HIS GENTLE CLAIM

The dress they gave me is two sizes too big. I don't complain. I stopped complaining three years ago when I realized nobody in this pack was listening anyway. I pull the fabric tighter at my waist and tie it with a strip of cloth I found in the laundry room. It's not pretty but it holds. I look at myself in the cracked mirror above the sink in my room. Room is generous. It's a storage space they cleared out when I moved to the east wing. Single bed. One window that faces the wall of the building next door. A chair I use as a wardrobe because there's no actual wardrobe. I've made it work. Three years of making things work has turned me into someone I don't always recognize. Quieter. Smaller. Like I learned to take up less space so people would stop noticing I was there. It worked too well. Now nobody notices at all. I turn away from the mirror and pick up the laundry basket by the door. Today is not a day to think about that. Today is the day Alpha Ryker of Ironwood arrives. The whole pack house woke up differently this morning. I felt it before I even left my room. A charge in the air. The kind that comes before something big. Voices earlier than usual. Footsteps faster. The smell of fresh bread and roasting meat drifting up from the kitchen before six in the morning. By the time I came downstairs Cook was already in full crisis mode. "Elara." She thrust a list at me without looking up from the pot she was stirring. "Flowers from the garden. White ones only. Arrange them in the entrance hall vases and the dining table. Then I need the good linen from the third floor storage." "Good morning to you too." "Don't be smart. Go." I went. That's what I do. I go. I carry. I arrange. I stay out of the way and make myself useful enough that nobody questions why I'm still here. My wolf would have made that harder. Wolves have instincts, opinions, the stubborn pull toward pack hierarchy. They push back. Mine has been silent for three years. I bound her myself the night of the fire. The night I came back to ash and screaming and the knowledge that my hands had caused all of it. I pressed my wolf down deep and told her to sleep and she listened because even she understood that I didn't deserve to shift anymore. Some days I forget she was ever there. Today is almost one of those days. Almost. The flowers take me an hour. I cut them myself from the garden at the back of the pack house where nobody ever goes except me. White lilies. Brendan's mother planted them before she died and nobody has touched them since. I trim the stems carefully and arrange them in the tall vases the way I've seen done in pictures. Nobody taught me. I just watched and remembered. That's another thing three years of invisibility teaches you. How to learn from watching because nobody is going to take the time to teach you directly. I carry the last arrangement up to the entrance hall and nearly collide with the Gamma's wife coming around the corner. She doesn't apologize. I step aside. She walks past me without breaking stride and I stand there pressed against the wall with a vase of white lilies and the familiar feeling of being furniture. I set the flowers down and go back for the linen. "Elara." Brendan's voice catches me on the staircase. I stop and turn. He's standing at the top of the stairs in his ceremonial jacket. The deep green one with the silver buttons that only comes out for formal occasions. He looks every bit the Alpha our pack needs him to be. Strong jaw. Steady eyes. The kind of man people follow without asking questions. I used to look at him and see my brother. Now I just see the Alpha. He looks at the linen folded over my arms and says nothing for a moment. His eyes move across my face the way they always do — like he's checking something. Looking for something. I've never figured out what. "Stay in the east wing during the meeting." "I know." "Don't come into the main hall. Don't come near the dining room until after dinner." "I know, Brendan." He pauses at his name. I don't use it often anymore. It feels strange in my mouth. Too familiar for what we've become. "And change that dress." His eyes drop to the oversized fabric hanging off my shoulders. "You look—" He stops. Starts again. "Just change it." "This is the only one I have." The words land between us quietly. He knows it's true. He's known for a while what my wardrobe looks like and has done nothing about it. I watch that knowledge move across his face and settle somewhere behind his eyes where he keeps all the things he doesn't want to deal with. He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out folded bills without looking at me directly. "Ask Dana to help you find something." He holds the money out. I take it. "Thank you." He nods once and turns away and that's it. That's the whole conversation. Thirty seconds of his attention on a day when he has more important things to think about. I stand on the staircase holding the linen and the money and the weight of being an afterthought in the house I grew up in. Then I breathe out slowly and keep moving. Feeling sorry for myself has never changed anything. The gates open at noon. I tell myself not to watch. I have a whole east wing to disappear into. Linen to deliver. A dress to find. A hundred small tasks that will carry me through the afternoon without me having to think too hard about anything. I watch anyway. I'm at the east wing window on the second floor when the convoy rolls through the gates. Three black SUVs moving in clean formation like they've made this approach a thousand times. Ironwood Pack. The most powerful pack in the region and everyone in this house has spent the last twenty four hours making sure they know it. The doors open. Men step out. Big. Broad. The kind that make the air feel heavier just by standing in it. They move with the easy confidence of people who have never had to make themselves smaller for anyone. I watch them and feel something stir in the place where my wolf used to live. Then the last door opens. He doesn't rush. That's the first thing I notice. Everyone else moved with purpose, with direction. He steps out and simply stands there. Still. Unhurried. Like the world is supposed to orient itself around him and it always does without him having to ask. Dark jacket. Sharp jaw set in a hard line. He's taller than the men around him but it's not the height that makes him feel bigger. It's something else. Something that sits in the set of his shoulders and the way he holds himself like he has never once in his life been uncertain about where he belongs. His eyes sweep the compound once. Slow. Thorough. Missing nothing. They travel up the face of the pack house and stop. On me. I'm standing at the second floor window like an i***t holding a bunch of white lilies I forgot I was carrying and the most powerful Alpha in the region is looking directly at me with dark unreadable eyes. I don't move. He doesn't either. One second. Two. Three. His Beta steps close and says something beside his ear. He doesn't respond. Doesn't look away. Holds my gaze for one more breath that feels longer than it has any right to. Then he looks away. Turns toward the entrance. Walks forward. His men fall in around him and the convoy moves and just like that it's over like it never happened. I realize I've been gripping the lily stems so hard two of them have snapped clean through. I set the flowers down on the windowsill. Press my palms flat against the cool glass. Tell myself it means nothing. He's an Alpha doing what Alphas do assessing every corner of a new space. I happened to be standing in one of those corners. That's all. I tell myself that for the rest of the afternoon. By evening I almost believe it. Almost.