Chapter 54

Rowan’s POV

Dalia’s voice had a unique talent for penetrating the skull like a needle... sharp, persistent, and impossible to ignore, even when a man tried very, very hard.

“…and I said the napkins must be ivory. Not cream. Ivory, Rowan.” She paced in front of my desk as if she were delivering orders to an army, her heels tapping like tiny hammers against the polished floor. “Cream looks cheap. Ivory communicates purity and legacy. Do you understand?”

I didn’t respond.

Not because I didn’t hear her.

But because I was barely listening.

The morning sun slanted across my office, lighting the edges of Dalia’s rigid posture. She’d walked in unannounced again, carrying a stack of fabric samples, floral catalogs, and a spiraled wedding plan thicker than most war manuscripts. She had spent the last thirty minutes explaining lace borders and “symbolic moon-phase arrangements” for the ceremony aisle.

I stared at her but my thoughts drifted in the opposite direction entirely.

Lyla.

Where was she at this exact moment?

At the bakery?

Reading quietly in that corner she favored near the window?

Had she eaten breakfast?

Was she still avoiding Damon after yesterday’s tension, or had he already sought her out again?

I hated that I wondered. I hated even more that Dalia was still speaking.

“Rowan,” she snapped, planting both hands on my desk. “Are you even listening to me?”

No. Not even remotely.

But I kept my face unreadable.

“Continue,” I said evenly.

She exhaled in annoyance. “As I was saying, my mother and I have selected the appropriate lunar taper candles for the pre-ceremony blessing.” She slid a parchment toward me. “These ones. Not the others. They must be blessed under the waxing crescent three nights before the wedding.”

I nodded once.

She didn’t notice that I hadn’t actually looked at the parchment.

Dalia’s hair was swept up in a formal chignon even though it was barely past dawn. Her posture was painfully straight, her makeup sharp. Everything about her screamed intentional control perfectly curated, perfectly poised, perfectly performative.

She wanted this wedding to be her coronation. She wanted the entire pack to see her as Luna. She wanted Lyla gone.

That last part was not conjecture. It was fact. She didn’t hide her hatred; she wielded it like a blade.

“…and as for the ceremony platform,” Dalia continued, flipping another page in her binder, “it must be placed precisely under the Moon Circle arch. Symbolism matters, Rowan.”

My jaw tensed.

She spoke as if symbolism were something she understood. She didn’t. She only understood optics, the kind that made her appear powerful, desired, and untouchable.

“Rowan, say something,” she said, irritation tightening her voice.

“What would you like me to say?” I asked calmly.

“That you approve.” She crossed her arms. “That you support my decisions. That you care about this wedding.”

I didn’t respond.

Her lips thinned. “You’re distracted.”

Understatement of the century.

She walked around the desk, positioning herself too close, lowering her voice into something she probably thought seductive. “Rowan… this is our union. The most important ceremony our pack will witness for the next decade. Your attention is necessary.”

“My attention is on pack security,” I said. “As it should be.”

She frowned. “You always say that. As if I’m discussing trivialities.”

Before I could reply, a faint scent drifted in from the corridor; warm, soft, threaded with something calming and impossibly familiar.

Lyla.

She wasn’t visible, but I felt her approach like a shift in gravity.

Dalia kept talking, but the sound faded into static.

I shouldn’t have been aware of Lyla like this.

I shouldn’t have felt her even when walls separated us. I shouldn’t have known, with painful accuracy, when she paused outside my office door, hesitating, likely unsure whether to interrupt.

My heart gave one sharp, traitorous pull.

Dalia’s voice snapped back into focus.

“...and I want the rehearsal dinner to include a symbolic moon-binding chant. My mother suggested..."

“No,” I said flatly.

She froze. “What?”

“No ritual chants at the rehearsal.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Why?”

“Because we don’t need spectacle. We need stability.”

Dalia scoffed. “You sound like an elder.”

I didn’t care.

Before she could resume her tirade, the knock came.

Soft. Gentle. Polite.

Lyla.

My spine went rigid.

Dalia turned sharply toward the door, her expression souring instantly. “Who is that?” she muttered, even though she already knew.

I swallowed the instinct to tell Lyla to come in before the second knock.

“Enter,” I said instead, neutral, controlled, overly formal.

The door creaked open.

Lyla stepped in.

Her eyes, soft and uncertain, flicked between Dalia’s stiff posture and my unreadable expression. Her fingers clutched a small folder; thin, trembling slightly as she held it.

“I… I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “The council clerk asked me to deliver this to you, Alpha.”

Her voice and gentle presence. It cut through every wall I’d built.

Dalia’s smile sharpened like a predator’s. “Lyla. How lovely to see you.” The words dripped venom.

Lyla dipped her head politely. “Good morning, Dalia.”

“You seem flushed, dear. The guest wing too warm for you?” Dalia asked sweetly.

It took everything in me not to growl.

Lyla offered a small smile, shy, strained. “I’m fine.”

Dalia stepped closer to her. Too close.

