Dumped the Alpha, Mated to the Lycan

y

said, "can't humiliate me the way a husban

y at the table had an answer re

wood as he needed it to hold himself up. "Ivy. Listen to an old man for one moment. You fought

head slowly. "We watched you grow up in this house. None of us wa

areful, almost kind. "Even if he wakes one day, what will be left of

ike he thought I couldn't hear it from there. "If House Blackw

it to my face. "I'll find another one. I always have. I did it once already, the night my fat

put against that

tay there. None of them ha

out to be," I said, "you'

ment to throw. The doors shut behind me.

y shoulders drop the half inch

Julian stood in. One council meeting, and I'd already stopped

three days the pendant had been gone, carried past the palace gates in

in, two years ago, hidden under a co

r cars passed close enough that their headlights swept right over me, and not one slowed. Nobody wanted to be the one Julian heard about later, helping the wife

e edge of the road like it had bee

way from Silver

aw the crest stamped into the door. Silas Blackwood, lookin

hat was the only thing I knew

own coat. He didn't ask before he settled it around my shoulders, the wool

d yet. "Why wo

it plainly, as the answer embarra

I couldn't smooth out. He didn't ask why, didn't fill the silence with anything that needed answering, just drov

ly," I said, once I trusted my voice

ake his eyes off the road. "Yo

d I didn't want to be seen arriving this way. He pressed something small and c

rs were too numb to fe

t cost him nothing, though I learned later that nothing about that penda

nt anything that pl

h the memory, close and apologetic.

rse sh

, the way new staff always kept them. Mine were half on

walked into his back. He dropped into

a Jul

esent. Julian stood at the mouth of the corridor, arms crossed, wat

closer. "You knew I'd be through here. Staging

nything. Your mo

hat you wanted in that council room, so now you're out here proving a point to anyone who

e who took the long way around just to end

out of my

kable coincidence.

nt something worse was coming. "You're enjoying this a little too much

I stood, you were the one who couldn't find his own voice once I put

d. "It makes you desperate. A woman throwing hersel

full second, nothing i

ying to flatten everyone smaller than him into the floor. It used to

on me and felt nothing buckle

and coming up to his collar like the air had turned solid on the way down,

didn't bother hidi

ough, scraped thin, like the cough had

ur own temper becau

and lifting halfway, like he hadn't decided yet what h

to decide, fast and uneven on the stone, l

d her, his collar still crooked from how fast he'd come, his chest still working t

an answer. From