Filthy Rich Werewolves E-Book

Laura Dutton

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2026

Beschreibung

Rejected in public. Branded in silence. Watched like a problem that needs fixing.
Rowan Maris Ashford is an omega in the richest pack in North America, Sterling Crest. She is tolerated for one reason only: she keeps their books clean. She knows where the money goes, who gets paid, and which “charity” numbers do not add up.
The night the Alpha heir finally looks at her, the bond hits like fate. The night should have changed her life.
Instead, Caspian Rhys Blackthorne rejects her under moonlight in front of the pack’s elite, their donors, and the Board of Claws that rules Sterling Crest like a corporation.
They think humiliation will make Rowan obey. They think an omega will crawl back into the shadows.
They forgot one thing.
Rowan was raised on lies. Her mother vanished as a so-called thief. Her father died asking questions. And now Rowan holds the receipts that could burn the Board to the ground.
With her sister at risk, enemies circling at the border, and the pack’s fortune starting to rot from the inside, Rowan must choose: run with what she can carry, or stand in daylight and force the truth to kneel.
Because the only love worth having is the kind that never asks her to shrink.

Leseprobe

Filthy Rich Werewolves

A Forbidden Omega Fated Mate Romance

Laura Dutton

Copyright © 2026 LAURA DUTTONAll rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the author, except for brief quotations used in reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

The Numbers Don’t Lie

The Heir in the Hallway

The Pull Before the Fall

Rejected Under Silver Light

The Hollow Ache

Locked Out

The Price of Being Seen

Rumors Are Currency

Teeth Behind a Smile

The Box Under the Stones

The Vault Chapel

The Rival’s Bargain

What Can’t Be Bought

The Tribunal Trap

Blood in the Ledger

The Hostage Price

Merge Under Moonfire

The Board Breaks

A Fortune Rewritten

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

The first rule of Sterling Crest is simple.

Know your place.

They say we are the richest pack in North America. They say our vineyards run gold and our cliffs guard treasure. Humans donate to our charity and call us refined. They buy wine with fancy names and take pictures beneath the redwoods and never guess what watches them from the dark.

They do not say what it costs to keep the lie standing.

I learned my place before I learned my letters.

Omega.

The word sits on my skin like old ash. Not a tattoo you can scrub off, not a rumor you can outlive. It’s a rank, a cage, and a warning to anyone who looks my way and thinks I might be worth more than my labor.

My mother used to tell me I was born with a stubborn soul. She said it with pride, like it would save me one day. Then she vanished and the pack taught me a different lesson.

Stubborn souls get broken first.

My cottage sits near the old stables, close enough to Blackthorne Manor that I can see the glass wings of the estate when the fog thins. Far enough that the rich wolves don’t have to smell me unless they choose to. The cottage is small, warm when the heater works, and quiet if the patrols keep their jokes down.

The quiet is what I pay for with my hours.

Before dawn, the territory is gray. The redwoods stand like judges. The air tastes of salt from the coast and pine from the ridges. Hidden ward stones hum beneath the soil, old magic set in place long before anyone wore a tailored suit and called it power.

Sterling Crest does not rely on magic alone. There are cameras, drones, and gates that read your blood and your rank. A human might call it security. A low-rank wolf calls it a leash.

A soft knock came at my bedroom door, careful, like my sister was afraid to wake the house itself.

“Row?” Lila’s voice, quiet as breath. “You up?”

I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Sleep never stays long with me. It slips away the moment my mind remembers what kind of world I’m in.

“Come in,” I said.

Lila eased the door open and stepped into the room. Nineteen, all long limbs and restless energy. Her auburn hair was braided down her back and her eyes, my eyes, were too bright for this hour. She tried to smile like she wasn’t scared of anything. It fooled everyone but me.

“You’re going in early again,” she said.

“It’s month-end,” I told her. “They’ll want the accounts clean before the gala season kicks up.”

Her mouth tightened at that word. Gala. Like it was poison.

The rich wolves loved their parties. They loved their lights and their speeches and the way humans bowed when they believed they were in the presence of money. Sterling Crest hid its fangs behind charity and fine art. Behind the Blackthorne name.

The Board of Claws would be there. Alistair Crowne, cane in hand, smile like a blade. Council members with rings heavy enough to bruise the skin when they shook hands.

The heir, too. Caspian Rhys Blackthorne.

I had seen him from a distance, of course. Everyone had. The heir wasn’t a man you missed. He carried himself like the manor belonged to his bones. Like he could speak and the air would obey.

