The Enstranged Alpha's Mate

Chapter Seven:The Rival's Envoy

The envoy from Thornfield arrived three days later, uninvited and entirely too confident for a wolf walking into hostile territory alone. Rowan watched from the council hall's upper window as a lean, sharp-featured man dismounted in the courtyard like he owned the ground beneath his boots, flanked by two silent escorts.

"That's Callum Reyes," Kane said, low. "Thornfield's second. If he's here in person instead of sending a message, his Alpha wants eyes on the ground before committing to anything larger."

"Or he wants to see the alliance for himself before he decides how much he believes it. Either way, he's not here for tea."

They met him in the council hall twenty minutes later. Callum took the offered seat with an easy, unbothered smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Alpha Voss." He inclined his head, then turned that same assessing look on Rowan, lingering half a second too long. "And you must be the famous Ashwood proxy. A rejected mate, returned to save the very pack that discarded her. It's almost poetic."

"It's almost none of your business," Rowan said evenly. "Is Thornfield in the habit of sending envoys just to gossip, or did your Alpha give you something useful to say?"

Something sharpened behind his smile. "My Alpha wanted me to convey a simple message. Whatever alliance you're cobbling together out of old wounds and convenient timing, Thornfield doesn't consider it a deterrent. A pack built on rejection and reconciliation reads as fragile, not strong. Cracks don't disappear because you paper over them with a ceremony."

Kane's jaw tightened, but his voice stayed level. "Tell your Alpha the strength of this alliance isn't up for his interpretation. It's up for demonstration, and he's already seen a preview on the eastern ridge."

"A skirmish. Fifteen wolves testing a border. Hardly a demonstration of anything but curiosity."

"Curiosity that cost your pack two wolves and gained you nothing," Rowan said, tone almost bored, the tone she used on traders who thought they could bluff her. "If your Alpha wants a real demonstration, he's welcome to send more than fifteen next time. I'd like to see what forty looks like against a unified front, since the concept still seems to confuse him."

The room went still. Callum's smile slipped, just slightly, enough to show the temper underneath.

"You should be careful, Alpha Ashby. Confidence is easy to mistake for invincibility, and I've watched plenty of both die on the same battlefield."

"Duly noted. Was there anything else, or are we done performing for each other?"

Callum stood, straightening his jacket. "One more thing. My Alpha extends an invitation. A formal gathering, three weeks from now, to discuss redrawing the eastern trade routes — open to all territories with a stake, Voss and Ashwood included." His eyes found Rowan's again, edged now beneath the courtesy. "A chance to demonstrate this alliance somewhere a little more public than a private council hall. I look forward to seeing how convincingly the two of you perform."

He left without waiting for a response. The hall held its breath until the courtyard sounds confirmed the Thornfield party had actually ridden out.

"He's testing us," Garreth said. "That invitation isn't diplomacy. It's a trap dressed as an opportunity."

"Probably," Kane said, eyes on Rowan. "But refusing hands him exactly the narrative he wants — that we're too fragile to show our faces together outside a controlled room. We don't have the luxury of declining."

"Then we go," Rowan said. "And we make sure whatever he's hoping to see, he doesn't see it."

"There's something else," Kane said, once the room had mostly emptied. "If we're going to convince Thornfield this alliance is real, the ceremony can't wait until after the gathering. It has to happen before. This week."

Rowan's stomach dropped. "This week. On a timeline dictated by a man who threatened us three hours ago."

"I hate it too." Something raw moved across his face. "If there were more time, I'd give it to you. Whatever the ceremony ends up meaning to the pack, what you and I do with that afterward is still entirely yours to decide."

She circled the training yard once, giving herself room to breathe. "Fine. This week. But I choose the day, and how much of it looks like tradition versus theater for Thornfield's benefit. If I'm doing this, I'm doing it in a way I can live with, not just a way that photographs well for our enemies."

"Agreed. Completely." Relief moved through his shoulders. "Thank you, Rowan. I know I keep saying that. I mean it every time."

---

That evening she found him alone on the training grounds, working a heavy bag with a focus that looked less like practice and more like exorcism.

"Callum got to you," she said.

"Callum got to both of us. He's good at his job." He stopped, breathing hard. "I've spent ten years building this pack into something that couldn't be dismissed. Watching him call it fragile in under five minutes got under my skin more than I'd like."

"You didn't let it show in there. You made him flinch."

"I forgot what that used to look like. You, refusing to let anyone talk you into smaller than you are."

"I never stopped doing that. I just did it somewhere you couldn't see it, for ten years." The words came out sharper than she meant, and she watched him absorb the hit without flinching away, the way he seemed to be teaching himself to take all of them now.

"I know," he said quietly. "I think about all the years I missed watching you become this. It's its own particular kind of grief. Not just what I lost. What I wasn't there to see."

She didn't have an answer for that, not one she trusted herself to say without it costing more than she was ready to spend. She stood beside him in the dark instead, close enough that the bond hummed low and steady between them, and let the silence say the rest.

Three weeks had just become a handful of days. Rowan lay awake long after she reached her room, trying to decide whether the tightness in her chest was dread, or something more dangerous wearing dread's clothing to get past her guard.

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