[Meredith]
Draven's hand slid into mine again, firm and certain. The weight of his touch alone steadied me.
The courtyard behind us was still echoing with the sounds of dispersing soldiers, but here—at the steps of the Oatrun estate—everything seemed to fall into silence.
The simple gesture shouldn't have meant so much, but it did.
In front of the Council, before his father, before all those who still saw me as the wolfless Luna who should never have stood beside him, Draven chose to take my hand.
A quiet warmth unfurled in my chest.
I had seen the glance his father gave me earlier—cold, indifferent, the sort of look reserved for someone tolerated but never welcomed.
That look wasn't new. I had grown used to stares like that long before Draven married me. But standing here, in front of the man who raised the Alpha I now loved… the weight of it pressed differently.
