The Valemont dining hall was unusually lively that morning.
Sunlight poured through the windows, spilling across the polished oak table where breakfast had already been laid.
For the first time in days, the estate felt... peaceful.
I wrapped my hands around a cup of tea, letting the warmth settle into my palms as Clara quietly refilled Celine’s cup.
Across from me, Varek scanned a stack of reports while Celine picked absentmindedly at a slice of sweet bread.
It was Varek who finally broke the silence.
"So." He folded the report closed. "What are your plans?"
I looked up. "My plans?"
"You’ve made one thing very clear." He rested his forearms on the table. "You’re never returning to Silver Creek."
"I’d rather die."
"I gathered as much." He smiled and leaned back. "So...what now? What do you want to do after all of this?"
I paused, taking a deep breath. Whenever someone would ask this question, there would only ever be one answer in my head. "My healing house."
"I want to build my own healing house." I didn’t want an infirmary or a place where it was only accessible to nobles. I wanted more than that. Somewhere where people could come regardless of their rank or bloodline.
Varek stared at me for a couple of seconds, his brows furrowed as though he was in deep thought.
"Evelyn, you can’t start or build business in the realm especially after what’s happened with Alpha Lucien." He said quietly. Alpha Lucien’s threat ringing in my ears once more.
I nodded slowly. "I know."
"The Supreme Alpha doesn’t make idle threats," Varek continued. "If he says he’ll close the merchants and guilds to you... he will."
"The First Houses control most of the realm’s trade routes. Medicine, herbs, timber, stone... nearly everything passes through merchants who answer to them."
He exhaled quietly. "Building a healing house under those circumstances won’t be easy and let’s not begin with the cost. It’ll cost so much money, Evelyn."
"I know," I repeated.
"Let me help." Tristan suddenly blocked out from behind me. I turned to see him standing behind me, holding a brown parcel.
"Beta—"
He stepped forward, passing the brown paper to me. "I over heard all you said. I know I can’t help with the supreme Alphas threat but I want to help in the way that I can."
My brows furrowed, "What are you—" my words were cut off when I took out the content of the brown paper.
Celine and Varek shared a look at the sight.
"Tristan?"
"Take it, Luna. It’s all yours.
I stared at the parcel in my hands — it was filled with coins, more than I’d expected from a man who had walked into Valemont with nothing but the clothes on his back.
"Tristan, this is—"
"Everything I’ve saved since I became Beta." His voice was steady, though his jaw tightened slightly, as if bracing for me to refuse. "I know it isn’t enough to build what you’re imagining. But it’s what I have, and I want you to have it."
"I can’t accept this."
"You can." He knelt slightly, meeting my eyes at the table. "My Luna, I swore my life to you in the rain. Did you think that oath came with conditions? That I’d give you my loyalty but keep my coin?
Celine’s eyes had gone soft watching him. Even Varek had set his report aside entirely.
"Take it," Tristan said again, quieter this time. "Please. Let me do this much."
I looked down at the parcel, my throat tightening in a way I hadn’t expected.
"He’s right, Evelyn. Take what he’s giving you. Building an healing house is not child’s play. You need all the help you can get." She urged.
"And it’s just right that Valemont also helps in fulfilling this goal of yours. Valemont will also donate a thousand silver coins."
At this, Varek who had been silent suddenly began to cough hysterically. "Celine!" He coughed out.
"A thousand?" Varek’s cough finally settled into something closer to disbelief. "Celine, that’s nearly a quarter of what the treasury holds in reserve. We cannot simply—"
"We can," Celine said, chin lifting. "And we will."
"That’s an enormous sum," I said quickly, before the two of them could turn this into an argument at my expense. "Celine, I appreciate it more than you know, but I won’t let Valemont bleed itself dry for my sake."
"It isn’t bleeding anyone dry." Celine’s voice stayed firm, though something flickered behind her eyes that I couldn’t quite place. "You are Valemont too, Evelyn. Whatever helps you succeed helps this house’s name as well."
Varek studied his wife for a moment longer than the conversation required, something unreadable passing over his face before he finally sighed and looked to me.
"A hundred," he said. "Not a thousand. That’s more reasonable, and it still leaves us prepared if the winter is hard."
Celine opened her mouth as if to argue, then closed it again, nodding once.
I looked between the three of them — Tristan’s parcel still heavy in my hands, Celine’s strange, almost desperate generosity, Varek’s careful correction and felt something in my chest tighten that had nothing to do with money at all.
