Chapter 36
Chapter 36
Freya’s POV
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+8 Pearls
Giselle’s body trembled, her wolf scent turning sour with fear. Eleanor’s eyes flashed with a matriarch’s rage as she lunged at me, claws just beginning to edge from her nails.
I stepped aside without a thought, letting her momentum carry her straight into the heavy oak cabinet. The thud was followed by her howl of pain.
The door slammed open with a force that rattled the hinges. Caelum strode in with two hotel staffers behind him.
For the briefest moment, Giselle froze. She had expected this to be her victory. Now, the truth was written all over her face- she knew. She knew the things I’d warned her about had reached the banquet hall.
Eleanor scrambled upright, hair disheveled, and hurried to her son like a wolf seeking the safety of her Alpha. “Caelum, you’re just in time. This–this faithless female was rutting behind your back! Giselle and I caught her red–handed. I said a few words, and she attacked me! If you don’t sever the bond, I’ll consider myself no longer your mother p>
“Mother!” Caelum’s voice cracked through the room like a whip. Even my wolf stilled at the sound. “Don’t say another word. Everyone out there already saw what happened in here p>
Eleanor blinked, thrown off balance. “Saw… what? No–no, this is a trick. She’s playing you. Caelum, you must not believe her p>
But I could see it in his eyes. He wasn’t believing me–he was believing what he’d seen with his own eyes. The mother and sister he thought he knew were nothing like the women who’d stood on that feed, fangs bared in spite.
His gaze slid to me. I stood a few paces away, deep–blue gown still unruffled despite the fight, the scent of adrenaline still rolling off me. The gown’s cut bared my throat, but I knew my posture was all steel–Alpha steel, the kind that makes lesser wolves drop their gaze.
We were mated. We had shared a bed. But those few steps between us felt like a gulf I wasn’t sure either of us could cross.
“Caelum, it’s all her scheme,” Giselle snapped, finding her voice again. “She lured us here to frame us! You can’t believe her over me and Mother p>
“ Yes,” Eleanor pressed, “you’re my son, my blood. She’s an outsider. Have her taken and bound–she struck me! I’ll call the enforcers and have her charged.” She started forward again, but Caelum caught her by the arm and yanked her back.
“Enough! Both of you! he roared, his Alpha command thickening the air until even my lungs felt it. “How much more shame will you make me endure? ”
For a moment, his gaze brushed mine–and I saw it there: shame, yes, but also the helplessness of a male who could not leash his own pack–blood.
And still, they wouldn’t stop. Eleanor and Giselle kept flinging dirt in my direction, desperate to bury their own stench.
“Go ahead and call the enforcers,” Lana Rook’s voice rang from the doorway as she strode in. Her wolf bristled, and her glare pinned Eleanor like a dagger. “No need. I already have. ” She crossed to my side without hesitation. “ You alright p>
“I’m fine.” My answer was steady, though my head still felt faintly clouded from the haze–spell they’d tried to fill the room with. I’d taken in a few breaths before realizing what they’d done, but my years in the Iron Fang Recon Unit had left me with a resistance to most toxins. The spell was irritating, not incapacitating.
“You–what?!” Giselle’s voice cracked. She understood what a report to the enforcers meant: not just humiliation, but a binding record, proof of their attempt to frame the Alpha’s mate. A stain that would never wash away in the Capital’s upper packs:
“ You can’t just call them!” she snapped.
“You’ve already shown what you are.” Lana said, voice cold as midwinter. “ Why shouldn’t I p>
“Let’s just… call it a misunderstanding.” Aurora’s voice broke in as she stepped in behind Caelum, her posture as smooth as
12:49 PM P P
Chapter 36
+8 Pearls
any social climber’s. “This is a Silverfang family matter, not something that needs enforcers involved. Isn’t that right, Caelum p>
The air shifted. All eyes turned to him.
His lips pressed thin, and I could almost see the decision weighing behind his eyes. His gaze found mine again. “Freya… perhaps this can p>
“Be treated as a misunderstanding?” I tilted my head, letting my voice cut sharper than any claw. “Is that what you want, Caelum Grafton? For me to nod and make this all vanish p>
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