We did not speak of him in my cottage. We had no reason to.

Lila leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms. “You look tired.”

“That’s because I am.”

“You always are.”

Her words were simple, but they landed. Lila had a way of cutting straight through my careful habits.

I stood and pulled on my work clothes. Black slacks. A plain blouse. Hair up, always up. Nothing that would invite attention. No jewelry except a thin chain my father once wore. I kept it tucked beneath my collar like a secret.

Lila watched me braid my hair tighter. “They still talking about Mama?”

They always were, even when they pretended not to be.

“Not to my face,” I said.

“And when you’re not there?”

I didn’t answer that. She didn’t need me to.

In Sterling Crest, low ranks learn how to hear what is not said. The silence around a name can be louder than an insult.

Celeste Ashford.

My mother.

Missing. Presumed dead. Branded a thief without a trial because the Board said so.

When she disappeared, the pack told us it was simple. She stole from the trust vault. She ran. She shamed her family. End of story.

I was twelve. Lila was seven. We believed what we were told for about a month, until the gaps started showing. The way the questions got you punished. The way people stopped looking at you like a child and started looking at you like a stain.

My father did not accept the lie.

He died three years later on the cliff road, car mangled at a switchback that everyone knew was guarded. They called it an accident. They said he drove too fast. They said grief makes men reckless.

I was fifteen and I understood something cold that day.

Truth is not welcome in a rich pack.

Lila stepped forward and adjusted my collar the way Mama used to. Her fingers trembled, just a little.

“Don’t let them take you from me,” she said.

The words hit harder than any threat Dorian Slate could ever speak. Because Lila didn’t mean a patrol dragging me off in handcuffs. She meant the slow theft that happens when you live bent over for too long. When you stop being a person and become a function.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I told her.

That was half promise, half prayer.

I grabbed my worn leather bag and checked my small locked drawer by the kitchen table. Inside were copies of payroll sheets, old invoices, and a folder of notes I’d made over the years. Little oddities. Numbers that didn’t fit. Names that repeated too often. Tiny cracks in the Board’s perfect marble.

I never kept the originals. Originals get you killed.

Lila followed me to the door. The cottage smelled like coffee grounds and paper and the lavender soap Mara Kincaid had given me last winter when my hands cracked from stress shifting.

Mara.

Pack physician. Blunt mouth, kind eyes, fearless around Alphas. She was the one who told me once, low and steady, “You don’t have to earn the right to breathe, Rowan.”

I hadn’t known what to do with that sentence. I still didn’t, not fully. But I carried it like a stone in my pocket.

Outside, the morning bit at my cheeks. The sky was pale, the kind of pale that comes before sun, before warmth. The manor sat up on the cliffs, glass and stone and steel, lit from within like it never slept.

It didn’t. Not really.

Sterling Crest lived on schedules and contracts. Even the moon rituals were managed like calendar events. Full moon tribunal. Quarterly patrol review. Gala season. Engagement announcements. Mergers that sounded like business but meant mating.

The Board of Claws loved to dress old laws in modern suits.

As I walked the path toward the manor, I kept my eyes down. Not from shame, not exactly, but from habit. Looking up invites attention. Attention invites judgment. Judgment invites punishment when your rank is low enough that no one cares what happens to you.

A patrol vehicle rolled by on the private road. Two security wolves inside. Their uniforms were crisp. Their posture was proud. They didn’t look at me.

That was normal.

Still, my wolf stirred, uneasy. A quiet warning under my ribs. I listened to it. I always listened. Wolves who ignored their instincts didn’t live long in this pack.

The gates read my badge and let me through with a soft beep. The sound was polite. The meaning wasn’t.

Allowed. For now.

I passed the manicured grounds where humans would later stroll during charity tours. A fountain shaped like a wolf’s head poured water into a marble basin. The Blackthorne crest was etched into the stone, silver and sharp.

Money has its own scent. It doesn’t smell like paper. It smells like control.

The service entrance opened into the manor’s lower corridors. Here, the walls were plain and the floors were cleaned twice a day. Staff moved like shadows. Eyes forward. Steps quiet. We were all trained to disappear.

A group of higher ranks passed at the far end. Deltas with clipboards. A Gamma I recognized from legal, speaking in low tones. I caught a few words.

“Board meeting at noon.”

“Montclaire arrival confirmed.”

“Security tightened, per Slate.”

Slate.

Dorian Slate.

