Free Web NovelChapter 54: Chapter 54 The King Has A Soft Spot
_Alaric’s POV_
My assistant also my beta, Reid, brought the report at seven in the morning, which was when he always brought things he considered time-sensitive and which I had learned over 7 years of working together meant something had happened that he thought I needed to know before I heard it from someone else.
He set a tablet on my desk and I read it.
The scene at the Ashthorne gate. Maelis of Moonreign Pack and the Moonreign pack members were visible on the screen.
Rowena coming down the front steps and addressing the assembled group with the specific composed clarity that I had, over the years, come to think of as one of the most quietly remarkable things about her.
The subsequent visit from Kaelen.
The entrance hall.
The seal breaking.
That last part had come from my own source inside the region’s pack network, not Silas’s report.
She had unsealed.
I sat with that for a moment.
“She’s alright?” I asked.
“Uninjured,” Reid replied. “Kaelen came off worse.”
“Good.”
Silas had the expression he wore when he was deciding whether to say something. He had a very specific set of expressions for very specific decision states, and after 7 years I could read them all.
“Say it,” I said.
“You’ve been receiving reports on the Ashthorne situation for six weeks,” he said. “Daily, in some cases. You personally reviewed the dissolution petition before it went to the standard processing queue and cleared it in four hours instead of the usual forty-eight.” He paused. “I’m not asking a question. I’m making an observation.”
“Noted,” I said.
“I’m also observing that when Greywood Pack’s Pierre Ashford was bitten by a snake on an outing with the Marchioness, you received the report within two hours and read it three times.”
“The report was well-written.”
“It was a standard incident summary.”
“Reid.”
He stopped.
I looked at the tablet. At the part where Rowena had looked at Kaelen at the bottom of her stairs and said I was ready to love you and then you came home.
I had been carrying my own version of that sentence for considerably longer than Kaelen had given her reason to carry hers.
I had met Rowena a long time ago at a regional summit, in passing, the way you meet people at events designed for exactly that kind of passing acquaintance.
She had been very young and had come with her father, who was still alive then, and she had listened to a territorial dispute presentation.
I hadn’t been Alpha King at that point. I was not unaccustomed to people performing interest at events I attended.
She had asked a question afterward, directed at the presenting Alpha, not at me, the future alpha king, that had reframed the entire dispute in a single sentence. The presenting Alpha had blinked. Several of the senior Alphas in the room had shifted. I had thought, very quietly, where did she come from.
I had not acted on it. She was young and I was young too.
Then her father died. Her brothers died too. Her mother arranged a marriage. And I had watched, from the distance appropriate to my position, as she went into a household that did not deserve her.
I had read every report that crossed my desk that mentioned her name.
I had told myself it was professional interest.
Silas had never believed that for a single day either way.
Without thinking, I picked up my phone.
Her contact was in my directory, it had been there since the dissolution petition, added under the formal category of active decree recipients and reviewed every morning along with the other entries in that category, which I had never done before for anyone.
I typed: (I heard about this morning. I’m dealing with some of it from my end. You don’t need to manage this alone.)
I looked at it for a moment. Then added: (Are you alright?)
I sent it before I second-guessed the second part.
The response actually came four minutes later, which told me she had seen it immediately and had taken four minutes to decide how to respond.
(I’m alright. Better than alright, actually. And I know you’re dealing with some of it, I saw the movement in Dickson’s network last night that didn’t come from my team. Thank you.) Then, after a brief pause: (How much are you dealing with and should I be worried about owing you a favor?)
I almost smiled.
(No favor) I typed back. (Consider it institutional interest in keeping the Ashthorne name intact. It reflects well on the region.)
Rowena: (That’s very diplomatic.)
Me: (I’m a diplomat.)
Rowena: (You’re an Alpha King who sent guards to move assets through a network I was already monitoring. That’s not diplomacy, that’s interference with good timing.)
This time I did smile.
Me: (When this is resolved, you’re going to have to let me take you to dinner. Proper dinner. Not a working meeting.)
A longer pause this time.
Rowena: (That sounds like an open-ended obligation.)
Me: (It’s just two people eating food. You can pick the restaurant.)
Another pause.
Rowena: (Fine. But I’m ordering whatever I want.)
Me: (I would expect nothing less.)
I set the phone down and looked at Reid, who had been standing in the same position throughout and whose expression had traveled considerable distance in the past five minutes.
“Not a word,” I said.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You’re saying things with your face.”
“I have a professional face.”
