(Third Person).
Across the table, Wanda watched it all unfold with barely concealed amusent. She leaned back ever so slightly, her spoon resting lazily between her fingers as she enjoyed the fallout of her earlier handiwork.
’Delicious,’ she mused inwardly. ’This night just keeps getting better.’
But Draven’s attention was far from her.
He was still chewing, but his thoughts were a thousand miles away, replaying every word redith had hurled at him that morning. Every line of accusation. Every defiant glare.
The way her voice had cracked with hurt, and yet, she’d stood her ground, as though she hadn’t just been beaten down hours earlier.
She had changed.
And now, even her silence had turned into sharp, deliberate weapons.
There was a ti, not long ago, when he used to hate her quietness—the way she never answered his questions, the way she closed herself off. It used to frustrate him endlessly.
He rembered dining with her so nights, throwing biting remarks just to get a reaction out of her, anything to remind her she of her shortcomings.
But now? Now he would have preferred her silence again over her newfound sharp tongue.
The way she had talked back to him earlier still echoed in his skull. The way she accused him of failing as a husband, of betraying her. As if she weren’t the one who had hidden a life-altering truth from him.
As if she weren’t the one who had let him look like a fool, believing she was still wolfless when she had already been bonded with a wolf for two whole months.
Draven’s jaw tightened. His left hand curled into a slow, deliberate fist under the table.
He’d been patient. Too patient. With anyone else, that kind of betrayal would have earned punishnt, not a conversation. But with redith... he had gone soft.
’Stubborn little wolf, ’ he thought bitterly.
And still, even as the irritation coiled tight inside his chest, a voice in the back of his mind whispered that it was no one’s fault but his own.
He’d known exactly what kind of woman redith was before marrying her—sharp, unyielding, impulsive.
She had no fear of him. None. She spoke to him like he wasn’t Alpha. Like he wasn’t even a man to be respected. And yet, he had claid her as his wife, thinking—what?
That he could change her? That she would one day bow to his authority?
No.
This ss was his to own.
And as the silence returned to the table, thick and suffocating, Draven could feel a storm brewing.
Wanda gloated with satisfaction.
And redith?
She was long gone, but not out of reach and definitely not out of mind.
But she had made sure to leave a mark before walking away. And she had succeeded.
---
After dinner, Wanda left the hall with a slight sway to her hips and a deep sense of satisfaction coiled in her chest.
Her lips curled into a subtle smile as she walked down the corridor, her thoughts spinning faster than her steps.
’Just one more crack in the glass,’ she mused, ’and the whole thing will shatter.’
redith and Draven’s strained silence had been more gratifying than the bruises she’d left on redith’s body.
Watching the couple ignore each other all night had been the highlight of Wanda’s evening. And she wasn’t done—not by a long shot.
If she couldn’t eliminate redith outright, then she would corrode her from the inside, slowly and subtly. Rot the foundation of her precious little bond with Draven until there was nothing left to salvage.
Wanda reached her bedroom on the second floor and opened the door. But the mont her heel touched the polished wood floor, the phone in her hand vibrated sharply.
The screen lit up with a na that sent a chill down her spine.
FATHER.
Her heart dropped almost imdiately.
The smile on her lips vanished like smoke. Her fingers trembled slightly around the device as she stared at the na glowing on the screen.
’\Why is he calling now? She wasn’t due for another report until the following week.
Still, she didn’t dare let it ring a second ti.
Swiping the screen with an unsteady finger, she brought the phone to her ear and spoke in her sweetest, most respectful tone.
"Good evening, Father."
Reginald Fellowes didn’t return the pleasantries.
"What’s the update on that girl?" His deep voice rolled over the line, heavy and sharp as a blade.
Wanda’s throat clenched. Her pulse thudded. She opened her mouth to answer, but only a weak breath escaped. Panic scratched at her throat.
"Well?" Reginald barked. "What is it, Wanda? Has a cat got your tongue?"
She flinched. "No, Father. I... I was just—"
"Then speak!"
Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I haven’t... made progress yet."
Silence followed for a brief mont, then ca the roar.
"You useless child! Are you telling you’ve accomplished nothing?" Reginald’s fury blasted through the phone like thunder. "What have you been doing all this ti, brushing the girl’s hair? Plaiting friendship bracelets?"
Wanda’s face paled. She clenched the phone tighter, trying to suppress the sting behind her eyes.
"I—I can’t kill her yet," she said hurriedly. "If I do, I wll be the first suspect."
"And why would that be?" Reginald snapped.
She hesitated.
"Because..." She swallowed. "Because everyone knows I hate her. And after what happened with Xamira... Draven suspects ."
The silence on the line was different this ti. Quieter, but far more dangerous.
And then—
"You incompetent fool," Reginald hissed. "Do you an to tell you’ve lost the Alpha’s trust? After everything I’ve done to put you inside that house since you were younger? After all the planning, the sacrifices, the manipulation, you let it fall apart?"
Wanda bit her lower lip hard, trying to silence the retort that sprang to her mind.
’Father, it was your rush that pushed to act before I was ready.’
But she couldn’t say it. Not even close. Because if there was one rule she had learned growing up in the Fellowes household, it was this:
You never bla Reginald Fellowes.
Ever.
So she stayed silent, biting through the pain of his wrath, nodding at empty air and pulling the phone slightly away from her ear to lessen the sting of every shouted insult.
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