REJECTED BY THE ALPHA, CLAIMED BY HIS FATHER

Trial Terms

The full terms of the ninety day trial arrived in writing three days later, delivered by a council clerk with an apologetic look on his face that told Zariah before she’d even opened the envelope that she wasn’t going to like what was inside.

She read it standing in the pack house entryway, Cassian beside her having received his own copy.

Daily checkins with a designated council observer. Restricted travel outside pack territory without prior approval. A formal log of interactions between herself and the Alpha, to be reviewed monthly.

“This is absurd,” Zariah said, lowering the page. “You’re treating me like a suspect in a crime.”

“You’re not wrong,” Cassian said, his jaw tight as he scanned his own copy. “This goes well beyond what was agreed in chamber.”

“Can you overturn it?”

“Some of it,” he said. “Not all. The council has legitimate authority over trial period procedures, even when I disagree with how they’re using it.” He folded the paper with more force than necessary. “I’ll push back on the daily observer and the interaction log. Both are unnecessary and needlessly invasive. The travel restriction I can’t touch without appearing to undermine the council’s authority entirely, which would cost us more than it gains.”

“Us,” Zariah repeated.

Cassian looked up. “You object to the word?”

“No,” she said, surprised to find that she didn’t. “I just noticed you used it.”

He held her gaze a beat longer than necessary before returning to the paper, and Zariah felt that same unwelcome warmth settle low in her chest, the kind she’d been trying to talk herself out of feeling since the moonleaf arrived on her doorstep.

He was true to his word. By the following council session, the daily observer had been reduced to a weekly report, and the interaction log struck entirely, over Edrick Thorne’s visible displeasure.

“You’ve made an enemy there,” Zariah observed afterward, watching Thorne’s stiff exit from the chamber.

“Thorne has never approved of much I’ve done as Alpha,” Cassian said. “He tolerates me because the alternative would require more upheaval than the council wants. This is simply one more item on a long list.”

“He seemed more invested than that.”

Cassian considered this, something flickering behind his eyes that Zariah couldn’t quite read. “Perhaps,” he said, but didn’t elaborate, and something about the way he let the subject drop told her he’d noted it more seriously than his tone suggested.

She moved into the pack house properly that evening, a modest guest room on the second floor, far enough from Cassian’s private wing that the arrangement couldn’t be read as anything improper, close enough that she could hear the low murmur of pack house business continuing late into most nights.

She was unpacking the last of her books when a knock sounded, sharp and familiar in a way that made her stomach drop before she’d even opened the door.

Ronan stood in the hallway, and for a moment neither of them said anything.

“I live here too,” he said finally, as though that explained the visit. “I thought you should hear it from me rather than find out by accident.”

“I knew that,” Zariah said. “Your father mentioned it before I agreed to the trial.”

“Right.” He shifted his weight, clearly uncomfortable, clearly having rehearsed something he wasn’t managing to say. “I’m not here to make this harder for you. Whatever you and my father decide, that’s between the two of you. I just didn’t want you walking into breakfast tomorrow and finding out I still had a room down the hall without warning.”

“That’s considerate of you,” she said, and meant it, even through the discomfort of standing in a hallway with the man who’d rejected her four nights ago.

“I’m trying,” Ronan said, something raw in his voice that hadn’t been there during the ceremony. “I know I don’t have any right to expect this to be easy for you.”

“No,” Zariah agreed. “You don’t.”

He nodded, accepting that without argument, and turned to leave, then paused at the top of the stairs. “For what it’s worth. I don’t think my father does anything without meaning it fully. Whatever else you think of this situation, that much is true about him.”

He was gone before she could ask what exactly he meant by that, leaving her standing in the doorway of her new room turning the words over, uncertain whether they’d been meant as reassurance or warning.

She closed the door and sat on the edge of the unfamiliar bed, the pack house settling into its evening quiet around her, and allowed herself, finally, to admit how strange it felt to be sleeping under the same roof as both the man who’d rejected her and the man who hadn’t let her walk away.