Chapter 31: *

Emery’s POV

Nobody moved.

That's the thing about a room after something like that. It holds. Like everyone forgot they were allowed to breathe.

Eleanor's cane was still pressed into the floor. The mark it left was small and white.

I was sitting off to the side, a little apart from all of it, and I honestly felt nothing. That probably sounds bad. But I'd used up whatever feeling I had left somewhere around the moment the papers went through, and right now I was just — watching. Like it was someone else's mess. Like I'd bought a ticket to a show I didn't want to see.

Keaton cleared his throat.

"Grandmother," he said. Careful. "I came here to have a conversation—"

"You came here to perform a petition in front of your family," Eleanor said, "and hope we'd be too polite to call it what it is."

His jaw tightened. He hated that — hated being read. I knew that about him.

Alora smoothed her hair back with one hand, and when she looked up she had this expression on her face — soft, a little wounded, like she was the one being wronged here. "I don't think any of us needs to get emotional," she said. "We're all adults. We can talk about this."

Margaret turned her head and looked at Alora.

"I remember," Margaret said, "when Frostborder sent word the first time. About you. About what we could expect." She paused. "You've been a mother for years, Alora. I'm going to assume that hasn't affected your memory."

The air in the room changed.

Alora's composure held. Barely. She tilted her head down, let her eyes go soft, and — God, I almost had to respect it — actually managed to produce tears. Just enough. Not messy, not overdone. One slow blink and suddenly she looked like a woman being attacked in her in-laws' living room.

"I don't know what you think you know about me," she said, voice gone small and hurt. "But I've done nothing wrong. Keaton and I — what we have is real. The bond doesn't lie. We didn't plan this—"

"He's planning it right now," Eleanor said. "That's fairly premeditated."

Keaton’s whole body had that particular stiffness he got when he'd lost control of a room and was trying to pretend he hadn't.

He walked to Alora. Put his hand on her back. Murmured something low. She leaned into him — not much, just enough for the room to see it.

Margaret stood up from her chair.

"Keaton Remington." Her voice had an edge to it I'd only heard a handful of times. "Your mate is sitting ten feet away from you."

He glanced at me.

"We already filed," he said.

And that was it. Like it was an admin task he'd crossed off a list.

Six pairs of eyes turned to me.

I didn't want to say anything. I'd been doing so well at being invisible.

"I saw them," I said. "Outside a restaurant. Ten days before the ceremony. It was raining." I kept looking at my hands. "I didn't go inside. I just — stood there and watched, and then I went home and I called a lawyer." I stopped. "I had the papers ready when I walked in. I was the one who asked for the dissolution." A beat. "He called the elders that same night. The ceremony happened before morning."

The room went very quiet.

Then Eleanor moved.

She was across the room faster than someone her age should have been able to move, and the cane came down across Keaton's shoulder before he even registered she was in motion. He stumbled sideways. Alora made a sound — sharp, shocked — and grabbed for Keaton's arm as the cane swept back and caught her across the elbow.

"What the—" Alora's voice lost all the warmth in it. Real pissed. "What is wrong with you—"

"You," Eleanor said. Her hands were shaking. Her voice wasn't. "In my house. Standing in my house. After what you did." She was pointing at Alora with the cane now, and her hand was shaking, but every word was placed like she'd been saving them for this exact moment. "Your first mate is two weeks dead."

She turned to Keaton. "The pack knows. My council knows. You want to bring this into the Remington line. You want to put the Easthaven Luna title on someone who treats loyalty like an accessory."

"That's a lie." Alora's voice had gone flat and cold. The performance was gone. "You don't know anything about what I—"

"I know everything I need to," Eleanor said. "I've been on this council for thirty-four years. I have three votes. Your Alpha certification went through on those votes, Keaton." She turned back to her grandson. "Under pack law, mate bond integrity is a condition of Alpha succession. If you continue with this—" She looked at Margaret.

Margaret, who had been watching her son with an expression I'd never seen on her face before — like she was grieving something that was still standing in front of her — slowly nodded.

"I'll take the council seat," she said. Quiet. No drama. Just done.

"Mom—"

"I'll take the seat."

Eleanor looked at the pack guards standing near the doorway.

"Remove them," she said. "Change every access code in this house."

They went without looking at me.

Alora kept her chin up as she walked out. Keaton's hand was on her back. Roman trotted behind them, clutching his toy car, shooting one last curious look at the room before the door closed.

And then they were gone, and it was just us.

The room felt weirdly big without them in it.