Beta Commander. Head of Security. The man smiled like he cared and used that smile to make you question your own fear. I avoided him when I could. I respected him when I couldn’t. That was the only way to survive men like him.

The corridor turned and the temperature dropped as I neared the accounting wing. It always did, like the building wanted the numbers preserved in cold. The accounting office sat tucked behind administrative doors, away from the grand halls where the rich drank and laughed.

That suited me.

I slid my badge, opened the door, and stepped inside.

The Estate Accounting Office was quiet at this hour. No phones ringing yet. No staff chatter. Just the soft hum of a computer waking and the faint rustle of papers in the ventilation draft.

My desk sat in the corner, small compared to the executive stations across the room. Those desks belonged to Gammas who wore designer watches and talked about investments like it was weather. They didn’t come in early. They didn’t need to.

On my desk waited a stack of ledgers, invoices, and donation reports bound in neat clips. The kind of pile that could swallow a whole day if you let it. The kind that could swallow a whole life if you weren’t careful.

I set my bag down and rolled my shoulders. There was a dull ache at the base of my neck, leftover from sleep that never felt deep enough. I flexed my fingers. My hands were steady. They had to be.

One mistake in Sterling Crest isn’t just a mistake.

It’s a reason.

A reason to remind an Omega she is replaceable. A reason to whisper her mother’s name like a curse. A reason to push her sister into a corner and call it discipline.

A memory came sharp and unwanted.

My mother in the kitchen, hands dusted with flour, humming an old tune. My father at the table with his ledger book, squinting at numbers like they were a puzzle meant for him alone. The way he smiled when I solved one faster than he did.

“You’ve got my head for it,” he told me once. “Numbers don’t lie, Rowan. People do.”

I swallowed and stared at the stack on my desk.

Sometimes the past feels like a ghost pressing its palm to your back, urging you forward into trouble you didn’t ask for.

I turned on my desk lamp. The light pooled over the papers, clean and unforgiving. The manor outside remained asleep in its luxury, but this room was awake with quiet labor.

Sterling Crest ran on money, contracts, and obedience. The Board of Claws ruled like kings in tailored coats. The Alpha line held the crown, and the rest of us held the weight.

I was an Omega holding the books in a palace that would never be mine.

Useful.

Disposable.

I took a deep breath, not the dramatic kind, just the kind you take before you do work you cannot afford to fail.

My eyes lifted once, just once, to the window slit near the ceiling. I could see a slice of morning sky and the dark line of redwoods. Beyond them, the coast waited, cold and endless.

Freedom lived out there, somewhere past the gates.

For Lila, I could reach it.

For myself, I wasn’t sure I deserved it yet.

That was the wound I never spoke aloud. The ugly truth the pack had sewn into me. If I was not useful, I was nothing.

I sat down, straightened the stack until the edges were perfect, and pulled the first ledger toward me.

Blackthorne Charity Foundation. Disbursements. Vendor invoices.

The kind of work that kept Sterling Crest shining for the world.

The kind of work that could bury a lie so deep it turned into history.

I opened my notebook, picked up my pen, and positioned the invoices in a neat row.

I was alone.

I was tired.

I was determined to stay invisible.

And I was sitting in the Sterling Crest Estate Accounting Office inside Blackthorne Manor, with ledgers and invoices spread before me.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

The ledger tried to lie to me.

It sat open on my desk like any other book of neat columns and careful totals, the kind that makes people feel safe because it looks tidy. Ink in straight lines. Figures balanced. A polished mask.

Under it, something kept slipping.

Overhead lights buzzed soft, steady. The room smelled of paper and toner and that faint clean scent the manor loves, like they can scrub away anything ugly if they use enough soap. Outside the office door, the big house was waking slow. Inside, the numbers were already awake.

A donation report lay to my left. Vendor invoices to my right. I lined them up by date and ran my finger down the entries.

Blackthorne Charity FoundationDisbursement: 250,000Vendor: Silver Pine Outreach

That name came up too often.

Silver Pine Outreach did not have a physical address in our public records. It didn’t host events. It didn’t issue newsletters. Yet it drank money like a thirsty man at the end of a hot road.

A year ago, I would have circled it and moved on. That was my habit. Do the work. Keep your head down. Don’t make trouble. Let the rich wolves play their games above you.

Then Lila started coming home quieter.

Then I started seeing patrols linger near our cottage longer than they needed to.

Then I found an old payroll cut with my father’s handwriting on it, tucked behind my stove pipe like he’d hidden it there on purpose, and the fear in my throat turned into something harder.

