Chapter 5
1512 Words
After three days
Aurora's POV
The foundation powder is three layers thick, and it still doesn't look right.
I can feel it every time my face moves — the slight drag where the swelling hasn't fully gone down, the way the color underneath seems to push back against whatever I put over it. I checked the mirror three times before leaving the Luna suite this morning. Thanks goddess, from a normal distance, in normal light, it holds.
I carry the first tray of savories out to the banquet hall and come back for the next one.
In the kitchen, three of the pack's youngest omegas are clustered near the prep counter, doing everything except prepping.
"—I heard Alpha Damien's coming today." The girl closest to the window drops her voice like she's sharing a secret. "From the Blackwood Pack."
"Three years." Another one shakes her head. "Three years since that pack even existed, and they're already the strongest in the state."
"He's got no parents. Just a sister. Nobody even knows where he came from." The third one sighs like that's the most romantic thing she's ever heard. "But everyone who's seen him says the same thing — devastatingly handsome, built like a warrior, and carried himself with the effortless authority of an Alpha, the kind of presence that just—" She gestures vaguely at the air. "You know."
"My cousin's mate saw him at the regional summit last spring." A pause for effect. "She said she forgot her own name."
I set the empty tray down. None of them notice.
"Still single, too." The first one presses a hand to her chest. "If I were his fated mate, I'd have no regrets. None. I'd die happy."
"When we're done here, let's go find him. He's supposed to be in the stream garden—"
I pick up the next tray. "Ladies."
All three spin around.
"The canape platters," I say. "Before the salted caramel goes soft."
They scatter. I can't help but smile, shake my head, and carry the tray out.
Too many romance novels.
***
The banquet hall is already full by the time I make a second pass through.
I know most of the faces — Lunas I've sat across from at regional summits, Betas I've negotiated supply agreements with, a few Alphas I've spoken to exactly once and found perfectly pleasant. I move through the room the way I always do, stopping to exchange a few words here, tilting my head to receive a compliment about the food there. The hand covering my left cheek when I laugh too wide is something I've practiced into instinct.
From across the room, the doors open.
Logan enters first, and then Eileen steps through on his arm.
Her dress is a bright, flamboyant red, as if she were meant to be that way on someone else's turf. Her hair is swept up, gold against the neckline. Logan's tie matches it almost exactly. Beside him, she tips her chin at precisely the right angle and the light does the rest.
My smile stays where I put it.
So that's the surprise.
I don't move. I keep my eyes on the group in front of me.
The Lunas drift first. It happens the way water moves — no single moment, just a gradual shift in current, and then the space around me is empty. Someone across the room lifts a glass in Eileen's direction. Polite applause for something I don't catch.
I set my own glass down and move toward the dessert table. The canape platters need straightening. The macarons have shifted. There is always something that needs doing.
Eileen's voice carries across the hall.
"Oh—"
A sharp, startled sound. I look up.
A maid is stepping away from Eileen's side, and Eileen is already moving — straight toward me, arm extended, the champagne flute tipping forward in one clean, practiced motion.
It hits my face before I can step back.
I gasp. The cold of it goes everywhere at once — hair, collar, the front of my dress — and the powder on my left cheek dissolves on contact. I get my hand up fast, pressing it flat against my cheek, feeling the wet slide under my palm.
"How dare you."
Eileen's voice is nothing like the one she uses in hallways. It's loud. Public. It fills the room like she's been saving it.
"How dare you poison Alpha Damien?" She takes one step toward me, close enough that I can see the champagne still clinging to her fingers. "Do you want to get us all killed?"
The room has gone still.
"I didn't." My voice comes out clear. I don't know how. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"The peanuts." She says it like an answer to nothing. "In the canapes. Alpha Damien is allergic — he's outside right now, coughing. If he decides the Redmoon Pack did this deliberately—" She lets the sentence hang. The room fills it in. "In three years he's absorbed four other packs. Taking Redmoon would take him an afternoon."
"I don't know Alpha Damien," I say. "Why would I do this?"
Eileen's eyes soften. She presses one hand to her chest, tilting her head, and when she speaks again her voice has that careful, wounded quality I've heard before.
"Maybe because you're scared." She looks at the room, not at me. "Maybe because you knew I'm the fated mate of Logan, which means you may lost your position and you decided — if you have to lose everything, we all might as well go with you." A small, hurt breath. "I've never tried to take your place. I just want to be with Logan. How could you do this to everyone?"
Two of the pack's warriors have moved closer to the edges of the room. A small cluster of Redmoon wolves near the far wall are looking at each other with expressions I recognize. Fear tastes the same on every face.
I look at Logan.
He's standing six feet away. He meets my eyes.
Say something. I think. Please, you know me. You have always known me.
Then he looks at the floor.
He doesn't move.
I should've seen this coming.
I set the ache aside and turn back.
"Evidence," I say. "Show me the evidence."
Eileen opens her mouth.
Nothing comes out.
The silence holds for four seconds, and then a voice cuts through from the left.
"There isn't any."
It's Mara — one of the kitchen helpers, kids' Omega mama. She steps forward from the edge of the crowd and doesn't look at anyone but me when she speaks.
"We check every allergy form before any inter-pack event. That's protocol. The snacks were made last night and went straight into the refrigerator." She pauses. "There were no peanuts. I checked the trays personally this morning."
The room shifts.
"And—" She hesitates. Her eyes move briefly to Eileen. "About thirty minutes ago. I saw her go into the kitchen. She was alone."
For the first time, Eileen has nothing to say.
The looks around the room turn, slowly, like a tide about to change direction.
And then Logan steps forward.
"She came to find me." His voice is calm. Steady. Certain. "That's why she was in the kitchen. She was looking for me."
I stared at him in disbelief. Because that's not true, we all know.
This morning. All morning. Three allied Alphas, the conference room in the east wing, the meeting that was still running when I passed the door at eleven. I'd walked past and heard his voice through the wall.
He knows I know. He meets my eyes for just a moment, and then he looks away.
The champagne is still cold against my skin. My dress is soaked through. And I'm standing in the middle of a room full of wolves who are already recalculating — who to believe, who to fear, what tonight costs them.
A minute ago, Logan stood six feet from me and said nothing. Not one word while people called me unfit, called me dangerous, called me a woman who'd rather drag her pack to ruin than step aside gracefully. He stood there and watched it happen.
But for her — one sentence. Smooth, immediate, without hesitation.
He knew the truth all along, yet he still chose to protect her, not me.
I've known Logan since we were children. I know the shape of who he is — the warmth underneath the reserve, the care he'd never say out loud but always showed through action. I built five years of marriage on that knowledge. I was so sure I knew him.
I lower my hand from my face. The bruise on my left cheek is fully visible now, makeup washed away, and I don't cover it.
I reached for the champagne on the table and emptied the glass in a single swallow. But I still stare at him.
I think I don't know this man anymore.
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