That afternoon, Damon came to collect her.
“Ready?” he asked as she came down the stairs.
Ava nodded.
She’d chosen something simple but elegant—a soft cream dress that fell just below the knee.
Understated.
Respectful.
His gaze lingered a moment longer than it needed to before he turned and opened the door.
They drove in silence.
The city thinned into rolling hills, then dense forest.
At the heart of the Royal Pack’s territory sat the pack house—not the sleek estate where Damon had been living, but something older.
Grander.
The car turned down a long, tree-lined drive.
Ava’s breath caught as it came into view.
Massive.
Built of dark stone and ancient timber, ivy climbing the walls like it had been there a hundred years and meant to stay a hundred more.
This was the seat of the Royal Pack’s power.
The home of the Alpha King’s bloodline.
Damon came around to open her door and offered his hand.
“Breathe,” he said quietly.
Ava realized she’d been holding her breath, and let it out slow.
Victor had never brought her anywhere like this.
Never to meet his family.
Never within sight of his bloodline—not with her lack of status, her plain, low-ranking origins.
He’d tucked her out of view like a secret he was ashamed of.
And now here she stood, about to walk through these doors as his father’s wife.
The Luna Queen.
She placed her hand in Damon’s.
It was steadier than she’d expected.
The heavy double doors swung open before they reached them.
A stern-faced butler dipped his head.
“Alpha King.
Luna Queen.”
Ava’s stomach turned over at the title.
Still too large.
Still borrowed.
Still not hers.
Inside, past vaulted ceilings and portraits of Alphas long dead, Damon led her through the halls to a sitting room at the back of the house.
And there, in a high-backed chair beside the window, sat Queen Mother Margaret.
She was smaller than Ava had imagined.
Silver hair swept into an elegant twist.
Hands folded like a woman who had never once been made to wait.
But her eyes were sharp as cut glass.
When they landed on Ava, there was no warmth in them.
Only scrutiny—the kind that peeled a person down to what they were worth.
“Mother.” Damon released Ava’s hand and settled his palm at the small of her back, guiding her forward.
“This is Ava.
Ava, greet the Queen Mother.”
Ava dipped into a respectful bow.
“Queen Mother.
I’m Ava Bennett.”
Margaret inclined her head a fraction.
She drew off her reading glasses with deliberate slowness—the pause of a woman used to being watched while she decided things.
Then she gestured to the chair across from her.
“Sit.”
Ava lowered herself down, spine straight, hands folded neatly in her lap.
Every movement felt magnified under that gaze, as though a single wrong breath might be counted against her.
A servant glided in and set down cups of tea, the porcelain so thin the light shone through it.
“Damon tells me you work in architecture.” Margaret lifted her cup, her tone neutral.
Assessing.
“Yes, Queen Mother.
I’m with Lumis Architects.”
Margaret took a measured sip, her eyes never leaving Ava’s face.
The weight of her scrutiny pressed down like a hand between the shoulders.
The old woman’s wolf had long since quieted with age—but the woman had lost none of her edge.
They traded a few more careful exchanges.
Ava’s work.
Her background.
Each of them stepping neatly around the truth of where she’d come from, the way one steps around a stain on the carpet.
Then Margaret’s attention shifted.
And the air in the room shifted with it.
“Victor hasn’t come to see me in over two weeks.” Her voice took on an edge as she turned to her son.
“He’s your boy.
Don’t you care what he’s getting up to?”
At the sound of Victor’s name, Ava’s chest drew tight.
Her face stayed composed—she’d had years of practice.
But her fingers curled against her knees.
Damon’s expression didn’t move.
“He’s a grown man.
He can manage his own affairs.”
“Grown or not, he’s still your son!” Margaret’s voice sharpened, decades of luna authority bleeding through the frailty.
“I know you never wanted to take him in.
But he calls you father.
And now I hear he’s rushing to marry that Moore girl—have you even looked into her people?”
“His choices are his own,” Damon said evenly.
“I haven’t the time or the interest to manage his personal life.”
“You—!”
Margaret’s hand trembled against her teacup, the porcelain giving a faint, betraying rattle.
She caught it.
Swallowed whatever sharp thing had risen to her tongue.
“Fine.
I’m old.
I can’t steer you anymore.”
She let out a long breath.
And when she spoke again, her voice had gone soft—soft in a way that was somehow worse.
“I don’t care for that Moore girl.
That other one, now—his fated mate, the one who stayed at his side all those years—” She shook her head slowly.
“A shame, that.
A real shame it came to nothing.”
She sighed.
“And I never laid eyes on her.
Not once.
Victor would never bring her home.”
Ava’s fingers went white in her lap.
There it was.
The tenderness the Queen Mother had refused her, poured out freely for a girl she’d never even met.
Margaret’s devotion to Victor was absolute.
Unquestioning.
The kind of love that would forgive him anything—and forgive the woman beside him nothing.
And the old woman already disliked her.
Ava could feel it in every measured sip.
Every unhurried pause.
If she ever found out.
If Margaret ever learned that the fated mate she mourned and the daughter-in-law she tolerated were one and the same—that Ava had stood at Victor’s side for years, only to end up in his father’s bed and his father’s name—
That cold scrutiny would freeze straight through to hatred.
There would be no bow low enough.
No dress modest enough.
To earn her way back from that.
The thought sent a slow chill crawling up her spine.
She kept her eyes on her tea.
Made sure her hands stayed still.
But Margaret had no appetite for warring with Damon over his son.
She set the subject down like a card she’d play later, and turned the full force of her attention back to Ava.
“Since you’ve married Damon, you’re Victor’s stepmother now.” A faint, testing weight sat behind the words.
“If his father won’t do his duty, then you—as his Luna Queen—will at least show the boy some care.”
Stepmother.
To the man she’d loved.
To her own fated mate.
Ava’s stomach twisted.
But she held the Queen Mother’s gaze without a flicker.
“Of course, Queen Mother.”
Margaret studied her a beat longer.
Then nodded, the stern line of her mouth easing by a hair.
“Good.” She set down her cup with a soft, final click.
“Now—let’s not waste more breath on Victor.”
Her sharp eyes lifted, pinning Ava in place.
“Your marriage to my son was rather sudden.
Tell me—”
“When do you intend to hold the wedding?”