LUCIAN’S POV
I set my phone face down on the table.
I felt the vibration from Sera's reply in my bones, a faint echo of warmth I couldn’t afford to indulge.
It would have been so easy to let myself drift, to picture the golden glow of the restaurant where she waited. Where the answer I’d waited so long for lay, just within reach.
Instead, I focused my gaze.
Alpha Marcus Draven sat across from me, fingers steepled, mouth curved in the faintest suggestion of a smile.
The Silverpine packhouse conference room was colder than it needed to be, stone walls leached of warmth, banners heavy with age and old victories.
This was a room designed to haunt visitors with memories of power, even if true authority had long since slipped away.
I straightened in my chair. “Let’s get this over with, Marcus. I have no time for any more games.”
His brow arched, slow and deliberate. “Straight to business,” he said mildly. “I’d forgotten how little patience you have for pleasantries.”