So I kept a private list now. A plain notebook under my keyboard. Nothing fancy. Just names and amounts and dates that made my stomach tighten.

Silver Pine Outreach. Again.

I clicked open the digital ledger to cross-check the payments. The computer fan whirred like a small animal. Rows of transactions scrolled down, bright against the screen.

Two things were true in Sterling Crest.

The pack loved money.The pack loved control more.

The Board of Claws would never hand money away without getting something back.

My cursor hovered over the vendor name. I pulled up the supporting documents.

A scanned invoice appeared. Clean font. Clean logo. Clean lie.

Services rendered: community support initiatives.Consulting and outreach.

Vague enough to swallow anything.

My pen scratched across paper as I wrote down the transaction code. Then I searched for the code’s linked account.

A private holding account flashed on the screen. Not charity. Not operations. Not estate maintenance. Private.

That made my jaw set.

A second search. A third.

The account didn’t sit alone. It was a hub.

Money flowed out of charity, into Silver Pine Outreach, and then folded back into the holding account like a river that loops into itself. The amounts changed slightly each time, just enough to look like fees and taxes and “processing.”

Someone had built a wheel.

Charity on the surface. Profit beneath. A neat little circle that made the pack look generous and kept the Board fat.

Heat climbed up my neck. Not the dramatic kind. Just the slow burn of being proven right about something you wish you weren’t right about.

My fingers paused over the keyboard. A careful glance went to the office door.

Closed.

Still, I lowered my screen brightness by a notch. Habit. Fear. Training.

Omega life is full of small movements meant to keep you from being noticed.

A thought pushed in, sharp and unwelcome.

If I could see this, others could too.

So why hadn’t anything been done?

Because the people who could do something were the ones eating from the wheel.

A soft chime sounded from the office phone, announcing incoming messages. I ignored it. No one called me directly unless they wanted something. I had work. I had a pattern.

Another transaction caught my eye.

Disbursement: 90,000Vendor: Silver Pine OutreachNotes: Ward maintenance

Ward maintenance?

My mouth went dry.

Ward stones and patrol budgets weren’t supposed to run through the charity foundation. Those were territory expenses. Military. Security. Not a public-facing donation line item.

The pack hid its magic and its borders under the Veil Law. Humans could not know.

So why was this labeled as if it could be seen?

Unless it wasn’t meant for humans.

Unless it was meant for wolves. A message coded in plain sight.

Ward maintenance. Silver Pine Outreach. Private holding account.

My pen slowed. I wrote the line down and underlined it twice.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside, measured, confident. Not staff shuffling. Not a runner from admin. The steps had weight.

My spine stiffened.

The office door didn’t open right away. Whoever stood outside took a moment. A pause that felt like a hand on the back of my neck.

Then the handle turned.

Dorian Slate entered without knocking.

He didn’t need permission. Betas like him moved through the manor like they owned the air. Head of Security. Beta Commander. A man with authority in his shoulders and a smile that never warmed his eyes.

Sandy-brown hair, neat and controlled. Amber eyes that didn’t miss much. He wore his uniform like it had been tailored by a king’s own hand.

His gaze swept the room once, taking in the empty desks, the tidy stacks, my small corner. Then it settled on me.

“Miss Ashford,” he said. Polite. Smooth. “You’re early.”

In his mouth, “polite” sounded like a test.

My chair legs scraped lightly as I stood. “Commander Slate.”

I kept my hands visible. Not raised. Not submissive. Just… visible. One of Mara’s lessons. Don’t give men like him a reason to say you reached for something.

Dorian’s eyes moved to my screen. I turned my body half a step, enough to block the exact lines without making it obvious I was blocking them.

He smiled wider.

A slow glance took in my low bun, my plain blouse, my ink-stained fingers. The kind of look a nobleman gives a servant he’s deciding whether to keep.

“Hard worker,” he said. “Your father was the same.”

My stomach knotted at the mention of him. Dorian knew it would.

“I do my duties,” I answered.

“Mm.” He walked closer, hands clasped behind his back. Slow, like he had all the time in the world. “That is what keeps this pack strong, isn’t it? People doing their duties.”

“Yes, Commander.”

He stopped at the edge of my desk and leaned slightly, as if he might pick up a paper. He didn’t touch anything. He didn’t have to. Threats didn’t always need contact.

“Busy day,” he said. “Gala season upon us. Donations. Visitors. Cameras.”

His amber eyes flicked to my notebook under the keyboard. Not fully hidden. I moved my hand and slid it farther back without thinking.

