The lamp in Rebecca’s room stayed burning long after midnight, throwing long shadows across the walls as the family gathered around her bed.
When Adrian first mentioned divorcing Cassandra, Jonathan spoke against it at once.
"If you go through with this, the pack council will hear about it, and they won’t hold back their opinions in front of the Alpha. You’d be throwing away everything you’ve built for yourself."
Benjamin nodded beside him. "Dad’s right. Half the warriors under your command served under her father once. You’ve leaned on their loyalty to get where you are now. Lose their respect, and your standing in this pack won’t hold for long."
Adrian’s expression hardened. "She used Mom’s health against me. I won’t stand for that, not from her, not from anyone."
Rebecca had stopped shaking by then, but the memory of the pain in her chest still burned hot enough to feed her anger toward Cassandra. She lifted her head, her voice rough and thin.
"Divorce her. Once it’s done, she loses the right to take her dowry with her."
"I don’t want her dowry." Adrian’s answer came fast, almost defensive.
"Why not?" Rebecca pressed a hand to her chest, wincing slightly. "If you’re ending the mating bond, everything she brought into this family belongs to us now. That money could pay for Sebastian’s treatment for the rest of my life. You know how hard it’s been to borrow anything since you became a hero, Adrian. We already sold off the shops just to scrape together enough for your wedding. There’s nothing left in our own coffers."
Jonathan leaned forward. "Dear, think carefully. Which matters more, the dowry or Adrian’s future in this pack? These things carry weight."
"I have thought about it." Rebecca’s face looked harder than usual in the low lamplight. "You said it yourself, the Alpha needs strong young wolves right now. Even if the council digs into this and finds fault with Adrian, the punishment will likely be light. We have to think about what actually matters here."
Adrian straightened, his voice steadier now. "I know this looks impulsive, choosing to end things with Cassandra. But I can’t keep a mate who thinks this small, who’d stoop to threatening my own mother just to get her way. I’ve already worked out what comes next. There will be talk, there will be scrutiny from the council, I accept that. But the Southern Border is still unresolved, and from what I hear, the Hell Wolf’s forces are stretched thin out there. They’ll need reinforcements soon."
His eyes lit with something close to hunger. "Aurora and I can answer that call. We beat Westhaven together. We can win the Southern Border too. If we’re the ones who finally take it back, that’s not just victory, that’s a legacy."
The Southern Border had swallowed years of fighting with nothing to show for it. Hector and both his sons had died out there before the Hell Wolf ever marched to take their place, and even he hadn’t managed to reclaim the territory after two years of trying. If Adrian and Aurora succeeded where an Alpha’s own brother had failed, no one in this pack would dare question anything he’d done to get there. It would look less like betrayal and more like destiny, and it might even settle old scores tied to Hector’s memory.
"Let people talk for now," Adrian said. "Trust me on this. Aurora and I will come back from the Southern Border with more honor than anyone in this family has seen in a generation."
That settled it for Jonathan and Benjamin both. Whatever doubts they’d carried into the room seemed to ease out of them at the mention of that kind of victory. Jonathan let out a long breath through his nose and sat back in his chair, and Benjamin’s shoulders dropped a full inch, the tightness gone out of them for the first time since they’d entered the room.
Rebecca, if anything, only grew more worked up. "Then divorce her, and be done with it. That girl is jealous down to her bones, unwilling to accept that you’d ever take a second mate. She went behind your back to the Alpha himself, trying to overturn his own decree. That’s not grief talking, that’s spite. If the pack physician hadn’t been called in time tonight, I might not have lived to see morning."
Something greedy uncoiled slowly behind her eyes as she spoke, and it seemed to erase, piece by piece, every memory of the woman who had spent a full year at her bedside. Gone was any thought of how Cassandra had set aside her own name and pride to nurse a sick woman who wasn’t even her blood. Gone too was every compliment Rebecca herself had once handed out in front of other pack matriarchs, praising Cassandra’s grace and calling her a blessing to this family.
"She doesn’t leave with a single coin of that dowry. It stays here, with us." Rebecca’s voice sharpened into something almost desperate. Her fingers dug into the blanket bunched at her side, knuckles whitening around the fabric. "Adrian, don’t be a fool about this. Send her back to Northwatch if you must, she still has land and property enough to live comfortably there. But we need what’s in that dowry to secure your future properly. That money belongs to this family now."
Adrian shook his head slowly. "No. I don’t want anything of hers. I only want the mating bond ended. i want to be your mate" she said, turning to look at Adrian
"Absolutely not." Rebecca’s voice cracked through the room like a whip, all traces of weakness burned away by fury. She pushed herself upright against the pillows without help from anyone, the sudden strength in the motion at odds with everything she’d claimed about her own failing health only minutes before. "Not one coin leaves this house. Someone bring me the full list of everything in her dowry, right now."