Chapter 19: The Price of Silence

Lucien I walked straight into Lady Marise’s private study, my presence enough to make the room freeze. The fire in the hearth flickered across her face, casting long, distorted shadows that danced like ghosts against the dark mahogany walls, but it didn’t mask the sharp, predatory edge in her eyes. She had always been a master of the silent air, a woman who could suffocate a room with a single glance, but tonight, the weight of the BlackThorn name felt heavy on my shoulders for a different reason. I remembered this room from my childhood, a place of cold lessons and even colder silences, where I was taught that blood was the only currency that mattered in the world of wolves. I recalled the day my father had disappeared, the way she had sat in that very chair, eyes dry and calculating, already moving the pieces of our lives to ensure her own survival at the cost of our grief. She had tried to mold me into a carbon copy of my brother, a blunt instrument of her will, but I had chosen the