"Thank you," I said finally. "All of you. But I won’t need it."
All three of them frowned. "How then do you plan on getting this done?" Varek asked just as Celine also spoke.
"Evelyn," Celine started, "you just said yourself—"
"I know what I said." I set the parcel down gently on the table. "And I’m grateful, truly. But even if I were to put them together, it’s still not enough and I refuse to take from you all."
"Evelyn—" Celine began but I shook my head, cutting her off.
"I still have one card left to play."
They frowned even more. "What do you mean?"
At this, I took a deep breath and smiled. "Five years ago when alpha Gideon had just relinquished the title to Kael, he made too many mistakes and the pack was drowning fast. I had just one chance to save silver creek and I took my chance. Before I ever gave Kael the whole of my fortune, I made one investment quietly, one I thought would help the pack and he wouldn’t suspect was from me."
Tristan’s eyes slowly widened the more I spoke.
"The trading concern that supplies half of Silver Creek’s armoury —the very foundation his coffers depend on. Weapons, healing supplies, everything his warriors carry into battle. I bought in under a false name, one no one in Silver Creek would ever think to trace back to me."
Tristan stared at me as though he had forgotten how to breathe. "...A false name?"
I nodded. "I knew nothing about running a pack back then. I was only twenty. But I understood one thing."
I looked down at my teacup. "If the investment failed... I didn’t want Kael blamed for it. He was a fairly new Alpha and had to prove himself yet the pack was failing fast."
"So I invested my part of my inheritance."
Varek’s brows rose. "Your own money?"
I nodded, Had I been foolish to have loved Kael this much?
"I never touched a single coin from Silver Creek."
Celine blinked. "...Kael never knew?"
I shook my head. "He never bothered enough to even ask."
A bitter smile touched my lips. "He simply assumed every success belonged to him."
"The investment succeeded beyond my expectations. It became the largest trading concern in the eastern territories."
"It now supplies armour, steel, medicinal herbs, wagons, preserved food... almost every major shipment entering Silver Creek."
Varek slowly straightened. "...How much of it do you own?"
I met his eyes. "Thirty-eight percent."
The words landed like thunder. Celine’s mouth slowly fell open.
"Thirty... eight?" She repeated and I nodded.
"Kael owns forty and the remaining twenty-two is divided amongst several minor shareholders."
Tristan looked genuinely stunned. "...You’re telling me...you’re the second-largest shareholder in Silver Creek?"
"Second-largest," I confirmed. "Close enough that if the smaller shareholders sided with me instead... Kael would lose control."
Varek sat back slowly, something between disbelief and dawning respect crossing his face. "You’ve held this for five years. Quietly. While he treated you like nothing more than a healer with a convenient bloodline."
"What are you planning to do with it?" Tristan asked quietly.
"I’m going to use it," I said, "to make the divorce a formality he cannot delay. He’s chasing a seat among the First Houses now, that requires capital, stability, the appearance of a pack no longer collapsing."
"If I withdraw my investment publicly, without warning, Silver Creek’s finances buckle hard enough that no council in the realm looks at him twice."
Celine’s hand had gone still against the table. "You’d actually do it."
"I would do far worse than that, if it came to it."
Celine spoke again, "Even with the money settled, Alpha Lucien’s threat still stands, Evelyn. Every guild he touches, every merchant loyal to him. You could win everything from Kael and still have nowhere left to sell a single vial."
I hadn’t forgotten. The thought of it still sat heavy in my chest, the one piece of this I hadn’t yet found my way around.
Varek suddenly clicked his fingers like he’d gotten an idea. "There may be a way around that too. If you’re willing to take the risk."
"I’m listening."
"You know of the Howling Auction," he said.
"It’s held in three days’ time. Every Alpha in the realm attends, powerful and minor alike. Lucien will be there, without question."
"That doesn’t help me, Varek."
"It does, if you don’t approach him at all." Varek leaned forward. "Listen, we have sorted out the issue with money and there’s only one thing in our way. Alpha Lucien’s threat....but here is where things gets interesting."
"There are Alphas among that gathering who’ve spent years resenting Lucien’s hold over the First Houses. Men who’d sign trade agreements with the Moon Goddess’s own enemy if it meant undercutting Lucien’s influence even slightly."
I paused, already understanding where he was headed.
"You want me to go?"
Varek smirked, "I want you to win over Alpha Lucien’s enemies. He can’t stop trades or guilds or merchants of people who despise him....and trust me," he smirked. "There are quite a few."