Chapter 177 Luca

Chapter 177 Luca
The urge to rip a man's throat out doesn't just go away because you’ve decided to be a progressive leader.

I stood at the edge of the darkened gallery overlooking the Great Hall, my fingers dug so deeply into the ancient cedar balustrade that the wood split beneath my fingernails. Down below, sitting by the massive stone hearth, was Aria. She looked absurdly small in that drafty space, wrapped in her favorite oversized knit sweater, her legs tucked beneath her on the leather sofa. Sitting exactly three feet away from her was Nolan—a rogue border-runner who had spent the last two years dodging our scouts and stealing livestock from the valley farms. He was built like an iron wedge, covered in jagged silver scars from old skirmishes.

“Get out of your head, Luca”. Her voice echoed through the back of my mind.

I blinked, looking down at her through the shadows. She hadn't looked up at the gallery.

“He’s carrying a concealed hunting knife in his boot,” I shot back through the link. “His pulse is fluctuating. He’s thinking about jumping.”

“He’s fluctuating because he’s starving and he thinks Mason is going to jump him from the kitchen,” she replied, her mental tone carrying a touch of that dry sarcasm that always managed to dismantle my predator complexes. “Stay on the balcony. If you flash your eyes down here, you're going to ruin the entire conversation before he tells me where the rest of his camp is hiding.”

I took a slow, agonizing breath through my nose, forcing my hands to loosen their grip on the ruined wood.

This was the hardest part of the new world we were redrawing. It was easy to stand on a stone dais and let the pack roar their loyalty under a full moon. It was easy to sign the invoices for the hardware store or tell the scouts to use the valley sheriff's tracking dogs. But letting go of the chokehold I kept on her safety—treating her like a sovereign leader instead of a fragile asset that needed a constant guard—felt like trying to reprogram my own nervous system. My father had spent his entire life hovering over his territory like a hawk, convinced that the second he looked away, the forest would eat his legacy alive. I had promised myself I wouldn't be him. I had told the elders that Aria was the bridge to the valley.

But a bridge doesn't work if you refuse to let anyone walk across it.

Down below, Aria reached out and pushed a mug of steaming black coffee across the low table toward the rogue.

Nolan stared at the porcelain mug as if it were a trap, his nostrils flaring as he caught the scent of the dark roast. Slowly, his massive, dirt-crusted hand reached out. He took a heavy, desperate gulp, the hot liquid making his throat click in the quiet room.

"The council told us you were just a pet, girl," Nolan growled. "They said the Hale boy went soft after his old man retired, that he brought a human into the house to keep his bed warm while the Hunters closed the fence."

I shifted my weight. Instantly, a sharp, warning jolt of gold light flared behind my eyes—Aria’s direct reprimand through the bond.

"The council hasn't been outside the ridge in thirty years, Nolan," Aria said, her voice steady and perfectly conversational. She leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees, bringing her face closer to his. "And if I were just a pet, you’d be bleeding out in the courtyard right now instead of drinking my coffee. Luca didn't bring me here to keep him soft. He brought me here because I'm the only one in this house who knows how to negotiate with the people who control your food supply."

Nolan set the mug down. "We don't need charity from the valley."

"It's not charity, it's an exchange," Aria countered, her hazel eyes locking onto his faded amber ones with an intensity that made the rogue shift uncomfortably on the leather cushions. "You have three juvenile wolves in your camp who are currently sick with silver-poisoning from the old traps near the crossroads. You don't have the medicine to treat them, and you can't walk into the local clinic without the sheriff calling the authorities. I can get the antibiotics from the valley pharmacy by four o'clock today."

The rogue went entirely still. "And what do you want for the medicine?"

"The names of the three layout camps near the northern highway," Aria said, her voice dropping into a firm, unyielding cadence. "The Hunters are moving heavy gear down that road, Nolan. If your people stay in the brush, you're going to get caught in the crossfire. Move your camp inside our secondary perimeter by midnight. Follow the scouts' guidelines, and you get the medicine."

Nolan stared at her for five long seconds. Slowly, the rogue reached into his jacket, pulled out a crumpled piece of loose leaf paper covered in rough pencil coordinates, and slapped it onto the table.

"Midnight," he muttered.

Mason stepped out from the kitchen shadows to escort the rogue through the back exit, his s eyes flashing a brief, approving glance up at me before he vanished through the heavy oak door.

When the hall went quiet again, the tension in my chest finally dissipated, leaving behind a strange, deep sense of awe that made my wolf settle back into the dark corners of my mind. I didn't stay on the balcony.

Aria didn't move from the couch. She just picked up her own mug, taking a quiet sip as I stopped right behind her. I reached down, my large hands sliding over her shoulders, my fingers gently kneading the tight muscles of her neck.

She leaned her head back against my stomach, her hazel eyes looking up at me with a tired but triumphant smile.

"You didn't jump," she whispered.

"I wanted to," I admitted, my voice a low baritone that vibrated against her hair. "My wolf wanted to take his head off the second he called you a pet."

"But you didn't," she said, reaching up to cover my hand with hers. "You let me do my job, Luca. You let me build the bridge."

I looked down at the crumpled paper on the table, the pencil marks representing three camps of lives saved without a single drop of blood hitting the floorboards. My father would have called this an unacceptable risk. He would have called it an surrender of Alpha authority. But as I held my mate in the quiet of our home, feeling the absolute equality of our bond pulsing through my veins, I knew the old bastard was dead wrong.

The weight of Silverpine wasn't a burden to be guarded with teeth and claws anymore. It was a partnership. And for the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid of the future.