He Rejected The Wrong Wolf

Chapter 28

Brielle’s POV

By the time Brielle came downstairs the next morning, Wren had already found trouble.

It was sitting on the kitchen table in the form of the morning newspaper, folded open beside a plate of cinnamon rolls and a mug of coffee Wren had clearly forgotten about the second something more interesting caught her attention. Sunlight poured through the tall kitchen windows, warming the pale countertops and turning the room gold, while Grandma stood at the stove flipping something in a pan with the calm patience of a woman who had chosen not to be pulled into whatever argument had started before Brielle arrived.

Wren looked up the moment Brielle stepped into the kitchen. Her eyes were bright, her hair was still half-messy from sleep, and she had the exact expression Brielle had learned to fear sometime around childhood.

“No,” Brielle said before her cousin even opened her mouth.

Wren pointed at her with the corner of the newspaper. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“I know your face.”

“That’s hurtful.”

“That’s experience.”

Grandma laughed softly from the stove but didn’t turn around. “She has been waiting for you for almost twenty minutes.”

“Thirty-four,” Wren corrected, sliding the newspaper across the table as Brielle reluctantly sat down. “And it was worth the wait.”

Brielle reached for a cinnamon roll first, because whatever Wren had discovered would probably require emotional support. The pastry was still warm, the icing soft enough to melt against her fingers, and for one brief second she considered ignoring the newspaper entirely.

Then she saw the headline.

ROYAL SUMMER CELEBRATION HOSTED BY THE CROWN

Brielle slowed.

Wren’s smile widened because she had absolutely noticed.

The announcement took up nearly half the page. Three days of events throughout the capital. Open-air markets. Music performances. Pack competitions. Public ceremonies. Formal receptions. A charity gala. The final evening would end with a royal ball held at the palace, attended by ranked families, visiting Alphas, heirs, and representatives from across the kingdom.

Brielle read the final line twice.

The Alpha King himself was expected to attend.

She looked up slowly. “Wren.”

“I know.”

“No.”

“You don’t even know which part I’m excited about.”

“The ball.”

“Okay, you do know.”

Brielle pushed the newspaper back toward her. “Absolutely not.”

Wren caught it before it slid off the edge of the table. “We are already in the capital during the biggest summer celebration of the year. That is not a coincidence. That is destiny being helpful for once.”

“That is a newspaper.”

“That is an opportunity.”

Grandma set a plate of eggs on the table in front of Brielle, then placed another in front of Wren. “Eat before you start planning gowns and dramatic entrances.”

Brielle looked up at her immediately. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m feeding you. That is helping.”

“She supports me,” Wren said.

“I did not say that.”

“You implied it lovingly.”

Grandma gave her a look over the rim of her coffee mug. “I implied you should eat.”

Wren did eat, but only because she had apparently decided she needed strength for persuasion. Over breakfast, she explained the celebration as though she personally worked for the Crown’s planning committee. The markets opened that afternoon along the riverfront. There would be performances in the old square, food stalls from nearly every territory, and a public exhibition of pack history at the royal archives. The more she talked, the more the city outside the windows seemed to shift in Brielle’s mind from overwhelming to possible.

She still wasn’t interested in the ball.

At least, she told herself she wasn’t.

But the markets sounded harmless enough.

By late morning, Wren had convinced her to go out “just to look,” which Brielle knew meant they would be gone for hours. Grandma sent them off with a small canvas bag and instructions to bring back peaches if they found any worth buying, while Grandpa lowered his newspaper long enough to remind them not to follow strangers, start fights, or buy anything alive.

Wren paused at the door. “The fact that you felt the need to say all three is insulting.”

“It is based on history.”

Brielle laughed as Wren made a wounded sound and pulled her out into the bright capital morning.

The city looked different in daylight. Last night, everything had been lights, music, and movement softened by darkness. Now the streets were sharp with color. Banners hung from streetlamps in deep blue and silver, each one marked with the Crown’s crest, while workers stretched garlands across storefronts and vendors arranged tables beneath striped awnings. The air smelled like roasted coffee, sugared dough, fresh flowers, and hot pavement warming beneath the summer sun.

The riverfront market had already begun filling by the time they arrived.

Brielle stopped at the edge of it, surprised despite herself. Stalls lined both sides of the wide stone walkway, crowded with baskets of fruit, handmade jewelry, embroidered jackets, jars of honey, leather-bound books, candles, carved wooden figures, and desserts dusted with powdered sugar. Music came from somewhere near the fountain, where a group of musicians played beneath a white canopy while children chased each other between their parents’ legs.

No one looked at her.

Not once.

Wren noticed the same thing, though for once she didn’t make a joke of it. She simply linked her arm through Brielle’s and tugged her into the crowd.

They spent the next hour wandering without any real plan. Wren bought sugared almonds and burned her tongue because she refused to wait for them to cool. Brielle found a stall selling pressed flower bookmarks and bought one for Grandma. They stopped to watch a group of young wolves from another territory competing in a strength challenge near the river, laughing when one of them celebrated too early and nearly dropped the weighted bar on his own foot.

It was ordinary.

That was what made it feel extraordinary.

For a little while, Brielle wasn’t the rejected girl from Emberfang territory. She wasn’t the wolfless cousin people spoke about in careful tones. She wasn’t something to be pitied, watched, or whispered about.

She was just a girl walking through a market with her cousin, eating warm pastry from a paper bag while Wren debated whether buying a silver dagger-shaped letter opener counted as practical.

