Lena's POV
The joint dinner had been Bastian's idea, though he framed it, carefully, as Rourke's suggestion, and I understood well enough by now to know that meant it was actually a decision the two of them had made together and were presenting to Damien as something more organic than it was.
The reasoning was sound. In the aftermath of Aldric's arrest, and with the unity ceremony still weeks away, Stormridge needed a visible, ordinary demonstration that the alliance with Crestfall remained solid despite everything that had shaken loose beneath it. A formal dinner, both packs represented, careful and civil and entirely unremarkable, the kind of evening that told everyone watching that nothing underneath the surface had actually cracked.
I dressed for it with the particular attention I h
