The Weight of Unsent Letters

Chapter Three- Sunday

Cole spent the weekend the way Mila imagined anyone spent the weekend before being judged by a room full of werewolves: badly,loudly, and mostly by complaining at her.

"I don't even know what I'm supposed to say to them," he said, pacing behind the equipment shed, the closest thing they had to neutral ground and the only place Mila had agreed to meet him. "You've had this whole secret life since birth. I found out werewolves were real a week ago by growing teeth in a parking lot."

"Keep your voice down." Mila didn't sit. Sitting felt like an intimacy she wasn't interested in extending. "And stop pacing. You look unstable, and unstable is exactly what's going to get you hurt tomorrow."

"I am unstable. That's the whole problem."

"Then fake it better. It's apparently the one skill you have." The words came out sharper than even she expected, old habit reasserting itself, and she watched something flicker across his face — not hurt exactly, just recognition, the return of a dynamic they both understood better than whatever had happened in the woods.

"Wow." He stopped pacing. "There she is. I was wondering how long the concerned-nurse act was going to last."

"It wasn't an act, it was triage. You were dying. Now you're just annoying, which is a very different problem and one I'm significantly less interested in solving."

"Great. Love that for me." He dropped down onto an overturned crate, jaw tight. "So what exactly am I walking into tomorrow, since apparently my only qualified translator also can't stand to be in a room with me."

"You're walking into a pack that's deciding whether you're a threat worth eliminating." Mila kept her voice flat, clinical, the way she'd have briefed anyone else the pack had assigned her — which was, she reminded herself, technically what he was. "You don't argue. You don't perform charm, because it won't land and it'll read as arrogance. You stand there, you let them look at you, and you let me do the talking unless you're asked something directly."

"You want me to just stand there and let you handle it."

"I want you to survive tomorrow. If that means you standing there being decorative for once instead of the center of attention, I think you'll manage." She regretted it the second it left her mouth — not because it wasn't fair, but because his face actually fell, just slightly, before he covered it with the usual armor.

"Fine," he said. "Decorative. Got it."

They didn't speak again until Sunday.

The Ferris barn was fuller than Friday had been.Word had spread, the way it always did, and Mila counted at least a dozen wolves she recognized only by scent, drawn in from the edges of the territory to see the unsanctioned boy for themselves.

Cole walked in beside her, silent, stiff, following her instructions out of what she suspected was pure self-preservation rather than trust. Sabrine was already there. Front row. Dressed like she'd known this would be a performance and had chosen her costume accordingly.

"So," Sabrine said, before her father could even open the proceedings, circling once around Cole the way Mila had seen wolves circle a fresh scent — proprietary, assessing, daring anyone to call it anything but curiosity. "This is him."

"Sabrine." The Alpha's voice carried a warning she ignored completely.

"I'm allowed to look, Dad. I was going to claim him." She said it loud enough for the whole barn, loud enough that a ripple of interest moved through the older wolves, exactly as she intended. "I think I've earned the right to see what somebody else's mess left me."

Cole's jaw tightened, and for one horrible second Mila thought he was going to break protocol and open his mouth but he held it, decorative and silent exactly as instructed, and something in Mila's chest loosened with something that was not quite pride and not quite relief, just the grim satisfaction of a plan working despite how much they currently disliked each other.

"He's not a something," Mila said instead, stepping slightly in front of him without entirely meaning to. "He's a person, and he didn't ask for any of this, and if this meeting is actually about deciding whether he's safe to leave in this territory, maybe we should start there instead of you circling him like a prize you almost won."

The barn went very still. Renata's hand found Mila's shoulder, a warning she ignored the same way Sabrine had ignored her father's.

The Alpha studied both girls for a long moment — his daughter, jaw set, pride stung; Mila, newer to this territory than almost anyone in the barn, standing in front of an unsanctioned wolf she'd made abundantly clear all weekend she found exhausting, and defending him anyway, because it was the job, not because it was anything softer than that.

"Renata's daughter speaks for the boy," the Alpha said finally. "Then Renata's daughter can answer for him too. Cole Ashford stays under observation,supervised, watched, taught what he needs to know to survive what's been done to him." His gaze moved to Mila, heavy with implication. "You found him. You vouched for him in my barn in front of my pack. That makes him your responsibility now."

Mila felt the weight of it settle over her like a yoke she hadn't asked for. Beside her, Cole exhaled, low and unsteady, the first sound he'd made since walking in.

"Congratulations," he muttered, once they were far enough from the barn that no one else could hear. "You're stuck with me."

"Thrilled," Mila said, and meant it exactly as little as it sounded.