The Alpha Imposter Wife

Chapter 11: Petra

NORA POV

“They’re here” Conrad said from the doorway. “No advance notice.”

I looked up from the desk. “None at all?”

“The gate got a call ten minutes ago. They’re already on the road.”

I put the pen down. Stood up. Smoothed my jacket with both hands and told myself to breathe normally because Warren Steele was about to walk into this house and I needed my face to do absolutely nothing interesting for the next several hours.

The main hall was already moving by the time I got downstairs. Pack members finding their positions, the quiet organised shuffle of people who knew what a formal arrival looked like. Rhett was standing near the centre of the room when I reached him. He didn’t look at me but he registered that I was there, I could tell by the slight shift in how he was standing.

“No notice” I said under my breath.

“I know” he said. Same volume. “That’s intentional.”

Of course it was. Showing up unannounced to someone’s territory was a statement. It said I don’t think I need to give you the courtesy of preparation. Rhett receiving them anyway, calmly, without any visible reaction to the rudeness, was its own statement back. I had been in this pack long enough to read those kinds of exchanges.

The front doors opened.

Warren Steele walked in first and the first word that came into my head was charming. Not in a warm way. In a very deliberate way, like someone had decided to be charming the same way you decide to wear a particular jacket. Switched on. Aimed. He was tall, light brown hair, good looking in a clean forgettable way, and he was smiling before he even fully crossed the threshold.

“Alpha Blackwood” he said, extending his hand. “Thank you for receiving us.”

Rhett shook it. Said nothing about the lack of notice. Just received them the way he received everything, like it was already accounted for.

Warren’s eyes found me next and the smile didn’t change but something behind it did, a quick sharp assessment that was over before it properly started. “Luna Blackwood. It’s a pleasure.”

“Welcome to Blackwood” I said. Warm. Easy. Nothing else.

And then the second person walked through the door and everything in my chest went slightly wrong.

She moved like she had been here before. That was the first thing I noticed. Not hesitant, not looking around the way a first-time guest looked around. She came through the door and her eyes went straight to the main corridor like she already knew where it led. Dark hair, good posture, a face that was pretty in the way that knew it was pretty and had made peace with the power of that.

She found Rhett in about three seconds.

The look she gave him was warm. Not politely warm. Personally warm. The kind of warm that came from something shared, some history between two people, and she made absolutely no effort to hide it. In fact I was fairly sure she aimed it in a direction where I would definitely see it.

“Rhett” she said. Like his name was something she had said many times before and was comfortable saying again.

“Petra” he said back. Level. Nothing in his voice that I could use.

Her name was Petra. I filed that immediately.

They got settled into guest quarters and the evening moved into dinner and dinner was the kind of formal pack meal that I had hosted probably a hundred times, except this one had more layers than usual. Dana locked in the east wing with a tray of food and strict instructions to stay put. That pressure in my chest coming and going like a second heartbeat I couldn’t control. Roy’s information about my mother and August sitting at the back of my head like a thing I hadn’t finished processing yet. And Petra sitting diagonally across the table finding reasons, small smooth reasons, to speak to Rhett directly.

She was good at it. I had to give her that. It never looked like she was trying. It just looked like she was being naturally engaging, like she and Rhett had things in common that kept coming up organically. An old pack event. A shared acquaintance. She laughed once at something he said and touched the table near his hand and it was all so normal and light and it still landed exactly where I think she intended it to land.

I kept my face level. That was my whole job for this dinner.

Warren was talking to me. He had been talking to me on and off through every course, easy conversation, the kind that felt like small talk until you paid attention to what he was actually asking.

“How long have you been Luna here?” he asked, refilling his own glass like it was casual.

“Five years” I said.

“You must have been young.”

“I was twenty-three” I said. Polite smile. Nothing extra.

“And you’re from the city originally? I heard that somewhere.”

“My family is based there, yes.”

“Big family?”

“Not particularly.”

He nodded like I had said something interesting. “The Luna role is so important to pack stability. It takes a particular kind of person to step into it.” He looked at me with those pleasant eyes. “Someone who really grows into the position.”`

I smiled. “I’ve been lucky to have a strong pack around me.”

That was it. That was all he was getting. I kept my answers short and warm and completely empty of anything he could build on, and I watched him accept each one with that polished smile while his eyes did their quick little assessments behind it.

He knew something was off. I couldn’t tell how much. But the questions weren’t random.

Dinner ended and the group moved into the corridor and I was saying something to one of the other pack members when Petra appeared beside me. Very close. The kind of close that was technically just two people in a corridor but felt deliberate.

“It was a lovely dinner” she said.

“Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

She glanced around the corridor like she was just casually looking at the house. “You seem tired” she said. Her voice was quiet. Friendly even. “The Luna role is a lot. Especially the hosting side of things.”

“It keeps you busy” I agreed.

“I imagine it’s particularly demanding…” she paused, just half a second, “…for someone who didn’t grow up expecting it.”

The words landed so softly. Wrapped in a smile and a pleasant tone and the casual rhythm of a hallway conversation. For someone who did not grow up expecting it.

I smiled back at her. “You learn to manage.”

“I’m sure you do” she said. And then she walked away.

I stood in the hallway and watched her go and kept my face completely still.

Did not grow up expecting it.

That wasn’t a general comment about the difficulty of the Luna role. That was specific. That was pointed. It was dressed up in pleasantry and delivered at just the right volume so only I could hear it, but it was not an accident.

She knew something. Maybe not the full picture. Maybe just a corner of it. But she had something and she had just let me know she had it without saying a single word that I could repeat to anyone as evidence of anything.

I was going to spend the night in this house with her two floors below me and I had no idea how much was actually in her hands.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​