“Silas.” I groaned, trying to stop myself from lashing out on him already. Thank goodness he wasn’t my brother.
“Congratulations,” he stupidly said to my confusion. “It’s about time.”
I picked up the morning’s operational file. “Get me everything we have on Dickson’s current location. And I want the Ridgeline Medical documentation cross-referenced with the King’s office licensing records by noon.”
“Already started,” he said.
“And the rumor.”
He tilted his head.
“Start it quietly,” I said. “Through the regional network. Something that suggests the Marchioness and the Alpha King have an understanding.” I kept my voice even. “Not explicit. Just present. The kind of thing that makes men who are considering certain moves think twice about making them.”
Silas looked at me for a moment.
“I should start a rumor that you’re dating Rowena, done,” he said. “Anything else?” frёewebnoѵēl.com
“Don’t say it like that, you fool. But yes,” I said. “When Kaelen Varkos requests a meeting — and he will — put it on the schedule. Don’t make him wait too long. I want him here while the rumor is still fresh.”
Just as expected, Kaelen arrived three days later.
He had requested the meeting the previous morning, which meant the rumor had reached him in approximately forty-eight hours, which was faster than I had estimated and slower than Reid had predicted. Reid had won the informal wager.
He came with two pack members who waited in the outer hall. He came in alone, which showed either confidence or the understanding that witnesses would make what he intended to say harder to frame as private.
He was composed when he sat down. He remained composed through the first two minutes of the meeting, which covered formalities neither of us was interested in.
Then he said: “The dissolution decree. I’m asking you to consider rescinding it.”
I looked at him like he’d grown a second head.
Kaelen Varkos was, by most objective measures, a capable Alpha. He had resolved a territorial dispute that had been running for eighteen months. He had returned to a pack that was struggling and had not walked away from it. He was not a bad man. He was a man who had made specific choices and was now sitting in my office asking me to undo their consequences.
“On what grounds?” I asked.
“The marriage was valid,” he said. “The bond was incomplete but the legal contract......”
“The bond was incomplete because you left on your wedding night and didn’t return for three years,” I said. “During which time your wife administered your pack, maintained your household, and funded your operations from her family’s accounts.” I kept my voice even. “Those are the grounds on which the decree was issued. They haven’t changed.”
“She went to you directly,” he said. “Without giving me the opportunity to.....”
“She went through legal channels available to every Luna in this region,” I said. “She used them correctly and her petition was valid.” I looked at him. “What would you have done with the opportunity, Kaelen? You had weeks before she filed. What changed in those weeks?”
He was quiet.
“Nothing changed,” I said. “You brought another woman into your home, announced her publicly, refused your wife’s request for a divorce, and then signed the decree under pressure at your own wedding because your second-in-command made it impossible to refuse.” I folded my hands on the desk. “That’s not a marriage that was working. That’s a marriage that had already ended and was waiting for the paperwork.”
Kaelen’s jaw was tight. “She’s using you.”
I looked at him in shock and amusement.
“The title. The decree. The access to your office.” His voice had taken on the specific flatness of someone saying something they’ve decided to commit to. “She’s positioning herself. And you’re letting her.”
The office was very quiet.
“Let me tell you something about the Ashthorne family,” I said. “Her father served this region for twenty years and died because he found something that needed finding and someone didn’t want it found. Her brothers died with him. Her mother spent her last healthy years making sure her daughter was placed somewhere safe and chose wrong through no fault of her own.” I kept my eyes on him.
“Rowena came into your household and kept it alive for three years and you came home and told her she had no say in her own marriage.” I paused. “The Ashthorne family’s contribution to this region exceeds your pack’s contribution in every measurable category. She has earned every right she has been granted. She has earned considerably more than that.”
Kaelen looked at the desk.
“She is not using anyone,” I said. “She is rebuilding something that your family and others have spent years diminishing. And she is doing it with a competence and integrity that most Alphas in this region would do well to study.” freёweɓnovel.com
He was quiet for a long moment.
When he looked up, the flatness had gone.
“Do you love her?” he blurted out.
I looked at him steadily. “That’s not information that’s relevant to this meeting.”
He laughed shortly, without warmth, “It’s relevant to me.”
“Then I’d suggest,” I said, “that you spend some time understanding why it took you this long to ask that question, and what that says about the choices you made.” I stood, which ended the meeting. “The decree stands. The Marchioness’s rights are registered and protected. If the Varkos family has legitimate legal concerns regarding the dissolution terms, they go through the standard channel.”
