Chapter 21

Kieran POV

I’d lived like a rogue, clawing my way to the top through battles without the shield of a pack to protect me.

And all the while, Tristan had become Alpha King.

The golden son. The perfect heir. The one who got everything I’d been denied, including a mate.

But not for much longer, if the moon goddess wasn't going to give me what I deserved the. I was going to take it myself.

I didn’t follow them when they drove away, there was no need to. Their ritual had already been done and their performance complete.

For the next few days the elders would whisper, and the packs would gossip, and the façade of unity would be maintained. But facades cracked, masks slipped and I would be there ready to rip them all apart, when the time came.

I turned my steps back toward the Ridge the hall and grabbed my bag, something knocked on the table in front of me and I looked ahead to find a small pipe that I recognized, I pulled it and dragged the mechanism and opened the sleeve of paper, I read the message scribbled across it and held the paper over a candle flame watching it burn. I hung my bag and started walking, when I got to the house I looked up at the door.

It had been years since I’d walked these halls, years since I’d seen the sprawling stone walls with their leeching grey stones.

For years I had imagined this moment—the moment I would step back into the Ridge, back into the house that should have been mine as much as Tristan’s.

Yet when I finally did, it wasn’t triumph that i felt at all. As I approached, nostalgia crept in without warning, threading through the edges of my rage. I remembered running these grounds as a boy, my first shift and the feel of the grass beneath my paws, the sound of Tristan’s laughter echoing beside mine.

For a moment, I almost let it soften me, almost let myself remember what it felt like to belong here.

Then I reminded myself, that those days were gone.

Tristan had made sure of it.

I moved like a shadow through the slipping through corridors I could navigate blindfolded. Some servants passed without seeing me, their chatter low and unconcerned.

My presence was a ghost in these halls.

I reached Tristan wing.

The door was slightly ajar, faint light spilling into the corridor, and it opened up a bit slightly, I hid into a corner of the room and stilled making my breath quiet.

Tristan stepped out of the room,his shoulders tight, his expression carved from stone. He looked every bit the Alpha King, in any other circumstances I would have been proud of him, in another life but now everything around me was tainted he was still the brother who had stolen everything from me.

He jammed the door halfway, and stood in front of it looking at the door for a long time judging by the tension etched across Tristan’s face, she had left him rattled.

She wasn’t Viviana, but she had him unsteady. And that meant opportunity, I couldn’t help the slow grin that tugged at my lips. He squeezed his hand into a fist and walked away he walked towards the room and a scent that lingered in the air behind him.

Isla’s.

She was in there.

And

Tristan strode away, his footsteps echoing down the corridor until they faded into silence,I couldn’t resist.

I walked to the door and pushed it open slightly without making much noise, the curtains inside were half drawn, but I could see enough. Isla moved in the room, her figure caught in the silver wash of moonlight. She slipped the pins from her hair, letting it tumble around her shoulders, the simple motion strangely intimate to watch.

I should have turned away but I didn't.

I braces my hand on the door frame.

And then, slowly, deliberately, I pushed it open. The soft creak of hinges filled the silence and she froze her finger tightening around her hairpin and I grinned.

Isla POV

The drive back to the Ridge stretched out as long and silent, the car filled with tension thick enough to choke on.

Tristan sat beside me, his hand resting casually on the seats between us as if nothing had happened back at the hall. As if his brother hadn’t barged into the banquet and shredded the thin veil of civility we’d tried to maintain.

I didn’t look at him.

Not once.

My gaze stayed firmly fixed out the window, watching the trees blur past under the moonlight, and the steady hum of the engine was the only sound between us.

I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of breaking first.

I was being petty after all it wasn't like he had praised me anything but I had at least hoped he could defend me from the tongue of others.

When we finally pulled into the long drive, I stepped out of the car the second it stopped, my heels clicking hard against the gravel as I walked ahead without waiting for him.

But of course, he followed and by the time I reached our room, he was right behind me, the door clicked shut, and he stood there saying nothing, they both just stood there in silence and she had nothing to say to him, after a long while his voice cut through the silence.

“You did well today.”

I froze, my hands halfway to unpinning the necklace from around my throat. Slowly, I turned to look at him, his expression was unreadable, that same mask of calm authority he wore like a second skin.

“Well?” I repeated, my tone sharper than I intended. His brow furrowed slightly.

“You held yourself with composure. The elders—”

“It’s not like I had a choice,” I interrupted, turning back to the mirror and tugging the necklace free.

“If I’d stumbled, it wouldn’t have been just me who looked weak, would it? It would have been you. Your precious Alpha King reputation.”

The words tasted bitter on my tongue, but I let them spill out anyway, I started to unfasten the buttons on his gown,my fingers working the delicate buttons down the back.

The heavier bulk of the silk slid over my skin, pooling at my feet, leaving me in the second part of the dress and the slip beneath. I didn’t care if he watched.

Let him.

I was tired of pretending I didn’t notice the way his gaze sometimes lingered when he thought I wasn’t looking and sure enough, when I glanced at the mirror, his reflection was there.