(Rhea POV)

Sera didn't knock.

She walked into the command room the way she always did — like the door was a suggestion and she'd already decided to ignore it. She had the posture of a woman who'd made up her mind about something and was about to tell you what it was, and the fact that you were the one who was supposed to be making decisions was not going to change the order of operations.

"Council offered me official recognition," she said. "My territory. Legitimate pack status. Everything I've been fighting for since I was eighteen."

My gut dropped. One second. Then I locked it down, because Sera was watching me the way she always watched — for the reaction before the response, the flinch before the composure.

"And?"

"And I'm telling you about it instead of taking it."

She sat on the edge of the command table. Not in a chair — on the table itself, the way she sat on everything, as though furniture was designed for people who had time to be comfortable and she wasn't one of them.

"When did the offer come?" I asked.

"Three days ago. A courier. Not the same kind they sent Harlan. This was quieter — a single wolf with a sealed letter and instructions to wait for a response."

"Did you give one?"

"I told him I'd think about it. Then I sent him back. I wanted to talk to you first."

I studied her. Sera was twenty-eight. She'd been a rogue since she was eighteen — ten years of building a territory from nothing, holding wolves together with stubbornness and competence and the bone-deep refusal to accept that rogues didn't deserve what pack wolves had. She'd merged with Ashenmoor during the siege not because she believed in my cause, but because she believed in what we'd proved: that rogues could win.

Now Council was offering her everything she'd fought for. Without a war. Without a siege. Just a signature.

"It's a good offer," I said.

"It's a great offer." She didn't flinch from it. "Legitimate charter. Trade access. Council protection. My wolves would be safe. Actually safe — not 'safe until the next army shows up' safe. The kind of safe where you can plant things and expect to harvest them."

"So why are you here instead of signing?"

Sera was quiet for a moment. Which was unusual — Sera didn't do quiet. She did opinions at volume.

"Because the offer came with a condition I didn't like," she said. "Formal disassociation from the Ashenmoor alliance. In writing. Public. And a commitment to refuse future cooperation with your territory."

"They want you to cut us off."

"They want to buy me. With something I actually want. That's the part that bothers me — not that they're trying, but that they picked the right price."

* * *

She stood and paced. Four steps to the wall, four steps back. The compact movement of a woman whose body processed tension through motion.

"I need to ask you something," she said. "And I need an honest answer. Not a leader answer. Not a 'we're all in this together' speech. Honest."

"Ask."

"Is this alliance about territory? About rogues building something that works? About proving that we can govern ourselves?" She stopped. Faced me. "Or is it about your daughter?"

The question sat in the room like a blade laid on the table.

"Because those are two different things," Sera continued. "I came here for the first one. I fought on your walls for the first one. I merged my pack with yours because I believed in the first one. But what I'm seeing — the Firstborn conversations, the ancient texts, Council sending intelligence agents because of a seven-year-old — that looks like the second one. And if this alliance is going to become 'protect Lily at all costs,' I need to know now. Before my people pay a price they didn't agree to."

I wanted to tell her she was wrong. That the alliance was bigger than Lily. That we were building something that mattered regardless of what my daughter carried in her blood.

But Sera had asked for honest. And the honest answer was complicated.