I was halfway to the door when I heard Elijah's voice again.

"That's her. The entitled rogue from yesterday."

I stopped. Turned slowly. He was standing near the reception desk with Celine on his arm, gesturing toward me like I was an exhibit.

"She refused charity herbs," he continued, his tone carrying that particular Alpha condescension reserved for those he considered beneath him. "Arrogant. That's what happens when rogues forget their place."

Celine's gaze locked onto me. Her eyes narrowed, sharp and assessing, like a predator catching movement in tall grass. She didn't know me. Not yet. But something in her posture shifted, coiling tight.

I should have left. The door was right there.

But I stayed.

Celine stepped forward, her heels clicking on the polished stone. She studied me openly now, her head tilting, and I watched calculation move behind her eyes. Whatever internal radar she'd honed over years of jealousy was pinging, searching for the threat she couldn't yet name.

Then she smiled.

"A wolfless rogue," she said loudly, her voice pitched to carry across the atrium. Wolves from three different packs were scattered through the space, waiting for appointments, collecting prescriptions. They all looked up. "Pregnant, no less. How... ambitious."

A few wolves shifted uncomfortably. No one spoke.

Celine warmed to her audience. She moved closer, circling me like I was prey, her perfume cloying in the air between us. "Tell me, darling, what bloodline could possibly want to continue through *you*? Or was it an accident? Some rogue who couldn't be bothered to stay?"

I didn't answer. Didn't move. Just stood there with my hands folded over my stomach, my expression blank.

My wolf stirred.

It was subtle at first. A low pressure against my ribs, like something pressing outward from the inside. I'd felt it yesterday when Elijah used his Alpha tone. But this was different. Stronger. Insistent.

I forced it down. Not yet. Not here.

Celine read my silence as submission. Her smile widened. She turned to the watching wolves, playing to the crowd now, her voice dripping with false sympathy.

"It's tragic, really. These rogues, they have no concept of responsibility. No understanding of what it means to bring a pup into the world without pack protection, without resources." She paused, letting the words sink in. "Without worth."

Elijah stood behind her, arms crossed, watching with detached approval. He'd always liked it when she performed for him.

Celine turned back to me, emboldened. "You know what's funny? I was just thinking about worthless bloodlines. The Ironclaw Pack recently expanded our territory. Absorbed the last scraps of the Holmes ancestral lands."

Something cold slid down my spine.

"Poor Holmes pack," Celine continued, her voice bright with false pity. "They collapsed so dramatically. Lost everything. Their Alpha died broken. Their bloodline scattered." She laughed, light and cruel. "It was almost too easy."

I felt my nails dig into my palms. My wolf pressed harder against the sealed wall inside me, a growl building somewhere deep in my chest that I couldn't let out.

Celine was still talking, drunk on her own story now, her voice rising. "Of course, the territorial claims weren't exactly... traditional. The Porter family had to get creative. Forged a few pack-law documents. Fabricated some treaty violations." She waved a hand dismissively. "Legal loopholes. Bureaucratic nonsense. But it worked beautifully."

The atrium went very quiet.

I watched wolves exchange glances. Pack-law fraud wasn't just dishonorable. It was grounds for Council intervention. And Celine had just confessed to it in front of witnesses from multiple territories.

She didn't notice. Or didn't care. The wine she'd drunk before arriving had loosened her tongue, and the audience had fed her arrogance until it swallowed her caution whole.

"And no one even questioned it," she said, laughing now, her head thrown back. "Because who was left to challenge? A dead girl and a crippled pack."

Dead girl.

My vision narrowed. My wolf slammed against the wall inside me, harder this time, and I felt something crack.

Celine turned back to me. Really looked at me this time. Her gaze traced my face — the line of my jaw, the shape of my cheekbones, the way I held myself despite everything she'd just said.

I watched recognition dawn.

Her expression changed. The smug superiority drained away, replaced by something raw and panicked. Her eyes went wide. Her breath caught.

"*You,*" she whispered.

Then she lunged.

Her claws extended mid-leap, aiming straight for my face. Not to kill. To scar. To mark me the way she'd always wanted to, to destroy the face she'd hated since we were young.

I didn't move.

But my wolf did.

It surged forward, crashing against the sealed wall with enough force that I felt the barrier splinter. My vision flashed gold. A scent I didn't recognize — wild jasmine and frost — flooded the air around me.

Celine's claws were an inch from my face when a hand caught her wrist.

The grip was iron. Unbreakable. And the presence that came with it hit the atrium like a physical wall.

Every wolf in the room dropped to their knees.