Chapter 151

Richard

The envelope was unmarked, which was typical for Liora. She never labeled anything sensitive, never gave anything away with the exterior. She handed it to me without ceremony, her mouth set in a line and her knuckles white around the folder until I pried it from her fingers.

"Don’t read it here," she said, voice low but clear. "It’s not just confirmation. It’s placement, sequence, symbol lineage. It’s all there."

"And the girl?"

Liora hesitated, just for a beat, and then said, "There was only ever one heir pendant made. The other Mooncut locket was forged later. This one matches the archived impression from the Queen’s vault."

I didn’t thank her or nod. I just turned and left, walking the length of the hall with the envelope pressed tight in my grip. The edge of the folder bit into my palm, drawing blood before I noticed. By the time I reached my office, my hand was red.

I sat down and opened it slowly, not because I was scared of what was inside, but because it felt like something sacred, something that might shatter if I moved too quickly. Inside were thin documents, crisp scans, and cross-referenced imprints. Timestamps. Preservation logs. At the center of it all were two locket pendants side by side, printed on archival paper. One belonged to Serena. The other, marked beneath the third crescent with a deliberate score line, had been assigned to a child.

Identical. Not from wear, not a dent. A deliberate mark, carved at birth.

This wasn’t just evidence. It was provenance.

I locked the folder away, not in the desk or a file cabinet, but behind the wall panel above the crest, where only I had access. No one else would see it. Not yet.

When I walked into the lab, Simon was already there. He didn’t speak until I closed the door behind me.

"Second pass on Amelia's blood markers are in. It’s consistent. There’s a dormant strand that only activates under stress, but the compound structure isn’t wolf. It never has been."

"Is it active now?"

Simon nodded once. "Something’s changed. Her cell membranes are running hotter. We think the transformation is tied to hormonal shifts and exposure to pure Pack blood."

"Mine."

He didn’t flinch, just confirmed it with a glance.

"We need more samples. Voluntary, ideally."

"Not yet."

"Richard."

"No reports. No disclosures. Not until I say."

He didn’t argue, not fully, but his silence said enough. He folded his arms and stared at the sealed cooler beside him.

"You can’t keep this quiet forever."

"I will for now."

I left before he could say more. The hallway outside felt thinner than usual, as if the air carried weight. The buzzing lights overhead felt loud in a way they normally didn’t.

Later that afternoon, someone tried to send a message. A dart embedded itself in the front gate just before I arrived. It carried no poison, no signature, just a strip of fabric tied to the shaft. The ink was a dark red, almost brown, and the handwriting was rough: Blood of Serena’s heir.

It was confirmation. Someone else knew.

I burned the message in a sealed dish. The courier who delivered it never made it to a cell. He said nothing, fought no one, and watched me without fear. I had him removed quietly. No interrogation, no press. It was cleaner that way.

I told myself it was to protect her, and part of it was, but not all. There was fear in it too, though I didn’t name it then. Not in my head and not out loud.

That night, she came to me like nothing had changed. Her hair was damp from a shower, her feet bare, and her expression soft. She didn’t ask to come in, just tilted her head and said, "You said we were supposed to debrief."

I let her in and said nothing. She walked into the room like she always did, unguarded, unbothered, as if she didn’t know the weight I carried or the folder I’d locked away. She perched on the edge of the table and looked at me.

"You’re being quiet."

"I’m thinking."

"That’s never a good sign."

Her tone was light, but her eyes were searching. I didn’t move, and she didn’t wait. She unbuttoned her shirt slowly, each motion deliberate, and held my gaze the entire time.

I didn’t speak. I crossed the space between us and put my hands on her hips.

She kissed me first, soft at first and then deeper. Her fingers slid beneath my shirt, cold against my skin. I picked her up and carried her to the bed. Her breath hitched when I set her down and pulled the rest of her clothes away.

I knelt between her legs and kissed the inside of her thighs. She trembled under my mouth, her hands tangling in the sheets. When I dragged my tongue along her, she gasped. Her body arched, and I felt how ready she was. She begged softly, and I gave her everything.

She came quickly, crying out my name. I didn’t stop, not when her legs shook or when she whimpered for more. When I finally moved over her, she grabbed my belt and tugged it open with shaking hands. I let her pull me down, her legs wrapping around me as I slid inside.

She was tight and slick and still pulsing from before. Her nails scraped down my back, and she kissed my neck, murmuring my name again and again. I moved inside her slowly, filling her completely, and every thrust made her cling tighter. She came again, then again, her body wrung out and gasping.

I held out until she asked, voice wrecked and eyes wild. "Come inside me. Please."

I did. Hard and deep and slow, with her name in my mouth and her legs still locked around me.

Later, she curled against me, fingers tracing shapes on my chest.

"You feel different," she said.

"How so?"

"Like you’re looking at me and seeing something you’re afraid of."

I didn’t answer, and she didn’t push. She kissed my jaw and stood, pulling on one of my shirts. The locket pendant around her neck swung free for just a second. I saw it clearly, the crescent shapes, the faint maker’s mark near the base, the edge worn smooth from years of being touched without knowing why.

She caught me looking but didn’t say anything. She just smiled faintly, tucked the pendant beneath the collar, and walked down the hall with bare feet and damp hair.

I stayed in bed, unmoving, my hand resting beneath the pillow on the key I had never stopped hiding there.

There were still too many unknowns, and I needed to be sure.

Because if I was wrong, revealing this would destroy her.

And if I was right, it would still destroy her, only slower.

The pendant stayed in my mind long after she was gone, sharp in the dark like it had been carved there. Even now, I didn’t know what she truly was. I didn’t know if the blood markers, the heir pendant, and the dormant craving were all pieces of a whole, or if they were fragments of something we still didn’t understand. She might be the Alpha heir, or she might not even have a wolf at all. She could be something else entirely, something in between, something no one was prepared for, something not even her parents would have recognized.

But for now, it was only a memory. Only a symbol. Only a question I wasn’t ready to ask.