THE REJECTED FOURFOLD LUNA: FATED TO TWO ALPHA TWINS

Chapter 25—The Poisoned Mandate

Vivian's POV

I left the estate with my bag on my shoulder and my keys in my hand, the smile already completely gone from my face before I even reached the gate.

I was not going to sit on this information and wait for the right moment to come to me.

Aiden and Jayden were going to Mercer and Vale in person.

To sit across a desk from Celeste Reed and go through their financial accounts like none of it ever happened between any of them. Rogan needed to know immediately.

I drove across the city without stopping.

Rogan opened the door before I knocked, he always did that without fail.

I stopped finding it unsettling months ago. I accepted it as simply part of how he operated. He was always ahead of whatever was coming toward him.

I stopped questioning how he always knew a long time ago.

I stepped inside.

He closed the door behind me and the room settled into its usual quiet, sealed from everything outside it.

"They are going to Mercer and Vale," I said, before he could ask me anything. "Aiden and Jayden. Not their representative this time. Them. In person."

Rogan's expression did not change immediately.

He turned toward the window and stood there with his hands clasped behind his back.

It was what he always did when he was working something through and needed complete quiet while he did it.

"When?" he asked.

"Later this week."

"And the consultant they are meeting with?"

"Celeste Reed," I said. "She is the consultant assigned to their accounts at the firm."

He turned around slowly.

Whatever I expected, it was not the look on his face when he did.

Controlled the way Rogan's face always was. But beneath the control, something sharp. Something genuinely displeased.

"That cannot happen," he said.

His voice carried none of the lightness it sometimes wore.

"I know," I said. "That is exactly why I came straight here the moment I left them."

"They cannot be in proximity to her." He moved away from the window, stepping closer.

When he lowered his voice it was not for caution. It was for emphasis.

"Their wolves are already quieter than they should be at this stage. That is the bond thread still active, pulling even at a distance and even across territory lines."

He held my gaze completely steady.

"If they stand in the same room as Celeste, speak to her, respond to anything she does, that thread warms again."

"And if it does warm?"

I kept my voice completely and deliberately even.

"If it warms enough before their thirtieth birthday, the bond path reopens."

His eyes held mine without softening even slightly.

"If that happens, everything I have carefully worked toward and positioned myself for falls apart. The succession. The authority that rightfully belongs to this bloodline by every law and right that exists."

"All of it. Gone."

I let that settle properly before speaking again.

"Mercer and Vale is in Ulfsang territory," I said. "I cannot follow them into Ulfsang territory without it being immediately noticed. I cannot intercept or cancel a meeting that is already confirmed."

"No," Rogan said. "You cannot."

I looked at him steadily. "Then what exactly do we do about it?"

He was quiet for a long moment.

In that quiet I recognized the specific pattern of a man whose mind was already several moves ahead of the current moment.

"I will devise something," he said simply.

"There are always ways to disrupt a meeting without appearing anywhere near it. That part is mine to handle. Leave it with me and focus on your side."

"And what do I do until then?"

He looked at me steadily. "Stay close to them," he said. "Keep feeding their certainty that rejecting the bond was the right and only call they could have made. Every time doubt moves toward the surface, push it back under. Every single time."

"They trust you, Vivian." He held my gaze. "You are the one voice in that house that they have never once questioned. Do not let that go to waste."

I thought about the study earlier that morning.

About Aiden sitting across from me with something behind his eyes he was not yet ready to name out loud.

The way both of them moved through the morning with something subtracted from their usual edges.

Like men carrying a weight they made a collective decision not to examine too closely.

They were already weakening and neither of them knew it yet.

"I can do that," I said without hesitation.

And I meant it entirely.

"I know you can."

He reached out and touched my jaw briefly, the way he always did when he wanted a moment to register properly.

"You are the only person in this entire situation with genuine access to both sides of it. That is not a small thing and you should never treat it like it is. Do not forget that."

I held his gaze and felt the familiar pull of it.

The feeling of being seen completely. Selected. Considered necessary in a way nothing else in my life ever quite replicated.

I knew he was aware of it, he used it deliberately every single time.

"Whatever you need from me," I said. "I will do whatever it takes. You know that."

"Go back to that house," he said, his voice settling. "Smile at your stepbrothers the way you always do. Make sure every conversation they walk away from with you leaves them believing nothing has shifted, nothing is wrong, and everything remains exactly as it was."

His hand dropped away from my face.

"Can you do that, Vivian?"

I did not answer straight away.

I thought about my mother. About what it cost her to love someone whose family looked straight through her when she was breaking apart.

About what it cost me to watch all of that and still show up to those dinners season after season and keep my face arranged correctly and say nothing.

About everything they owed the both of us that they never once acknowledged, much less paid in any form.

Then I looked at Rogan directly.

"Definitely," I said.

And I meant every single word of it without any reservation.