“You know,” she said, tilting her head mockingly, “with the wedding approaching, this part of the compound may not be the best place for you to linger. Too many important duties happening here. Too much responsibility. You wouldn’t want to be in the way.”

Lyla stiffened.

And that was it.

“Dalia,” I said, voice low and cutting. “Enough.”

Her eyes widened slightly at my tone.

Lyla immediately shook her head. “It’s alright. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Dalia smirked. “You always intrude.”

Lyla’s breath caught, almost imperceptibly. Her fingers tightened around the folder until the edges bent.

My chest tightened painfully.

“Dalia,” I repeated, “leave.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I need to address pack matters. Alone.”

Her face twisted, insult flickering. “You’re dismissing me?”

“Yes.”

Her jaw dropped slightly. “Rowan—”

“Now.”

Something cold flashed in her eyes before she grabbed her binder and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

Silence.

Lyla stood frozen, unsure if she should apologize again or retreat.

I exhaled slowly. “You’re not intruding.”

She nodded once, then offered me the folder with both hands. “The clerk said you needed these reports and I was the first person he saw. That's why he sent me.”

I took them, but didn’t look away from her.

Her heartbeat was a soft flutter in the room.

“Come here,” I said gently.

She blinked. “I—I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “She just… she doesn’t like me.”

“That’s an understatement.”

Lyla looked down. “I don’t want to cause trouble.”

“You’re not.”

She hesitated. “Rowan… I really would prefer you let me leave and go back to where I came from because I think she'd prefer that.”

Anger flared so sharp it tasted metallic.

“She does not decide who stays here,” I said. “I do.”

Lyla’s gaze lifted slowly, meeting mine.

And gods... something clenched inside me.

Her eyes were soft in that way only hers could be. Her presence quiet. Her posture small and unsure yet radiating a resilience I had come to crave.

She was shy and sweet and utterly unaware of her power.

Which made her dangerously easy to wound and dangerously easy to love.

“I know you don’t want trouble,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “But you are not leaving. Do you understand me?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

But the way she whispered it, like she wasn’t sure she believed it made something bruise inside me.

I stepped around the desk and stopped in front of her.

Close enough to feel the warmth of her breath.

Close enough to smell the faint jasmine in her hair. Close enough that the instinct to touch her nearly overrode my discipline.

“You’re safe here,” I said. “Even if Dalia hates it. Even if Damon—”

I stopped.

Her eyes flickered at the mention of his name.

Damon.

The man she loved. The man she believed in. The man I no longer trusted.

It lodged a bitter taste in my mouth.

“How is Damon?” I asked before I could stop myself.

She blinked at the question. “He’s… fine. I think. He hasn’t spoken to me since yesterday.”

Jealousy flared. Fast. Unwanted. Brutal.

“Do you want him to?” I asked quietly.

She nodded—small, hesitant, honest. “Yes.”

It felt like someone pressed a knife between my ribs.

Of course she did. Of course she still loved him.

Of course she had no idea how much I wished she didn’t.

“Right,” I murmured.

She tilted her head, confused by my reaction. “Rowan?”

“Nothing.”

But it wasn’t nothing. Not even close.

Before I could speak again, a sharp knock broke the moment.

It was too firm, too rehearsed to be accidental.

“Enter,” I said, stepping back.

Damon walked in.

He swept his gaze across the room in an instant, taking in Lyla’s position near me, my proximity to her, Dalia’s abandoned wedding binder on the chair, and the sharpened tension between us.

A slow, polite smile curved his lips.

“Am I interrupting?” he asked.

Lyla exhaled too quickly. “No. Not at all.”

My jaw clenched.

Damon stepped further in, bowing his head slightly in my direction. “Alpha. I have the final reports for the northern patrol units.”

I nodded. “Place them on the desk.”

He did but his attention remained on Lyla.

“Lyla,” he said softly.

Her breath hitched. “Hey.”

The warmth in her voice gutted me.

He took a small step toward her. “Can we speak later?”

She nodded again; shy, hopeful, radiating a softness she’d never shown any man but him.

He smiled.

I wanted to break something.

When he left, Lyla hesitated in the doorway, her fingers tracing the edges of the folder she’d forgotten she was holding.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “For earlier. For standing up for me.”

“You don’t owe me thanks.”

“But I still want to.”

A tiny smile.

Barely there.

Enough to undo me.

“I’ll see you later,” she said, then slipped out before I could stop her.

The door closed behind her.

And the silence left in her wake was suffocating.

I leaned both hands on the desk, bowed my head, and let the truth I refused to say out loud settle in my chest:

I was in love with Lyla.

Obsessed.

Unquestionably.

Hopelessly.

But…

The whole council wanted her gone. Damon wanted something... something hidden behind those polite smiles. The lunar event approached with a ritual Dalia shouldn’t have access to.

And the wedding was a weapon waiting to be used.

I couldn’t admit any of this to anyone.

Especially not to Lyla.

Especially not to Damon.

Especially not now.

So I straightened, pulled my mask back on, and prepared for the war I felt coming.

Because whatever Dalia and Damon were planning…

They had no idea what I would do if they touched her.