Briar’s POV
Ruth wastes no ti with pleasantries when she enters my office.
The door clicks shut behind her with finality, and she places a thick manila folder on my desk without bothering to take a seat. Her shoulders are rigid, spine straight as steel. The kind of posture that screams trouble before a single word gets spoken.
"They’ve begun spreading their poison," she announces.
No need to specify who. We both understand the ga being played here. Stories don’t just materialize from thin air. Soone plants the seeds, tends them carefully, helps them flourish in shadowy corners where truth gets murky.
She flips open the folder and rotates it toward .
The contents make my stomach clench. Screenshots from private ssage boards. Transcribed conversations from closed forums. Fragnts of discussions where people speak just vaguely enough to maintain plausible deniability while still making their point crystal clear.
Briar’s judgnt is clouded.
She’s gotten too involved.
Personal feelings are affecting her decisions.
She can’t be objective anymore.
Nothing direct. Nothing they could be called out for specifically. No single statent bold enough to drag into the open and dissect. Just a persistent whisper campaign, the sa suggestions repeated until they start feeling like established fact to anyone not paying close attention to the source.
"They’re not making direct accusations," Ruth continues, her voice carefully neutral. "They’re sowing seeds of uncertainty. Allowing others to draw their own conclusions."
My ribcage contracts around my lungs.
Rage ignites white-hot behind my sternum, sudden and fierce enough that my wolf responds instantly, hackles rising at an invisible threat. For a heartbeat, the urge to lash out overwhelms everything else. To find whoever started this and make them understand the consequences. To tear apart their careful web of innuendo with bare hands.
Instead, I hold perfectly still.
One breath. Another. asured and intentional. I feel the fury condense rather than fade, heat folding in on itself until it becos sothing sharp and controlled. Anger is a weapon I can’t afford to swing wildly.
"How widespread is this?" I ask.
"Widespread enough," Ruth replies grimly. "Not universal, but it’s reached the circles that count."
I absorb this information with a slight nod. The rage still burns beneath my skin, but it’s contained now. Focused. Potentially lethal in the right circumstances.
"They’re hoping for a reaction," I observe. "Sothing they can point to as proof."
"Exactly."
"If I respond at all, it legitimizes their premise. Turns whispers into an actual conversation."
Relief flickers across Ruth’s features as she realizes I understand the trap. "Precisely."
I choose not to engage.
Not directly, anyway.
This requires a different strategy altogether.
I go completely silent on the matter.
Calculated, deliberate silence.
I stop acknowledging the indirect probes. I offer no corrections to the circulating rumors. No clarifying statents or carefully crafted responses or diplomatic denials. I don’t even dignify the insinuations with recognition. During etings, I maintain laser focus. Clinical precision. Unshakeable composure. I discuss only the imdiate business at hand. My personal circumstances never enter the conversation, and I provide no opening for others to introduce them either.
The void becos noticeable.
People begin registering the lack of drama. The way their bait goes completely ignored. How their carefully constructed narrative fails to provoke the reaction it was engineered to produce.
Without opposition to push against, the story starts collapsing under its own emptiness.
A few days later, the montum has already begun to stall.
Sleep eludes that night regardless.
The day keeps cycling through my mind like a broken record.
Not the actual work. Not the decisions made or etings attended. The subtle things. The micro-expressions when soone debates whether to maintain eye contact a beat too long. The split-second recalculations I can sense happening around . The awareness that even my silence gets analyzed, asured, filed away for future reference.
Eventually I give up on rest and head for the bathroom.
Hot water again.
Scalding, the way I always set it initially. I step under the stream and plant my palms against the cool tile, letting the heat hamr down across my shoulders until physical sensation drowns out everything else. Temperature. Pressure. The steady white noise filling my skull. These rituals keep grounded when the world refuses to stay still.
Shampoo first. Then conditioner. Body wash. The familiar sequence provides comfort when nothing else feels predictable.
I linger under the spray longer than strictly necessary, until my skin glows pink and my thoughts slow to sothing more manageable. Until my wolf finally relaxes, not exactly peaceful but no longer prowling restlessly just beneath the surface.
When I finally erge, water still beading on my shoulders as I wrap myself in a towel, Asher is perched on the edge of our bed.
His presence fills the space between us with unspoken understanding. He doesn’t ask about my day or offer empty reassurances about the situation we both know I’m facing. Instead, he simply exists here, solid and constant while everything else shifts like quicksand.
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