Adrian stared at her, caught completely off guard. "But how could I possibly keep her dowry? I’m a fourth-ranked warrior, a man with some honor left. Taking a discarded wife’s dowry isn’t something I can just do."
Aurora took a moment before answering, then turned to him with a softer look than he expected.
"Your mother is going to need that expensive medicine for years, not months. Between our recent efforts and the decree granting our mating, there’s little chance of any further reward coming our way soon. We’re both only fourth-ranked, and our salaries combined won’t stretch nearly far enough to cover everything the family needs, especially if it all has to go toward the household fund alone." She hesitated, clearly uncomfortable saying the rest, but pushed through it anyway. "And even if we do earn more merit down the road, that kind of thing never happens overnight. Every warrior knows how unpredictable it can be. We can’t risk your mother’s health getting worse while we wait for something that might not come in time. So really, it comes down to one of two choices. Either we return every coin of Cassandra’s dowry, or we live with people saying you let your own mother suffer for the sake of pride."
Adrian hadn’t expected this from her, and he sat with it a moment, unsure whether what he felt was disappointment or simple resignation.
But the longer he turned it over, the more sense it made. Aurora wasn’t just protecting the family’s coin, she was protecting him from being remembered as the son who let his mother waste away while chasing his own honor. Something in his chest eased slightly at the thought of her looking out for him that way.
"Don’t worry about it, Aurora. I’ll take care of everything."
She had stood behind him through all of this without hesitation, and he wasn’t about to let her carry any part of the blame alongside him.
Aurora didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so she simply told him, "Whatever you decide, I’ll stand by it."
Those words settled something in him, gave him a kind of steadiness he hadn’t felt all night.
He pulled her close without thinking twice about it. "Aurora, I promise you’ll never suffer because of any of this. Not because of me."
She rested her head against his shoulder and let out a quiet breath, one he barely caught. From what he’d just said, it seemed the matter had already settled itself in his mind. He would keep the dowry after all.
It wasn’t greed driving her, not really, or so she told herself. Cassandra had used a sick old woman’s life as a bargaining chip, and that kind of cruelty deserved some kind of answer. There was an old truth that ran through every pack, kindness earned kindness in return, and wrongs earned something else entirely. Cassandra had chosen her path, and now she’d learn what it cost to walk it. People rarely forgot a lesson that hit their pockets.
Early the next morning, Valor Estate stirred to life with the business of the divorce.
Neither the Warren name nor the Sinclair name could afford to settle something this significant with a quiet signature and nothing more. Witnesses were required, proper cause had to be laid out and confirmed according to custom, and a matter touching two families of this standing simply couldn’t be handled carelessly, whatever anyone privately wanted to rush through.
The male line on Hector’s side of the Sinclair family had all but vanished over the past few decades, swallowed up by war and early death, one after another. Hector’s own father had raised three sons, and war had claimed every one of them. Hector himself had fathered six sons and a single daughter, and though he and every one of those sons had eventually died fighting to reclaim the Southern Border, five of the young men had at least married and left children behind before that happened.
Half a year ago, an assassination wiped out every last one of them in a single stroke. Cassandra was what remained of that entire bloodline now, the only living thread left of a name that had once meant something across the whole territory.
These days it was a man from a more distant branch of the family, descended from Hector’s own great grandfather, who oversaw what remained of the Sinclair affairs. He held no formal claim to being family head, but his standing still carried real weight. His name was Theodore, and Cassandra called him Granduncle Theodore out of respect. He and his family had settled in the Packlands generations ago, building a modest but steady trading business that had kept the branch comfortable ever since.
When Northwatch Estate had been overrun and its people slaughtered, it was Theodore who had gathered his own household and traveled out to help handle what came after, standing in for a family that had no one else left to send. Now that Cassandra was being divorced, the Warren family had extended him an invitation, as custom required.
Theodore was nearly ninety years old, and he arrived leaning on his grandson Solomon, a man well into his fifties himself. When word had first reached the wider Sinclair branch that the Alpha had granted Adrian and Aurora their mating decree, reactions had split down the middle. Some were furious on Cassandra’s behalf, calling it a plain injustice. Others, quietly, found something almost satisfying in watching the once untouchable Northwatch name stumble, the old jealousy toward a family that had climbed so high finally finding an outlet.
Theodore walked in beside Solomon with his whole frame trembling, though not from age alone.
He gave no weight at all to Adrian’s rising favor within the pack’s ranks, and his voice, though thin with years, carried no hesitation.
"Men taking a second mate is nothing new under any Alpha’s rule. History is full of it. But marrying a new mate while casting aside the old one entirely, that is something far rarer, and far uglier." His eyes swept over the room. "If this family cannot give me a proper account of what’s happened here today, I will carry this straight to the Alpha myself. I’m an old wolf standing near the end of my years, and I have nothing left to fear from anyone. As long as breath remains in me, no one touches what’s left of my family without answering for it."