“It does,” Wren insisted, holding it up to the light.

“You don’t write letters.”

“I might start.”

“You will not.”

“I could.”

“You forgot to answer Grandma’s text yesterday.”

“That was different.”

Brielle laughed and reached for the letter opener, lowering it before Wren could accidentally point it at someone. “Put it back before Grandpa somehow senses it from across the city.”

Wren sighed but returned it to the vendor with only mild mourning.

They were passing a stall of silk scarves when the crowd shifted.

Not much.

Just enough for Brielle to notice.

A few people near the street turned their heads at the same time. Conversations softened. Someone stepped aside, then someone else followed, creating a narrow path through the busy market. Brielle looked toward the movement and saw a line of royal guards crossing from one side of the square toward the archives building at the far end of the street.

They wore dark uniforms trimmed in silver, their steps measured, their expressions unreadable. People didn’t panic or bow dramatically, but they moved out of the way with the kind of instinctive respect that told Brielle everyone in the capital knew exactly who those guards represented.

Wren leaned closer. “Royal escort.”

Brielle kept her voice low. “For who?”

“No idea.”

A black car waited near the curb beyond the market stalls. Brielle couldn’t see who got out, only the brief flash of a dark suit, a tall figure, and the way the guards shifted around him immediately. Whoever he was, the crowd reacted like he mattered.

A strange stillness moved through the square.

Then the figure disappeared into the archives, and the market slowly resumed its noise around them.

Brielle frowned. “Does that happen often?”

“In the capital? Probably.” Wren sounded casual, but her attention stayed on the archives a second too long. “Royal officials are everywhere during Crown events.”

Brielle looked toward the building again. It was old and imposing, built from pale stone with tall columns and a royal crest carved above the entrance. Banners for the Summer Celebration hung on either side of the doors, moving gently in the breeze.

For reasons she didn’t understand, she felt suddenly aware of herself.

Not watched.

Not exactly.

Just… noticed by the world in a way that made the back of her neck prickle.

“Come on,” Wren said, tugging lightly on her arm. “There’s a dress shop two streets over, and before you say no, I’m not buying a gown. I’m just looking.”

Brielle gave her a flat look.

Wren smiled. “Mostly looking.”

They left the market behind, but the moment near the archives followed Brielle longer than it should have. She tried to push it aside as Wren pulled her into a boutique filled with soft fabrics, mirrored walls, and dresses arranged by color along polished racks. Wren immediately gravitated toward anything dramatic, while Brielle pretended not to notice the gowns displayed near the back, each one more beautiful than the last.

She wasn’t going to the ball.

There was no reason to go.

She repeated that silently while Wren held up a deep green dress and made an approving noise.

By the time they returned to the townhouse later that afternoon, Grandma’s canvas bag held peaches, bookmarks, sugared almonds, two candles, and a small jar of honey Wren insisted “felt important.” Grandpa was in the sitting room when they came in, reading beside the window. He looked up over his glasses, took one look at the bags in their hands, and sighed.

“I see nobody listened.”

“We brought peaches,” Brielle said.

“That was one instruction out of several.”

Wren set the bags on the table and dropped into a chair. “We didn’t follow strangers, start fights, or buy anything alive. Honestly, you should be proud.”

Grandpa studied her for a second. “Why does that sound like there’s more to the story?”

“Because you’re suspicious.”

“Because I know you.”

Before Wren could defend herself, Grandma came in from the kitchen and reached for the peaches, pleased enough with them that everyone was briefly spared further questioning. Brielle helped put the rest of the things away, listening while Wren gave an exaggerated account of the market and somehow made the sugared almond incident sound like a serious personal trial.

She was halfway through explaining the royal guards when Grandpa went still.

It was subtle. His hand paused on the edge of the newspaper, his gaze lifting toward Wren with a sharpness Brielle hadn’t seen from him all day.

“Royal guards?” he asked.

Wren nodded. “Near the archives. Someone important went inside, I think.”

Grandpa didn’t answer right away.

Grandma looked at him from the kitchen doorway, and something passed between them too quickly for Brielle to understand.

“What?” Brielle asked.

Grandpa folded the newspaper slowly. “Nothing.”

That was a lie.

Even Wren noticed.

“You’re doing the adult thing.”

His brows pulled together. “What adult thing?”

“The thing where you say nothing when it is very obviously something.”

Grandpa leaned back in his chair. “The royal archives are busy during the celebration. Officials come and go.”

“Then why did you look weird?”

“I did not look weird.”

“You absolutely did.”

Grandma stepped in before the argument could continue. “The Alpha King arrived in the city this morning.”

The room quieted.

Brielle looked toward her. “The Alpha King?”

Grandma nodded, setting the peaches carefully into a bowl. “The royal family always comes into the city before the Summer Celebration begins. There are meetings, ceremonies, preparations for the ball. It’s normal.”

Normal.

Maybe.

But it didn’t feel normal now.

Wren sat up straighter, all excitement again. “So he’ll actually be at the ball?”

“He usually is,” Grandma said.

Across the room, Grandpa’s expression remained unreadable.

Brielle looked down at the newspaper still lying on the table, the words Royal Summer Celebration printed boldly across the page.

For the first time, the event didn’t feel like one of Wren’s harmless bad ideas.

It felt like a door opening.

And Brielle wasn’t sure yet whether she wanted to walk through it.