Elena’s POV
Felix did not ask where I wanted to be taken until the school grounds disappeared behind us.
“The old flat,” I said.
He gave the address to the driver and left the privacy screen open.
No sealed car.
No route hidden from me.
Quinn’s paper house sat between us in its box, one crooked wall held by the peg Felix and I had pushed through together.
“Tomorrow after your appointment,” he said.
“Coffee. You still have time to withdraw the invitation.”
“Do you make every cup sound like a security treaty?”
“Only the dangerous ones.”
I smiled before looking out the window.
My right hand throbbed beneath the brace.
Felix noticed the pulse light change and reached toward the medical pouch, then stopped.
“Do you need it?”
The question mattered more than the pouch.
“Not yet. Put it where I can reach it with my left hand.”
He did.
Nothing more.
At the next light, my phone filled with messages about Noah crying in the corridor.
Caleb’s counsel wanted an emergency family dinner.
A Pack officer wanted both parents at Half-Mountain before midnight.
I turned the phone face down.
“You can cancel tomorrow,” Felix said.
“I know.”
“That was not a suggestion.”
“I know that too.”
We drove another block in silence.
It was different from Caleb’s silence.
That silence had always made me search for the answer that would keep him calm.
Beside Felix, I could leave a thought unfinished without paying for it.
“The appointment may run late,” I said.
“Then I wait.”
“And if I don’t come?”
He looked at the paper house instead of trapping me with his eyes.
“Then I drink two terrible coffees and complain to myself.”
The car stopped outside the old residence.
Felix got out first but did not open my door until I touched the release.
The street looked empty.
“Tomorrow,” I said. The source of this chapter is g.com.
“If you still want it.”
“I do.”
Two black vehicles turned into the street before his answer reached me.
One blocked the alley.
The other stopped behind our car.
Caleb stepped into the headlights holding Noah’s Academy record.
Tomorrow vanished behind a wall of white light.
***
Elena’s POV
The headlights held me in the narrow strip between the two vehicles.
One nose blocked the alley.
One rear filled the street.
Caleb stood in the middle of that strip with Noah’s Academy record raised.
His wolf signs were unstable.
Beneath them, an order required both parents at a custody assessment at Half-Mountain that night.
“Get in,” Caleb said.
“The assessment address is Half-Mountain. Tonight.”
“Move it to a neutral site,” I said.
“A clinic. A Pack office. Anywhere that is not your house.”
Security stepped in instead of answering.
The first guard closed his hand around my left wrist.
I stepped toward the grip instead of pulling away.
Thumb through the weak point.
Heel on his boot.
Shoulder turn.
His hold broke before he could steer me by the injured side.
A second guard blocked the sidewalk while a third took my temporary pass.
One broken grip could not defeat three bodies, two vehicles, and a direct Alpha order.
It did keep them from using my damaged hand as a handle.
The lane behind me closed.
Only the open car door stayed available.
Felix moved to my side.
A Blackwood guard lifted a system scan and blocked his chest with the identity bar.
“He is not a guardian.”
Felix caught the guard’s forearm before he could push me into the car.
Two more guards moved between us.
I pressed the emergency key.
His terminal sounded against the guard’s raised scanner.
“Send it to my lawyer,” I told him.
“The order. Their faces. Half-Mountain.”
He looked at me, then at the running camera on his terminal.
“I have it. Keep the line open.”
Caleb’s gaze never left my face.
“He is not Noah’s guardian,” Caleb said.
“He has no right to intervene in a Blackwood family assessment.”
“An assessment is not a detention order,” I said.
“Give me my pass back.”
No one returned it.
A guard forced me into the rear seat while Felix gave the address to the emergency operator.
Through the narrowing door I saw him turn toward his own car.
The car door shut.
Locks engaged.
A suffocating wave of enraged Alpha pheromones—heavy with the metallic tang of bloodlust—flooded the cabin and pressed the air down until my lungs had to work for every breath.
“Why put on a show as someone else’s mother in public?” Caleb asked, the possessive growl of his wolf bleeding into his human voice.
“Why let Thorne stand that close to you?”
I kept my thumb beside the live-call symbol.
Caleb could smell my fear.
Without a mark, he could not feel what his grip on this marriage had done to me.
“Felix heard where you’re taking me,” I said.
“So did my lawyer.”
“You are still my legal wife.”
“Then stop treating me like someone you have to abduct.”
His jaw flexed.
The car climbed toward Half-Mountain without another word.
The main gate sealed behind us.
Caleb led me first to a guest room he claimed had been prepared for me.
Custom perfume hit before I crossed the threshold.
Pillow.
Robe.
Closet.
Ivy’s scent sat in every fabric like a label that said temporary visitor, not wife.
I stepped back into the hall.
“You want me to sleep in a room she used,” I said, “and then prove I still deserve to be a wife?”
He did not deny the perfume.
He walked me to the dining room and set a tablet on the long table like a contract.