His smile sharpened.

“May I?” he asked, nodding toward the binder on my desk.

He didn’t wait for me to answer. He flipped the top page with a careful finger, as if he respected paper more than people.

“Blackthorne Charity Foundation.” He hummed softly. “Good work. The Board appreciates neat books.”

The Board appreciates obedience, I thought.

Out loud I said, “Thank you, sir.”

He flipped another page. Another.

My mouth tasted like pennies. Every second he stood there was a second I imagined him seeing the underlined “ward maintenance” line I’d written on a loose slip. I slid that slip beneath the invoice stack with a light motion.

Dorian’s gaze lifted, and I knew he’d seen the movement anyway.

His voice softened. “You know, Miss Ashford, the higher ranks can be… sensitive. This pack’s reputation is a treasure. We protect it.”

“Yes, Commander.”

A pause.

“Sometimes,” he continued, “a diligent clerk notices things that are not meant to trouble her. Numbers can be misread. Context can be missed. A small mind can make a large mistake.”

The insult was dressed in silk. Still an insult.

My face stayed calm. My hands held still at my sides. No flinch. No tremor. I would not give him satisfaction.

“I understand the records I’m given,” I said.

Dorian’s eyebrows rose slightly, as if I’d surprised him by having a spine.

His smile didn’t move. “Do you.”

He closed the binder and tapped it once with a fingertip.

“Tonight’s gala,” he said, changing topics like turning a page. “We’ll have donors and dignitaries. The Board wants the donation stations flawless. They want receipts accurate. No confusion.”

“I’ll do my part,” I answered.

“You will.” His tone made it an order. “You’ll be assigned to the terrace intake. Best view in the house. You should feel honored.”

I didn’t. The terrace was where the elite mingled. Where Alphas and Gammas and their guests stood close enough to smell you. Close enough to notice you.

Close enough to remember your mother’s name and enjoy saying it.

My throat tightened. I swallowed it down.

“Yes, Commander.”

“Good.” He straightened. “Also, you’ll remain within designated staff corridors unless instructed otherwise. With so many outsiders present, we cannot have… misunderstandings.”

He looked at me like I was the misunderstanding.

“My badge is on record,” I said carefully.

“It is,” Dorian agreed. “And records can be changed.”

There it was. The real sentence under all the polite ones.

He turned to leave. Then stopped at the door as if remembering something small.

“Oh,” he said over his shoulder, casual as rain. “If you see anything strange in the accounts, anything that looks… unusual, you bring it to me. Immediately. Do not discuss it with anyone else. Not even Doctor Kincaid.”

My stomach dropped at Mara’s name.

Dorian opened the door, then glanced back. “Understood?”

“Yes, Commander Slate.”

He left.

The door clicked shut behind him. The room seemed to exhale, though the air stayed cold.

My shoulders didn’t slump. I forced them square. If Dorian had taught me anything, it was that predators love when they see you shake.

A moment passed before I sat again.

Hands moved across the desk with careful speed. I slid my notebook out and opened it. The underlined line was still there in my mind even if it was buried under paper.

Ward maintenance through charity.

Dorian had come too fast. He’d walked in as if he knew I’d be looking.

Had he been watching my access?

Or had I stepped on a wire without knowing it?

A buzz came from my phone. One text. From Lila.

You okay?

I stared at the words. My sister always sensed storms before they hit the roof.

I typed back: Fine. Stay close to the cottage today. Lock the door.

A second later I added: Don’t open for anyone unless it’s Mara.

I didn’t like putting fear in her day. I liked it less to pretend we were safe.

Phone facedown. Back to the work.

The charity ledger stayed open, but my attention shifted. Dorian’s warning had teeth. He didn’t want me talking to Mara. That meant Mara knew something, or he feared what she might tell me.

My eyes went to the older filing cabinet in the corner of the office. The one labeled ARCHIVE. Most of it held boring history. Prior years. Old vendors. Old events.

Old sins.

The archive cabinet was supposed to be locked. The key was kept in the admin safe, and only Gamma Finance staff had clearance.

I wasn’t Gamma.

But I had hands. I had patience. I had lived in a pack that treated locks like decorations. People got lazy when they believed no one beneath them could matter.

I stood and crossed the room. No one else had arrived yet. The office still belonged to me for a few more minutes.

The archive cabinet’s lock was simple. I’d seen Mara open it once to retrieve medical budget records. She’d turned the key with a quick twist, as if it wasn’t worth noticing.

I knelt and looked at the lock.

