Chapter 238
Morgan arrives without warning.
No call. No message. No polite notice that would give me time to prepare or pretend. I hear her boots on the porch before I scent her, the weight of her presence familiar enough that my shoulders tense on instinct alone. Some wolves announce themselves even when they do not try to. Morgan has always been one of them. Even before she crosses a threshold, the space adjusts around her, like it knows to make room.
I open the door before she knocks.
She looks older than the last time I saw her. Not weaker. Sharper. Like time carved away whatever patience she once had for ceremony and left only edges behind. Her hair has more gray threaded through it now, pulled back tight in a way that suggests she stopped caring how it looks as long as it stays out of her way. Her eyes are the same. Still assessing. Still weighing everything in front of her as either useful or in
the way.
“You look thin,” she says, stepping inside without asking.
“Good to see you too,” I reply, closing the door behind her.
She pauses just inside the cabin, doing a slow, deliberate scan. Sparse furniture. Clean counters. No personal clutter. No photographs. No markings. No pack symbols hidden in corners or carved into wood. I know exactly what she sees. A place that belongs to no one. A place designed to leave without regret.
“You eating,” she asks, like it is a logistical concern rather than an offer.
“Yes.”
“Good. I’m starving.”
That is how Morgan asks for hospitality. No softening. No politeness. Just expectation wrapped in blunt honesty. I turn back toward the kitchen and pull out what I have. Nothing impressive. Rice in a dented container. Vegetables that need to be used soon. Some protein thawing in the sink because I forgot to take it out earlier and refused to feel bad about it.
I move around the space automatically. Knife out. Pan on. Water boiling. My hands know what to do even when my mind is already tracking her behind me. The way she leans back in the chair. The sound of her breathing. The subtle shifts that tell me she is paying attention even when she pretends not to be.
She sits at the small table like she has every right to be there.
I cook badly.
Not inedible. Just rushed. I overcook the rice until it clumps instead of fluffing. I under-season everything else. I know I am doing it wrong and do not stop. There is something defiant in that too. Morgan pretends not to notice. She eats like someone who learned long ago not to expect pleasure from meals. Fuel first. Comfort optional. She chews carefully, methodically, like food is a task rather than a reward.
For a few minutes, we exist in the quiet clatter of plates and utensils. Fork against ceramic. A chair leg shifting. The faint hum of the old
refrigerator cycling on. Itory
strange Domestic. Like a memory that never quite belonged to either of
us. A version of a life neither of us chose.
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“You should have brought an escort,” she says finally, voice casual in a way that is anything but.
“I didn’t need one.”
She snorts. “That’s not how need works.”
I do not respond. I scrape my plate clean and stand to rinse it at the sink. The water runs hot, fogging the small window above it. Morgan
watches me the way she alwael.ne
does like she is waiting for something to slip. A word
crack, A
confession I do not intend to give her.
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“The council is fracturing again,” she says.
I still my hands in the water. Just for a second. Long enough to acknowledge the
weight of the words without letting them drag me under.
“Again,” I repeat.
“Yes,” she says. “Quietly. Carefully. Everyone smiling while they sharpen knives under the table.”
I turn back to face her. “What do they want?”
Her mouth tightens before she answers, like she knows what this will cost us both. “Some of them want you formally crowned.”
The words hit wrong. Not heavy. Not shocking. Just wrong. Like something placed where it does not belong. Like a title dropped onto a structure that was never built to carry it.
“No,” I say immediately.
Morgan raises a brow. “You didn’t even ask why.”
“I don’t need to,” I reply. “The answer is still no.”
“They think it would stabilize things,” she continues, ignoring my interruption, the way she always has “A single recognized authority. A symbol. Someone the packs already defer to.”