He Signed My Freedom Now He Wants Me Back Chapter 26
“She does have her pride,” the record quoted Lucian as saying at the time.
He still didn’t believe I had really gone.
At breakfast, Noah and Iris brought up a pack academy parent training event and invited Vivian to go. Lucian abruptly asked who used to accompany them.
The children said, with obvious disdain, that it had been me.
They said I spent all day managing the pack manor, that I didn’t know how to dress, and that I didn’t have Vivian’s dazzling Dawncrest background.
Vivian poured Lucian a cup of coffee.
It was too sweet.
He took one sip and set it down, because for six years, I had remembered he took it with no sugar and just one spoonful of cream.
It wasn’t proof of love.
It was only proof that after being cared for for so long, a person finally notices the absence when the care stops.
In Clara’s statement, the pack manor was still staffed after I left—but no one left a light on for Lucian, prepared the nighttime soup that steadied his wolf, or could immediately recite every dietary restriction for the two children.
On the first council reception day after I left, three delegations from outside packs arrived at once. Vivian rearranged the seating at the last minute and placed two representatives with old grudges side by side. The banquet nearly devolved into a territorial conflict.