A thin scratch sat along the top edge, like a key had slipped once. The kind of mark that stays when someone’s in a hurry.

I reached into my bag and pulled out a small set of tools tucked in a pencil pouch. Not weapons. Just what any accountant might carry if she’d learned to fix cheap furniture and stubborn drawers because no one else would.

A flat pick slid into the lock. Gentle pressure. A small turn.

Click.

The cabinet opened.

My pulse stayed steady, but my hands moved fast. I didn’t have the luxury of lingering.

Folders stood in rows, dated and labeled. I scanned for the year my mother disappeared.

Twelve years ago.

The folder edges were worn, handled more than they should have been. That made my skin crawl.

I pulled the folder out and tucked it against my side like contraband. Then I shut the cabinet and relocked it, careful to leave it as I found it.

Back at my desk, I opened the folder.

Inside were vault access logs, audit notes, and a printed statement that still had my father’s name on it as the ledger keeper on duty.

Gareth Ashford.

My throat tightened again, this time with something like grief and anger mixed.

I flipped pages. Dates. Times. Authorized personnel.

Most names were high rank. Council. Security leads. Gamma Finance.

Then a line caught my eye and my fingers stopped.

Celeste AshfordAccess Request: Vault Chapel corridorStatus: ApprovedAuthorizing Signature: A. Crowne

My mother’s name looked wrong on that paper. Like someone had forged it into the world.

My eyes moved to the date.

It was after she vanished.

Not the day of her disappearance. Not the week. Months later.

A cold wave rolled through me. My mother hadn’t run. Not cleanly. Not on her own.

Or someone was using her name long after she was gone.

I turned the page and found another entry.

Celeste Ashford. Again.

Then one more.

My vision sharpened on the latest timestamp.

Two days ago.

No. That couldn’t be right.

I checked again, leaning close.

Two days ago.

My mother’s name had been used to access the Vault Chapel corridor two days ago.

The room felt too small all at once. The hum of the computer grew loud. My ears picked up distant footsteps outside the office like my wolf had lifted its head.

If this was true, then one of three things was happening.

Someone was forging her identity to move through restricted spaces.Someone was keeping her alive and using her.Or my mother wasn’t missing the way they said she was.

My fingers curled around the page edge until it crumpled slightly. I smoothed it flat again at once. Evidence mattered. Even the paper’s condition could be used against you.

A door opened somewhere down the hall. Voices drifted closer. The office would fill soon.

I took a slow breath through my nose, forced my face still, and copied the key lines into my notebook. No fancy words. Just facts.

Celeste Ashford. Vault Chapel corridor. Approved. Crowne signature. Two days ago.

Then I slid the archive folder back where it belonged and returned the stack to my desk.

The moment the folder left my hands, the truth stayed anyway.

Dorian’s visit hadn’t been routine.The gala assignment wasn’t an honor.And my mother’s name was moving through the manor like a ghost with keys.

A soft knock came at the office door. This one was timid. A staffer’s knock.

I called, “Enter.”

A young Delta clerk stepped in, eyes down. “Miss Ashford, ma’am. Admin says you’re to prepare the terrace donation kit for tonight. The Board wants you on intake.”

Of course they did.

My mouth went tight. “Is there a memo?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He held out a sheet without looking up.

The paper was crisp. Official. Blackthorne crest in the corner. A list of duties and times. My name printed at the bottom like a stamp of ownership.

Rowan Maris AshfordEstate Accounting ClerkAssigned: Terrace Intake Station

I signed the acknowledgement and handed it back.

The clerk hurried away. He didn’t want to be near me longer than necessary. None of them did. Not unless they wanted something.

The phone chimed again. A calendar update popped on my screen.

Blackthorne Charity Moon Gala: Staff Positions ConfirmedTonight.

My fingers hovered over the mouse. I could feel the trap closing, soft and slow.

The terrace intake station put me in view of the richest wolves and their precious guests. It put me near the Board. It put me near whatever the Vault Chapel corridor was hiding, because those paths ran beneath the terrace level.

And it put me where Dorian could watch me, easy as breathing.

Across the office, another computer turned on. A Gamma Finance worker arrived, heels clicking, perfume sweet. She nodded at me without warmth and began her day like I wasn’t there.

That was normal.

Still, my skin felt too tight. My wolf paced under my ribs.

I packed my notebook into my bag. Not the original. Not the archive page. Just my notes. Notes could be denied. Notes could be hidden. Notes could become proof later if I survived long enough to use them.