Three Lives, One Alpha, No Bride Chapter 07

Three Lives, One Alpha, No Bride Chapter 07

Rowan went pale the moment his father opened the hidden papers.

I was not surprised. The first time I went into his study to test him, I noticed the inner cabinet sat oddly

against the wall. Afterward, I paid a servant to look inside. For a gold mark, he told me enough.

So I already knew.

Rowan had been planning this for a long time. The papers proved it. He meant to have Mara’s treaty

status lifted, then bring her into the Alpha house under his private authority once he had publicly bonded

a Hart daughter.

His mother looked ready to collapse.

“A treaty ward?” she whispered. “From Frost Hollow?”

His father’s face was worse. He looked at Rowan as if he no longer recognized him.

“You brought this female into your bed,” he said. “Then tried to put Clara in the Luna’s place as if that

would cover it.”

Rowan said nothing.

His mother pressed both hands to her mouth. “If this gets out, the whole pack will know. Every rival pack

will know.”

Only then did Rowan move.

He dropped to one knee before them. “Be angry later,” he said. “Right now we need to fix this.”

That almost made me laugh.

Even now, what mattered to him was not what he had done. It was whether he could still control the

damage.

His father stared down at him. “Fix it?”

“No one outside this room knows who entered my chambers last night,” Rowan said quickly. “The claim was filed without a name. If we hold to the story that it was Clara, this never becomes more than a

private dispute.”

Silence.

Then his mother said, almost at once, “He’s right.”

I looked at her.

For one brief moment, I had wondered whether the truth might matter to them more than their pride. It

did not.

His father still frowned. “And Alpha Blackthorne?”

That was the only thing that gave him pause.

But Rowan was desperate now, and desperation made him stupid.

“Blackthorne’s Alpha won’t want to be dragged into Silver Ridge’s scandal,” he said. “If you go to him directly and ask for discretion, he may give it. He has no reason to make an enemy of us over Clara.”

His mother seized on that too quickly. “Pack honor comes first.”

That was the moment whatever remained of my regard for them died.

They had always spoken warmly to me. They had said they thought of me as one of their own. But the moment protecting me cost them something, I became expendable.

I turned toward the door.

“Then we’re done here,” I said. “I’m leaving.”

“Stop her,” Rowan’s father snapped.

Two guards stepped in at once and blocked the door.

He turned to his mate. “Come with me.”

Then to Rowan: “You too.”

His mother was pale now, but no less decided. “Until we return,” she said, fixing her eyes on me, “she does

not leave this room.”

I fought then, or rather, I made sure they thought I did. I shouted, cursed them, demanded they let me go.

What I did not do was tell them the one thing that would have changed the room.

I did not tell them that Blackthorne Pack had already placed a rival claim on record.

Why would I?

If they meant to walk into Blackthorne and lie to its Alpha’s face, let them do it openly. Let them say the words themselves. Let them hand me the proof.

So I watched Rowan leave with his parents, the three of them moving with the same hard purpose.

When their footsteps faded, I stopped struggling.

The guards mistook that for surrender.

I only stood there and waited.