Chapter 46 46
Aeson’s POV
The drive back from the college was silent. Mandy vibrated with suppressed excitement in the passenger seat, while I turned the recent encounter over in my mind. The girl’s desperation had been a palpable thing, a scent of fear and stubborn pride. She’d walked right into the snare.
Once we were back in the stark quiet of the packhouse, I called for Marcus, one of the more efficient Gammas. He appeared promptly in the doorway of my study.
“Have the apartment at the East Close Path readied,” I instructed, my voice leaving no room for questions. “Full furnishings. It should be habitable by tomorrow.”
He nodded once. “For a guest, Alpha?”
“For a tenant,” I corrected flatly. “Ensure it’s clean.” He bowed and left to carry out the order.
Mandy, who’d been hovering, fastened her pace to catch up with me as I headed for the stairs. “The East Close Path? That’s the little cottage, right?” Her face fell. “But… that’s five minutes away by car. Can’t she stay here? In the packhouse? It would be so much easier, and we could hang out all the time!”
I stopped on the first step and looked down at her. “She can’t stay in the packhouse because she didn’t ask to stay in the packhouse,” I said, my tone reasonable. “She asked for accommodation within my pack. I am providing it. The terms were met.”
“Ohh,” she said, drawing the sound out. She chewed her lip, her eyes far too perceptive. “But why did it seem like… you would have agreed if she’d just asked to stay here? You didn’t even hesitate when she asked for a place in the pack.”
I looked at her, allowing a flicker of irritation to surface—a useful mask. “Your imagination is overactive, Mandy. She requested shelter within my territory. I’m granting it. That is the extent of our business.” I held her gaze until she finally blinked and took a half-step back.
“Fine,” she muttered. “I’ll go up now.” With a last, slightly disappointed look, she bounded up the stairs toward her room.
I continued to my own quarters, the weight of the day’s interactions settling on my shoulders. I was just shrugging off my coat, the expensive wool feeling suddenly restrictive, when a firm knock sounded at the door.
“Enter.”
Jace walked in, his expression a familiar blend of loyalty and deep-seated worry. He closed the door softly behind him. “Marcus said you instructed him to prepare the East Close cottage,” he began, his voice careful.
“I did.”
“Are we expecting a business guest? Someone from the mining consortium?”
“No.”
His brow creased. He knew me too well, had been by my side through too much. “Then… who is it for?”
“It’s for Arielle.”
“Arielle?” The name seemed to hang in the air for a moment before he connected it. “The girl? Mandy’s friend? The one who was here the other day?”
“Yes. She requires lodging near the college. I’m providing it.”
“Why?” The question was blunt, stripped of his usual deference. “Why exactly?”
I turned to face him fully. “What do you mean?”
“I think you shouldn’t act oblivious now, Aeson,” he said, his voice dropping. “It’s becoming obvious. You know who her parents are. She’s Hades and Serena’s daughter.”
A cold smile touched my lips. “I see someone has been doing some unassigned research.”
He sighed, the sound heavy. “You consider them enemies. You know you do. Have you been watching them all this time?” His eyes searched mine, suspicion etched in every line of his face. I couldn’t bring myself to care about his scrutiny.
“No,” I said simply.
“So you’re offering an enemy’s daughter shelter in your pack.” He took a step closer, his voice hardening. “Is this your way of… seeking some kind of revenge? Using the girl to get at them?”
“Revenge?” I repeated, allowing genuine amusement to color the word. “For what?”
“I don’t know!” he said, frustration bleeding through. “For everything! For the past!”
“You’re not certain then don’t speak your assumptions,” I cut in, my voice turning to ice. “Just follow instructions.”
I turned away, dismissing him, expecting him to leave as he usually did when the conversation reached this point. But he didn’t relent. He didn’t move.
“And for your information,” I said, my back still to him, “I don’t have enemies. Or friends. My past is behind me, Jace. It’s a closed book.”
He didn’t take my words for it. I could feel his disbelief like a physical pressure in the room. “But I’m sure you have something against them,” he insisted quietly. “Which is why you had Hades and Caiden sell off their major shares in H.A.C Consortium. You became the sole owner the moment you got your freedom from Alpha Ric. You almost bankrupted them. Now they’re finally thriving again, and you’re doing… this. Bringing their daughter into your territory. It doesn’t add up to simple charity.”
My jaw clenched. The old names, the old maneuvers, stirred nothing in me but a distant, clinical recognition. I tossed my jacket onto the bed with more force than necessary and approached him, my expression stern enough to make a lesser man flinch.
“What do you think of me, Jace? That I’m so petty I’d orchestrate a girl’s housing situation to get back at a woman for a choice she made almost two decades ago? No. It is plainly business. A transactional arrangement. The girl needs a roof; she will pay for a roof. Every cent matters to me, as you well know.”
I turned my back on him again, heading for the door to my dressing room, needing the conversation to be over.
“I don’t believe you,” he said to my retreating back, the words quiet but firm.
I stopped, my hand on the doorframe. I looked over my shoulder, meeting his steadfast, worried gaze. “I don’t care,” I said, and meant it. I walked into the dressing room and closed the door, leaving him standing alone in the silence.
Leaning against the closed door, I finally eased the tension from my shoulders. The quiet of the inner room was a relief. But my mind wouldn’t settle.
It snagged again on a physical memory—the feel of her arm under my grip in the hallway. The strange, electric jolt of it. That slight, inexplicable pull that had made me want to step closer, not to intimidate, but… something else. I’d felt it the other night, too, when I’d stopped her from leaving. I’d dismissed it then as irritation, as the unexpected spark of a conflict.
What is this strange feeling?
A low, internal rumble answered—my wolf, stirring from its long, self-imposed quiet. Over the last eighteen years, I’d lessened our conversations to near silence, preferring the clarity of my own thoughts to its ancient, often inconvenient instincts. I pushed the sensation down, walled it off.
Whatever it is, I don’t care.
What mattered was the tangible, satisfying reality of the situation. Arielle had walked into my domain. She’d asked for my help, sworn a form of loyalty. She was now under my roof, figuratively and soon, literally. She was a piece on the board that had wandered into my territory, and I finally had the chance to… observe. To understand. Perhaps to torment, just a little. To see if the daughter was anything like the mother who had once been a thorn, a distraction, a catalyst for a series of events that had forged me into what I am.
“I’ll torment…just like her mother messed with my life,” I murmured to the empty, polished silence of the room.
A slow, cold smirk touched my lips. This would be interesting.