m.

b(/b63)

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They came to my room because the council chambers felt too public for the words we needed to speak.

The hall had already been used for the ritual of bread and truth; this was going to be the ritual of nning.

The light here was softer, the rugs newer, the one crooked chair that had once been mine in Florence now bearing the weight of men used to iron and ink.

Here, with the curtains half–drawn and the garden scent drifting through the window, we could say what we meant and watch the faces around us for signs of fear or steel.

Francesco sat with his back to the bed, one arm across my shoulders as if he’d learned overnight that I was something to rest against when the world wanted to lurch.

Alfonso was at the small desk, half–sitting on it with his ledger closed and his gaze like a de under a cloak.

Audrey leaned in the doorway, always a silhouette, always an edge; Marlow had one knee up on a chair, boots scuffed, looking like a man who only pretended to befortable; Monica sped her hands in herp, the healer’s worry softening into a look of readiness; and Lira–Lira had arrived like a winter wind and set herself on the footstool, watching the way wolves watch a trapped hare: careful, sure she could catch what tried to get

away.

“This isn’t my ce,” Francesco started, and he didn’t look like a man asking for permission.

I raise an eyebrow.

He sounded like a man naming a fact he’d begun to live with.

“Truly our territory,” he corrected quietly, as though saying our aloud imed it further. “There’s more here I didn’t know–old bargains and worse. Whatever the previous Alpha left behind was not just neglect. It was rot dressed as tradition.”

We all knew the story–how Henri had given up the pack and how,ter, this ce had been abandoned, its young taken to bring his mate back, its roots eaten by whatever greedy thing prefers covenant to kindness. We’d taken it on because we could not abide a ce left hungry. That was the short version that looked good

on paper. fn72b9 Original content can be found at Find?Novel/fn72b9

The truth had teeth, and it showed itself when men like Dorian decided to buy rumor with coin and throw it into countries where the poor have long memories.

Marlow nodded. “French Alphas never weed us. They spun it into a story the night the rookery burned -the Italian King wants morend, they said. Now they make rumors into arrows.” His voice had the gravel of long roads under it. “Poison the Luna. Kill the witness. Watch the pack wobble. It’s tidy, if you like to work with other men’s tragedies.”

I listened to the men name the enemy and felt something small and fierce in

I walked and stood beside Francesco, letting my shoulder rest against his.

my

ribs.

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He wrapped his arm around my back and kissed the top of my head–the small, domestic thing he has given me that always bnces the world. The gesture steadied me more than steel ever could.

“New ces are never easy,” I said, gathering their attention.

Their faces turned; I felt the weight of their hope and fear like weather.

“I’ve missed being with you In Florence too. I know you worried I’d vanish again. I know the poison–both the bitter taste and the rumor that follows–hurt everyone. But people here are depending on us. They started because they believed we would hold them. To leave now would be cowardice.”

I could see it in their faces–respect, surprise, that little crack of awe some people get when they realize a woman means what she says. We have been poured by long nights into something that looks like a kingdom.

It was easy to forget sometimes how much raw courage such gentle things take.

“Danger is everywhere,” I continued. “ying nice worked yesterday because warmth was our weapon then. But warmth alone does not intimidate the kind of men who hire hands to stir a poison with a song. They don’t respect shepherds or bakers. They respect only two things: the sharpness of teeth and the measure of your reach.” I looked at Francesco then, my voice softer. “If they want the Lycaon to be a story of ruthless blood, let them. We’ll answer the story with a new chapter–one where warmth has teeth.”

Alfonso scooped a brow. “You want us to trade our bread for des?” His ledger hit his palm like a small thunderp–paper and ink that always smelled of diplomacy and lists.

I turn my gaze at him when I answer “No.” I shook my head. “Not trade. Add. Hearth to hammer.” I tapped my finger on the edge of the table. “We continue the warmth–food, shelter, the open ward. That is our root. But above that root we build a wall, and along that wall we post men and wolves who do not smile when coin clinks suspiciously at the tavern table. We teach our people the smell of the fen and the taste of a hum in an egg. We don’t let ruin wear kindness like a cloak.”

Audrey’s lips twitched in a way that almost counted as a grin. “In other words: we stop being velvet and start being iron, too.”

Marlow barked augh. “About time. My men were beginning to feel too polite.”

