Clara’s pov
The travelers came in during the tail end of the lunch rush, two men and a woman, road-dusty, packs at their feet, the kind of people who passed through Millbrook without staying long.
I was refilling coffee at the counter when I caught the first piece of it.
“—Moonridge pack’s still a mess over that rejection,” the taller man said, voice low but not low enough.
“Alpha Kael cut her loose in front of everyone on her birthday, and now the elders are climbing the walls about the Silvercrest deal.”
I kept pouring. My hand stayed steady even though the heat in my chest flared hard enough to make my fingers tingle the way they had in the woods.
The woman snorted. “She was nobody. Orphan girl, right? No rank, no alliances. He did what any smart Alpha would’ve done. But the bond’
