't anyone tell me? We should send for the pack healer at once."

Agata's face twisted. "Who's unwell? There's nothing wrong with me! Don't you dare speak ill-fortune over this den with that kind of talk."

"Then why don't you want to cook for Tessa?" I tilted my head, amusement threading through every syllable. "You don't feel like it?"

The old she-wolf's expression curdled like milk left out in the Sicilian sun. Her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line, the bitter-herb-and-chalk scent of her sharpening. "Who said I wouldn't cook?"

She pushed herself up from her chair and marched toward the kitchen with the stiff pride of a she-wolf who still believed the Greyhollow name alone could fill a room. For the next two hours, the sounds of clattering pots and sizzling fat drifted through the den-estate. The smell of garlic and braised meat filled the corridors, rich enough to stir even a dampened wolf, and for a moment the place almost felt like a home that functioned on something other than resentment.

When the long table was finally set, Rowan took Tessa by the arm and guided her into my chair at the head of the family side. The pup didn't even look at me as she did it. "Sis, Tessa is our guest. You don't mind giving up your spot, right?"

Agata materialized beside me, pressing a bowl into my hands the way one might toss scraps to a packless stray. "If sitting at the edge of the table is uncomfortable for you, why don't you take your plate to the kitchen and eat there? And while you're at it, clean up a bit."

I stared at the bowl in my hands. So now I wasn't even permitted at the table. The table I paid for. In the den my bloodline's strength kept standing. Eating meat bought with tribute drawn from hunting grounds the Ravenfall name controlled.

I set the bowl down on the counter with a quiet, deliberate click. Somewhere beneath my ribs my wolf went very still, watching, the way she does before a kill.

"No need. You all enjoy yourselves." My voice was flat, stripped of everything but finality. "A friend asked me to run with them tonight. I'll eat with them."

Lena's brow furrowed, that familiar crease of irritation forming between her eyes. "We leave for the coastal den tomorrow, and you're still going out? Have you even packed your things yet?"

"Don't you have hands?" I met her gaze without flinching, and for half a breath I let her feel the weight of mine. "Pack your own things, Lena."

The silence that followed was exquisite. She stood there, mouth half-open, as though the concept of fending for herself had short-circuited something fundamental in that weak Alpha brain of hers. I didn't wait for a recovery. I picked up my coat and walked out the front door, the cold night air carrying my scent of black cedar and cold iron out ahead of me into the dark.

The night air hit my skin like cold silk. I drove myself to the den-grounds beneath Moonscar's holding, a place tucked behind an unremarkable face on the high northern reach of the Sicilian Territories, where the cellar ran deeper than most pack archives and the clientele knew better than to scent too long at another's business. I ordered a bone-in cut, rare and bloody, a half-measure of the dark southern vintage, and fresh meat hauled up from the cold coastal grounds. I ate slowly, letting my wolf savor every bite with the quiet satisfaction of a she-wolf spending her own power in a world that wanted her grateful for scraps.

With my own tribute, my own earnings, I could feed wherever I pleased.

I stayed out well past the moon's high point, lingering over bitter dark roast and a second pour, watching the territory breathe through the tall windows. There was no rush. There was nothing to rush back to.

When I finally returned to the den-estate, every light was out. The house sat in total darkness, silent as a tomb. Despite me being gone for hours, not a single call on the crystal communicator. Not a single message. No one had checked in. No one had wondered if I was safe, if I'd been tracked, if I'd been run down on some lonely stretch of the territory. They had simply gone to their dens, each of them, without a second thought for the she-wolf who kept the roof over their heads and the rival packs from their throats.

I moved through the darkened hallway by memory, my fingers trailing along the cool plaster until I reached the bedroom. I pushed the door open, crossed to the bed, and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

A scream shattered the silence.

"Ah!"

My hand found the bedside lamp. Light flooded the room in a warm, merciless glow, and there she was. Tessa Thornvale, lying in my spot, her dark hair fanned across my pillow, the sheets pulled to her collarbone as though she belonged there. The scent hit me a half-breath before the light did honeysuckle laid too thick over a faint trace of rot, soaked deep into my sheets, into the place that should have carried only black cedar and cold iron.

Something detonated behind my ribs. Five years of swallowed fury, of bitten tongues and clenched fists and quiet, corrosive patience. It all converged into a single, white-hot point, and deep inside me my wolf rose with it, hackles up, a snarl building where there had only ever been silence. Before I could think, before reason had any chance of intervening, my hand connected with her face. The crack of the slap echoed off the bedroom walls like a silver round going off.