Lira lifted one eyebrow in amusement. “And how does Eine suggest we be dangerous without bing monsters ourselves?” Her voice had that dry humor that always preceded a n so precise it would leave

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I give her a wide smile “You know how,” I said. “We set baits that catch more than spies. We force the ones who hide behind rumor to walk into the light, and we measure them there. We keep the kitchens open but locked to strangers. We let children keep their cakes, but we sit beside the ovens and teach them how to crack thest egg. We make every stall and every well a watched and honored ce. And when we find the hands that stir-”

I let the silence cut like a de.

“-we make sure our punishment is not poison returned for poison. We set it intow, intobor, into making good. We’ll break theirworks, not their spirits.”

Alfonso’s mouth softened. “You’re giving them dignity,” he said, thinking like a ledger man who knows the

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power of a list. “Turning punishment into restitution. Not all men will like it.”

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“They won’t.” I agreed with a nodded head. “But the people will. And the ones who matter in the long view- those who’ve lost daughters to the fen or sons to old bargains–will stay because we do not make them into spectacles for the fearful to gawk at. They’ll stay because we chose them instead of choosing vengeance like a feast.”

There was a long, quiet moment.

I watched each of their faces–Francesco’s steadying, Alfonso’s calctions cycling through, Audrey’s jaw flexing at a smile too reluctant toe out, Monica’s hands tightening into a knotted promise, Marlow’s grin splitting the line between amusement and the thrill of the hunt. Lira’s lips pressed together like a seam not yet cut. It was enough.

“First step,” Francesco said, voice low but certain, make our gaze turn to him. “we show them our teeth without losing our hands. Patrols increase. No one goes to the well alone after sunset. The stalls stay open,

but

we instate a watch that includes mothers and elders, not only men with spears. We teach the market to sing our story before the rumor does.”

I smile. That’s my Alpha!

“You want the women at the watch?” Monica asked, the healer’s mind already envisioning how hands could be

trained.

“Yes,” Alfonso answered for me. “Mothers know whose steps belong by the river shops. The watchers will be our people–farmers, midwives, cooks–those with eyes on what matters. Not strangers with coin.”

Marlow mmed a palm on the table once, delighted. He looks like a young children just get a new toys. “And wey traps. Not for killing, but for catching–snare the footprints, pin the threads. If they think to move in by night, we move in first. Let them think twice before they try to suffocate our kitchens.”

“Second step,” I said, leaning forward so my voice was the room’s new gravity. “We take the debate to Dorian’s doorstep. Not by blood, not by insult, but byw. We send emissaries with petitions–lists of the missing, names of the children who gave me cakes, records of our patrols. We make the case so public and so proper that his men cannot hide behind gossip when the square can read what we say.” I paused, thinking. “If we go to him with a hand full of truth and an open ledger, he cannot simply snarl and say we’re weak without showing himself for the bully he is.”

I watch everyone nodded in agreement.

Lira hummed. “And if he snarls, we show him teeth. Diplomacy with teeth. I know how to speak with swamp women and sorceresses; ten times out of ten the bogs prefer a sharp edge to a dull one.”

Francesco’s hand found mine under the table and squeezed.

His shadow in the room did something I will never grow tired of: it steadied the unsteady. “We will do it our way,” he said quietly. “No poisoning them back. No shows of cruelty. Thisnd learns whatw sounds like when it belongs to its people. We hold them. We do not give them another reason to trade one tyrant for another.”

“Agreed,” Alfonso said, and the ledger in his mind started building the scaffolding. “Marlow: you and Audrey take the southern markets. Find the man with rope hands. Question–gently–then loudly if you must. Maria

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hummed with responsibilities and risks. But there was a line of light along the sill where the curtains let the sun in, and it felt like a measuring stick for what we could bear.

Francesco walked me to the window and wrapped an arm around my waist.

He smoothed the hair at my temple with a thumb that still smelled faintly of leather and fresh horses.

“You were right,” he said, quiet and profound. “We will be hearth–and hammer.”

“And if Dorian thinks to test that?” I asked worriedly.

“He can test the wrong side of his reach,” he replied calmly. “We have the people now. We have thew. And we have each other.”

I kissed him then–not avish thing, but a seal. A reaffirmation.

Outside, the manor’s night noises had settled into the ordinary business of wolves who know their homes.

For all the ns and the sharp edges we had just set, the simple truths remained: a child’sughter, Maria’s humming, a guard’s boot scuff.

Those were the things worth fighting for.

Tonight, we would begin to show our teeth.

Tomorrow, we would take a ledger to Dorian and demand he answer the questions he had been paid to keep hidden. We would do it with more than heat in our voices: with proof, with mothers at wells, with men who counted more than they feared, with women who held cake and spice and knew what poison tastes like.

bF /b