Celeste recovered with the speed of a snake coiling for another strike. Her hand dropped from her reddened cheek, eyes clearing as calculation replaced shock.
"Sarcasm, Mother." Her voice steadied into something almost reasonable. "I was being sarcastic. Obviously I care about Ava—she's my niece." The lie rolled smooth as silk despite the fury still burning beneath. "Though perhaps everyone's forgotten I nearly died from aconite poisoning just hours ago? That Beta Alex here attempted murder?"
"Attempted is generous," Alex said from his position near the door. "If I'd wanted you dead, you'd be cold already."
Celeste pivoted toward Father, ignoring Alex entirely. "Father, this is theft. Plain and simple. Alpha Wolfhart is stealing what rightfully belongs to Weston—his fiancée, his heir's mother. The ceremony was today. Vows were supposed to be spoken. Instead Harper's here, playing victim while Weston's left humiliated and—"
"Baby Ava is alone." Celeste's tone shifted, sweetness creeping back like poison through water. "Without her mother. Without milk. Crying herself hoarse while we're all here arguing about fate and politics and who owns who."
The words detonated in my chest. Ava. Hungry. Crying. My breasts ached in immediate response, milk letting down against the ruined wedding dress.
"I need to go." My voice came out strangled. "Right now. She needs to feed—"
"You're not leaving." Kieran's command cut through everything else. He ended up right next to me.
"The hell I'm not!" I spun on him, desperation shredding through whatever control I'd maintained. "My daughter is hungry and I'm the only one who can feed her. Move aside."
"No."
The single word landed like a fist. I moved toward the door anyway. Kieran matched me step for step, his body a wall between me and escape.
"You will stay here where you're safe," he said, voice dropping to Alpha authority that made my wolf whimper. "Where I can protect you."
"Protect me?" The laugh that ripped free bordered on hysteria. "My daughter is in that house with a man who just learned his fiancée is fated to his enemy! Why do I need protection now, when Avi needs it?"
Celeste's voice floated across the tension like oil on fire. "Harper's right, actually. She should go back immediately. Show Weston she chose family over fate. Perhaps that gesture might inspire forgiveness, might salvage something from this disaster—"
Alex's laughter cracked through the office, sharp and mocking. "Goddess, you're transparent. That performance might work on elders who haven't seen real manipulation, but I've watched professionals. You sound like a petulant child playing dress-up in her mother's clothes."
"How dare you—"
"Keep talking," Alex invited, smile all teeth. "Give us more material."
I didn't wait for Celeste's response. My hand found the door handle, turned it. Kieran's palm slammed flat against the wood above my head, holding it shut.
"Move." My voice came out deadly quiet.
"Make me."
I turned to face him, our bodies inches apart, the mate bond screaming between us even as fury consumed everything else. "You want me to fight you? Fine. I'll claw through you if that's what it takes."
"Try it." His eyes burned with challenge and something darker—the knowledge that he'd win any physical confrontation, that my desperation couldn't overcome his strength.
"I would kill you." The words came raw, stripped of everything but maternal ferocity. "For her, I would attempt to kill even you. Don't test me on this, Kieran. Don't make me prove it."
Tears came then, hot and furious, breaking through the last of my composure. My hands fisted in his shirt, shaking him with strength that was pathetic against his mass but necessary for my sanity.
"She's three weeks old! She doesn't understand why I'm gone! She only knows hunger and fear and her mother isn't there!" My voice cracked, splintered. "Let me go to my daughter. Please. Please let me—"
"Enough." Father's Beta command rolled through the room, ancient authority that made even Kieran still. My father rose, every inch the man who'd commanded respect for decades. "This ends now."
He crossed to where Kieran and I stood locked in our standoff. "Harper will return with me. Under my protection. As Beta of Silvercrest, I give my word that no one will mark her behind your back. No one will approach her without your knowledge. I will clarify the details of these circumstances with Weston personally."
"You can't guarantee her safety," Kieran growled.
"I'm her father." Father's voice carried absolute conviction. "Whatever else I've failed at, I will not fail this. She returns to feed her daughter. You have my vow—the same vow I gave when I swore the Beta oath. If I break it, you may take my throat yourself."
The mate bond transmitted everything I felt directly into Kieran's soul—the desperate ache, the primal need, the terror that Ava was crying herself sick. His jaw clenched so hard I heard teeth grind.
Then his arms came around me, crushing me against his chest with a fierceness that stole breath. "I'm coming back for you," he said against my hair, voice rough with barely contained emotion. "Both of you. Soon. This isn't over."
"I know." My hands clutched at his shoulders, memorizing the feel of him even as I prepared to leave. "I know."
He pulled back just enough to look at me, amber eyes burning with promises and threats in equal measure. The reluctance in his touch matched my own desire to stay, to hide in this room where the mate bond sang and Ava existed only as an ache rather than an immediate crisis.
But my daughter's hunger called louder than self-preservation.
Father moved toward the door with Mother following, her expression still shell-shocked from the revelation of Celeste's true nature. My sister straightened from her position against the wall, fury replaced by careful calculation.
"What about justice for me?" Celeste's voice carried that familiar wounded sweetness. "Beta Alex assaulted me with excessive aconite. He could have killed me. Are we simply ignoring that crime because—"
"We're ignoring nothing," Mother said, voice sharp. "But right now, your niece needs her mother. Everything else waits."
I extracted myself from Kieran's embrace with physical pain, the mate bond protesting every inch of distance. His hand caught mine at the last second, squeezed once with desperate strength, then released.
The walk to the car felt like marching toward execution. Relief that I'd reach Ava soon mingled with dread so thick it coated my throat. Celeste continued her protests about unpunished assault, her voice carrying across the courtyard while our parents maintained stony silence.
How were they still blind to her manipulations? Even after watching her mask crack, hearing her call Ava a bastard, witnessing the venom pour freely—somehow Father and Mother couldn't see what stood obvious to everyone else.
But the most terrifying piece waited ahead. Weston now knew the truth—that Kieran was my fated mate, that the mate bond had sparked the moment our eyes met weeks ago. I was walking back into the viper's nest with that knowledge.
The car engine started. Through the rear window, I caught one last glimpse of Kieran standing in the doorway, hands fisted at his sides, every line of his body radiating barely controlled violence.
Then we pulled away, and I was heading home to my daughter's hunger and my mate's enemy and with my parents and the sister who'd already murdered me once in another life.
Ava's needs superseded everything else. Even self-preservation. Even the certain knowledge that I was walking straight back into hell.
My daughter was crying. Nothing else mattered.