Tessa crumpled, clutching her cheek, tears spilling instantly. Lena shot upright beside her, an arm sweeping around her shoulders like a shield. "Why did you hit her? We were just talking and must have fallen asleep. It was an accident."

"An accident." I tasted the word, and it was ash. "So you accidentally ended up in bed together. Holding each other. In my bed. That's the story you're going with."

"We were waiting for you!" Lena's voice rose, defensive and loud, the volume compensating for the weakness of the argument. "You were out until the Goddess knows when, so Tessa stayed to keep me company. We talked for a while, and then we fell asleep. It's perfectly normal."

"Then why didn't you call me? Why didn't you send a single message?" I held up my communicator, the screen bare, and let her see it. "Too busy catching up with your old scent-bond? And the two of you couldn't wait in the front room? You had to come to the bedroom, to my side of the bed?"

Lena's face darkened, her jaw set in that stubborn, cornered expression I'd come to know so well over five years. "You're being unreasonable, Iris."

I was done. Done arguing with someone who couldn't see what was right in front of her because she refused to open her eyes, refused to scent what hung thick in the air of this very room. I turned to Tessa, who was still curled against the headboard, tears tracking dark lines down her cheeks, thin and theatrical.

"I'm back now. So why don't you leave?" My voice was quiet, controlled, each word placed with surgical precision, even as my wolf paced behind my ribs, low and lethal. "Or were you planning for all three of us to share the bed?"

Tessa didn't acknowledge me. She didn't even look in my direction. She pressed her palm to her reddened cheek and turned her face toward Lena, her lower lip trembling. "Lena, it really hurts."

Lena's entire body softened. The anger, the defensiveness, all of it dissolved in an instant, replaced by a tenderness she had never once shown me. She cupped Tessa's face in her hands, her thumbs brushing the tears from beneath her eyes. "I'll get you something for it."

After they left the chamber, I shut the heavy oak door and drove the iron deadbolt home until it clicked into place. The sound was small, but it echoed through me like a declaration of war.

I stripped the bed down to the bare frame. Every sheet, every pillowcase that still carried even a trace of the evening's indignity, that honeysuckle laid too thick over copper and something faintly rotted, I tore free and replaced with fresh linens from the armoire. My wolf paced low beneath my skin the whole time, hackles raised at the foreign scent on my own den. Then I pressed in my earbuds, lay back against the cool pillow, and forced myself into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, Lena found me in the corridor outside the kitchen. His jaw was set like cut marble, and the vein at his temple pulsed with a fury he didn't bother to conceal. The sour reek of cheap copper and wine gone bad rolled off him before he even spoke.

"What was that last night?" His voice was low, the kind of quiet that preceded violence in this den. "I scratched at that door for twenty minutes, Iris. Twenty. My mother and father woke because of it. You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

I met his gaze without flinching. "Yes, I did it on purpose. I thought I'd give you the chance to share quarters with Tessa. You should be thanking me."

Something shifted behind his eyes. He looked at me the way one might look at a packmate that had suddenly bared its teeth. "Are you out of your mind, Iris? Why would I bed Tessa? You're my mate. You're the Luna of this den."

"Oh, so you still remember that." I kept my tone flat, stripped of everything except cold fact. "I thought the moment Tessa Thornvale crossed our territory line again, I'd be cut out of the picture entirely."

As if summoned by the sound of her own name, Tessa appeared at the far end of the hallway. She moved with the practiced grace of a she-wolf raised among powerful Alphas, her dark hair swept over one shoulder, her expression arranged into something soft and concerned. Her scent reached me a breath before her voice did, that too-sweet honeysuckle masking the brittle rot underneath.

"Please, don't fight because of me." Her voice carried just the right tremor of guilt. "We're meant to leave for the gathering. I'd never forgive myself if my being here drove a wedge between you two. That's the last thing I want."

Lena turned to me, and I watched the last flicker of doubt leave his face. "You see? You see how she carries herself? Tessa has grace. She knows her place. Unlike you, with your petty games and bolted doors."

The click of Agata Greyhollow's heels preceded her arrival. The Matriarch filled the doorway, her posture rigid as forged steel, her eyes sweeping the scene with the cold efficiency of a she-wolf who had ruled this den's hierarchy for three decades. Withered lavender and bitter herbs trailed in after her, dry as chalk-dust.

"Iris." My name in her mouth was never a greeting. It was always a correction. "Your temper is becoming a problem. Barring your mate from his own quarters? In this den, that is unacceptable. We will overlook it this once, since we leave for the gathering. But do not test me again."

