Chapter 146

The morning after the council dinner felt more like a hangover than a victory. Not from alcohol. Not from exhaustion. My thighs ached from how hard I'd squeezed them under the table, every nerve still buzzing from what Richard had done.

He hadn’t looked at me once on the way back. Not in the elevator. Not when I followed him down the hall, still shaking. I had tried to thank him. To explain. He didn’t let me. “We’ll debrief in the afternoon,” was all he said.

Now I was in the strategy room, pacing behind Nathan as he crouched over his tablet.

“Three clerks,” he said. “All from bell-tower archival sectors. All accessed sensitive records within the last week. None of them reported home. No outbound calls. No confirmed exits.”

I stopped pacing. “Did they know each other?”

“One worked second shift. One was rotating. The third was in the habit of double-tagging checkouts. We might not have caught it if she hadn’t flagged a ghost invoice two nights ago.”

He tilted the tablet to show me. Records scrolled past. Funding chains. Tunnel permits. Shell firms. My stomach turned.

"They were following the money."

Nathan nodded. “Until someone made them stop.” He walked to the console and keyed into a secure log.

“Richard wants this internal for now. No alerts. No press. He reactivated the sealed breach log. We’re on quiet audit protocol.”

I stared at the screen. “That hasn’t been touched since before I was born.”

He reached into his coat, pulled out a heat-sealed pouch. “This was buried in Darius’s personal locker. We swept again after last night.”

Inside the pouch was a scorched pendant. Blackened at the edges, but still visible. The Mooncut. Older than any version I'd seen. It was twisted and worn.

“Simon scanned it. Blood residue. Not wolf. Not human. He’s running a compound breakdown now.”

My heart beat faster. I nodded. “Send me whatever he finds. Immediately.”

Nathan hesitated. “Amelia, are you alright?”

I didn’t flinch. “I’m just...hot.”

The nursery filter logs didn’t lie. They were just wrong in the exact same way, across four units. Timestamps had been offset by exactly twenty-six hours. Signatures were digital, never confirmed by biometric chip. It looked like protocol until you realized the logs were forged in advance.

When I cracked open the third panel, the smell hit me before the color registered. A faint purple film clung to the mesh. It wasn't blood or pollen. Wolfsbane aerosol residue.

I recoiled, sealed the panel, and triggered lockdown. Then I chain wrapped the main unit. My access chip locked it. No one would open this without breaking in.

Back in surveillance, the security team was pulling camera feeds.

“Six dead zones,” one of them said. “All during HVAC downtimes. Not software glitches. Timed gaps.”

I watched the timeline. Movements syncing with airflow and shadow.

“Sabotage,” I said.

Richard called me to his study just before dusk. He didn’t pace. He didn’t raise his voice. He just stood by the window with his back to me.

“Close the door.”

I did. He turned slowly. His expression unreadable.

“You want to tell me what that was last night?”

I crossed my arms. “You were there.”

“Don’t pretend it was nothing.”

“I got us through that vote. I held it together.”

“You came on my fingers in front of the Elder Council.”

I flinched. He stepped close.

“You told me your heat ended.”

“It did.”

“Then why are you still dripping every time I get near you? Why do I smell you before I see you? Why do your eyes darken when I bleed?”

“Because I want you,” I said. “That’s not new.”

“It is when you can’t fucking control it.”

I stepped closer. “Then stop me.”

He didn’t ask again.

He shoved everything off his desk in a single violent motion and grabbed my hips. The growl in his throat made my whole body clench. He lifted me onto the surface like I weighed nothing, his mouth crashing into mine before I could even breathe.

I moaned into him, feral and starved. My thighs spread automatically, wrapping tight around his hips. My body was throbbing, soaked through my underwear, heat blooming through me so violently it hurt.

He ripped my pants down and tore the soaked fabric of my underwear aside.

When he touched me again, I was wet enough that his fingers slid in without resistance. He didn’t wait. He pumped them deep, curling and thrusting until I was arching into him, panting, begging.

“Please,” I gasped. “Richard. Please. Just fuck me.”

He didn’t hesitate. He yanked open his belt, shoved his pants low, and lined himself up. I looked into his eyes just as he pushed inside me in one sharp, punishing stroke.

I cried out, clutching at his arms. The fullness was overwhelming. I was too tight, too slick, too desperate, and he didn’t stop. He pulled back and slammed in again, hips driving into mine with relentless force.

“Is this what you needed?” he growled. “You think this is normal?”

I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. All I could do was take it.

He grabbed my ass, angled my hips higher, and fucked me harder. My nails dug into the desk as I came again with a sob, my whole body clenching around him.

He grunted, thrusting faster, deeper. I could feel everything, every inch of him, every bruising thrust, every growl that rumbled in his chest and vibrated through mine. I wanted him to break me.

“Harder,” I begged. “Don’t stop. Please—”

He grabbed the back of my neck and bent me over, one hand still gripping my hip. He slammed into me from behind, rough and fast and perfect. I screamed into the crook of my elbow as another orgasm crashed through me. My heat wasn’t just back, it was peaking, ripping through me like a wildfire.

He didn’t let up. He fucked me through it, through the shaking and crying and clawing. When I came again, it felt like I was unraveling. He groaned, shoved in deep, and came with a shudder that left us both gasping.

We stayed like that, breathing hard. Still connected. Still pulsing.

Eventually, he pulled out, breathing like he’d just fought a war.

“This isn’t going away. And if you keep pretending, I’ll have no choice but to treat you as compromised.”

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Are you threatening to bench me?”

“I’m saying your denial is a security risk.”

I got dressed in silence. Zipped my pants. Straightened my shirt.

“Then what happens next time you lose it in front of the Council? What if I can’t stop?”

He didn’t answer.

I left without another word.

I didn’t go far. My body was still trembling, soaked between my legs, throbbing with want. But my mind was racing. I walked the upper hall twice before slipping into the armory wing where it was quiet.

What I hadn’t told him was that I’d had three near blackouts in the last two weeks. Not exhaustion or stress. Something else.

A flash of sound, a scent, a voice pitch, and suddenly my vision blurred, my body clenched, and it felt like something else wanted out.

Something in me had changed. And if I didn’t figure out what it was soon, someone else would. Richard. Simon. The Council. Or worse.

David.

I stood, steadied my breath, and went to the console. I rerouted Nathan’s audit protocols and entered the glyph from the pendant.

One more layer of access unlocked.

And then I saw it.

A match. The same design, same etching. Filed ten years ago, and assigned to a child.

Whoever planted that pendant wanted it found.

And I was starting to think I wasn’t supposed to be asking these questions.