My Mate Declared Me Luna Before the Winter Solstice

I learned a long time ago that the most dangerous thing you can do in a room full of ranked wolves is look like you belong there.

So that's exactly what I do.

The Ironvale autumn equinox banquet is the kind of event that costs more per table setting than most Omegas make in a month. Crystal chandeliers. White orchids flown in from somewhere that isn't here. Wolves in tailored suits and gowns that announce their rank before they open their mouths. I move through the crowd in a dress the color of midnight, champagne in hand, and I count exits the way other people count breaths — automatically, without thinking about it. Three doors. Two service corridors. One window at the east end that opens onto the garden terrace.

Old habit. I stopped questioning it years ago.

A passing Omega attendant offers me a fresh glass. I swap mine out with a smile and keep moving. Across the hall, I feel Damian before I see him — that low, steady pressure of his Alpha aura, like a hand at the small of my back that the whole room can feel. He's deep in conversation with two visiting Betas near the far wall, but when a wolf from the Greywood delegation steps a little too close to me and lets his gaze linger a little too long, the pressure sharpens. Just for a second. Just enough.

The Greywood wolf takes a small, unconscious step back.

I take a sip of champagne and don't look at Damian. He doesn't need the acknowledgment. He knows I noticed.

What I'm actually watching is Vivienne Ford.

Damian's mother sits at the head table like she still owns it, which she does not — not officially, not anymore. But Vivienne has never needed a title to occupy a room. She's in ivory tonight, which is either a statement or a provocation, and she has been tracking my movements since I walked in. Not obviously. She's too good for obvious. But I've been cataloguing threats since I was seventeen years old, and Vivienne Ford has been at the top of my list since the first week I set foot in this pack house.

She has the look of a woman who has already decided on a course of action.

I give her my best unbothered smile from across the room and watch something tighten at the corner of her mouth.

Twenty minutes later, she makes her move.

A soft word to one of her attendants. A glance toward the corridor on the east side of the hall. Then she rises from the table with the unhurried grace of a woman who has never once had to rush for anything, and she disappears through the side door.

I wait exactly ninety seconds. Then I follow.

The anteroom is small and tastefully lit — a private space used for quiet conversations that the banquet hall isn't meant to hear. Vivienne is already seated when I enter, her hands