Chapter 64: Chapter 64
Several of the younger wolves were watching me with intense focus.
"And that was terrifying," I continued. "Because I believed them for a while. I thought there was something fundamentally broken about me." I looked around the room. "I’m guessing some of you know that feeling."
Multiple heads nodded.
"What Christian and I have tried to build here is a system where you’re not broken for being different. Where your value isn’t determined by whether you fit a predetermined role." I shrugged. "It’s not perfect. But it’s real."
The response was immediate. Wolves started talking, sharing their experiences, their reasons for being grateful to Christian’s leadership. It was powerful and raw and exactly what I needed to see.
Except for five males sitting near the window. Their body language was shut down, their expressions carefully blank. One of them caught me looking and deliberately looked away.
I made a mental note. Christian needed to know about them.
By the time evening rolled around, my brain felt like it had been through a blender. I found Christian in his office, exactly where I expected him to be, surrounded by financial reports and territory maps.
"I did some reconnaissance," I said, dropping into the chair across from his desk.
He looked up, and I watched him shift from political strategist back to just... Christian. My mate. The man who looked exhausted but was too stubborn to admit it.
I walked him through everything. Elena and her parents’ traditionalist gatherings. Martha and Thomas’s carefully worded concerns. The stress symptoms Maria was seeing. The division in pack sentiment.
"We’re looking at roughly seventy percent solid support," I said, pulling out the notes I’d made. "Twenty percent uncertain, and about ten percent firmly traditionalist. Harold doesn’t need to flip many of those middle people to create serious instability."
Christian stood up and started pacing, which meant his brain was working overtime. "The uncertain ones are the key. If we can stabilize them before the review, show them that the changes are sustainable, not reckless—"
"Then we control the narrative," I finished. "Or at least we have a fighting chance."
He stopped pacing and looked at me. "You did all this today?"
"I did."
"Sophie, this is—you’re—" He ran his hand through his hair, and I saw something shift in his expression. Gratitude. Relief. And something that looked like admiration. "You’re a natural at this."
"At what?"
"Leadership," he said simply. "You don’t think like I do. You go after the people. The connections. I was ready to strategize our way out of this, and you were already building the foundation we need."
I felt heat creep up my neck. "Someone had to."
"Someone did," Christian said. "You did."
Later that night, I was in the kitchen with a stack of snacks, setting up for an impromptu movie marathon. Word had spread through the younger pack members somehow—probably through the mate bond networks—and they started trickling in around eight o’clock.
The pack house’s common room was transformed into something that felt less like strategy and more like family. There were young warriors sitting next to recently accepted lone wolves. Healers curled up next to potential future alphas. Elena was there, laughing with some other female warriors like the weight of her parents’ disapproval didn’t exist in this space.
I’d put on something mindless—some superhero movie that required zero brainpower. The perfect antidote to the intensity of the day.
Christian appeared around ten o’clock, sliding into the room quietly. He caught my eye from across the room, and I gestured for him to join me near the kitchen. He did, moving with that careful ease that meant he was trying not to draw attention.
We ended up by ourselves, the kitchen door closed, the sounds of the movie muffled by the wall between us and the common room. Christian pulled me against his chest, his chin resting on the top of my head.
"How did you do this?" he asked quietly.
"Do what?"
"Make them feel like they belong."
I turned to face him, and he was looking down at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. His hands dropped to my waist.
"I’m just—" I started, but he cut me off.
"You’re amazing," he said. "I don’t think I say that enough."
We weren’t slow-dancing, but it felt like we were. The kitchen was quiet except for the muffled sounds of laughter from the other room, and Christian was moving slightly, swaying like there was music only he could hear. His hand slid up to the small of my back, his other hand still at my waist.
I could hear pack members in the common room cleaning up, the clink of plates, and quiet conversations as the movie night wound down. It was domestic and normal and so wildly at odds with the political storm we knew was coming that it almost hurt.
Christian dipped his head, and I thought he was going to kiss me, but instead he just breathed me in. Like he needed to ground himself in this moment, this version of us that wasn’t strategy or survival or fighting his father’s manipulation.
"Stay with me," I whispered, though I wasn’t sure what I was asking for. Tonight? Through the review? Forever?
He pulled back just enough to look at me. "Always."
The word hung between us, heavy with meaning.
Then one of the younger wolves—couldn’t tell who—knocked on the kitchen door from the other side.
"Luna? We need your opinion on the next movie."
Christian and I pulled apart, but he kept his hand on the small of my back as I turned toward the door. That’s when I saw it—a phone sitting on the kitchen counter, dark screen face-up. The screen I’d been staring at that morning when I’d realized something impossible.
Harold’s offshore account transfers weren’t random.
I’d finally decoded the pattern during the afternoon meeting with the unmated wolves. The timing, the amounts, the schedule—they matched something specific. Something that changed everything.
I pulled out my phone and checked my secure folder, the one Connor had given me with the financial records. My hands started shaking as I cross-referenced the numbers.
The transfers had started two years ago.
Right around the time Christian had started making progressive changes to pack structure.
Harold wasn’t just trying to reclaim power through politics and coalition-building.
He was being funded. By someone. To do this.
Which meant this wasn’t just about Harold’s ego or his need for control.
This was bigger than that.
This was a conspiracy.