Adrian Greyhollow's voice rolled in from the adjoining room like distant thunder. He did not bother to step into the hallway. He didn't need to. The faint pressure of an old Alpha's aura crept under the door ahead of his words, thinned now by years of lost wars but still enough to make my wolf bristle. "This is what happens when you show too much leniency. A mate is the head of his den. He is the heir to this pack. And she seals the door against him?" A pause, heavy with contempt. "Disgraceful. A Luna like this needs reminding of her place. Sharply, if necessary."

Rowan materialized at her mother's elbow, a steaming cup cradled in her manicured fingers, green sap and sour milk hanging around her like ozone before a storm. She sipped, smiled, and slid the blade in with a giggle. "Careful, Iris. With that temper of yours, my brother might just sever the bond altogether. And then where would you be?"

I caught Tessa's eyes over Rowan's shoulder. The mask of the concerned peacemaker had slipped, just for a heartbeat. Beneath it was something triumphant. Something that glittered like a knife turned in lamplight. She held my gaze, and the corner of her mouth curled with the quiet satisfaction of a she-wolf who believed she had already won.

Lena said nothing in my defense. Not a word. He simply dragged all of the luggage across the foyer tiles and lined the cases up in front of me like a barricade.

"Alright. We need to move if we're going to make the convoy before moonrise. Let's go."

Agata Greyhollow dropped the last of the bags at my feet with the brisk efficiency of an Alpha handing cargo off to an omega drudge. "Iris, you'll handle the pack's effects. You're taking the ground transport, so it will be easier for you to manage everything. This way, we won't have to fight the weight limits on the storm-hawk."

I looked at the eight enormous cases lined up before me. Each one weighed at least fifty pounds. Designer leather, brass-cornered, stamped with the Greyhollow crest. The combined weight of an entire pack's wardrobe and personal effects, entrusted to the one member of the den they considered least worthy of the name she'd been forced to carry.

I smiled. "Of course. You all go ahead. I'll catch up."

The moment the den gate sealed behind them and the last of Agata's withered lavender and bitter herbs faded from the foyer, I lifted my crystal communicator and called a disposal service.

When the workers arrived, the lead man surveyed the line of cases with raised eyebrows. "You sure about this, ma'am? These are in perfect condition. What's inside?"

"Clothes. Den goods. Nothing of real value." I kept my voice indifferent, as though I were discussing the turning of the moon rather than setting a match to the Greyhollow pack's belongings. "If you find anything useful, keep it. Otherwise, feel free to discard the lot."

I paid the disposal fee in gold moons. They loaded all eight cases into the back of their hauler and drove off. I stood in the empty foyer, my wolf quiet and watchful beneath my skin, and watched until the vehicle disappeared around the bend of the estate's long gravel drive.

Then I made two more calls.

The first was to a severance counselor. A rogue advocate who specialized in the kind of bond dissolution that powerful packs preferred to handle in the dark. I gave him the details and told him to draft the rejection terms at once.

The second call booked a private passage on the overnight route. First-class sleeper. One berth. Just mine.

I had barely settled into the narrow compartment, the rhythm of the rails humming beneath me like a second pulse, when my communicator lit up with Lena's name.

I answered on the fourth ring.

"Iris, the lodge can't find our booking. They have no record of any reservation under the Greyhollow name. Send me the confirmation."

I let a beat of silence pass. Then another.

"Oh. I almost forgot to mention." I kept my voice light, almost careless. "I canceled it."

The silence on the other end was absolute. I could picture her standing in some grand lodge hall, surrounded by the pack and her precious Tessa, the communicator pressed to her ear, the blood draining from her face.

Then the storm broke.

"Why would you do that?" Her voice cracked with a rage I'd only ever heard her aim at an enemy across a territory line. "Where are we supposed to den tonight?"

"Wherever you want." I leaned back against the headrest and watched the dark countryside blur past the window.

"Iris, have you lost your mind? Why would you sabotage our reservation?" She was snarling now, every pretense of composure stripped away, and beneath the words I could hear her wolf scrabbling for control she didn't have.

Something cold and clean settled in my chest. Something that might have been freedom, or might have been the first breath before a very long fall.

"Seriously, Lena?" My wolf rose then, slow and certain, and the old Ravenfall steel slid into my voice without my asking it to. "You bring the Thornvale girl on a pack run, parade her in front of everyone like she's the true Luna instead of me, and you still expect your mate to arrange the safe den?" I let the words land one by one, precise as silver rounds. "What would the other packs think if they knew? What would the Council Elders say? That the heir of the Greyhollow line can't even secure his own den for the night without the mate he treats like a den-drudge?"