The night did not settle after the delegations left.
It stretched.
Aria felt it in the halls of the mansion, in the way the stone seemed to hum beneath her feet as she walked beside Damien. The world had exhaled her name, and now it waited to see what shape she would take.
Being seen, she was learning, was heavier than being hunted.
They moved in silence through the upper corridors. Guards bowed as they passed, not deeply, not fully, but enough to mark the shift. Respect tinged with uncertainty. Reverence tangled with fear.
Aria noticed everything.
The way Damien's presence still anchored the space around them, Alpha gravity holding steady even as the structure of power changed. The way some wolves avoided her gaze while others stared too long, eyes bright with curiosity or calculation.
She hated that she understood it now.
