For three days, nothing happened.
That, Wren was beginning to understand, was the most frightening part of all. After a week that had contained a burning mark, a locked door opening after twenty years, a dead traitor with a message sewn into his coat, and an Alpha announcing her claimed status over breakfast eggs, the sudden, total absence of catastrophe felt less like relief and more like the held-breath silence before something far worse arrived. Vale had gone quiet. His father-in-law's spies, if there were any left after Garrick's suspected involvement, had gone quiet. Even the manor itself seemed to be holding still, waiting.
Kane, to Wren's genuine surprise, seemed to be the only person in the household actively trying to enjoy it.
"You're doing it wrong," Wren informed him, on the
