Chapter 6: Dinner With Wolves

The rain had not stopped since Elara had arrived at Blackthorn Hall.

It crawled down the windowpanes in crooked veins, silvering the ancient glass, blurring the moors beyond into a black smear of earth and storm. In the mirror, her reflection looked like someone painted over a stranger’s bones: pale throat, hollowed eyes, dark hair pinned too tightly at the nape. The dress waiting on the bed was not hers.

Of course it wasn’t.

Nothing in this house belonged to her, not even her name now that Adrian Blackthorn had taken it and set it beside his own like a knife beside a plate.

The dress was black silk, cut with ruthless simplicity, its long sleeves sheer enough to suggest skin but not reveal it, its bodice fitted with a precision that implied someone knew her measurements. That knowledge unsettled her more than the garment itself. A thin line of garnets had been sewn along the neckline, each stone dark as clotted blood. They caught the candlelight and glimmered like watchful eyes.

Elara stood barefoot on the cold boards and stared at it.

There was a note tucked beneath one sleeve. Heavy cream paper. No seal.

Wear this.

A.B.

Two words. An order disguised as courtesy.

Her hand curled around the note until it creased.

Beyond the bedroom door, the corridor breathed. Blackthorn Hall made sounds like an old creature dreaming badly—the groan of stone, the click of settling wood, the whisper of draughts moving through passages that had no business existing. Somewhere below, doors opened and closed. Footsteps crossed marble. Voices rose and vanished.

They had arrived.

The council.

Adrian had informed her at dusk with no warmth in his voice and no apology in his eyes.

“You will dine with them tonight.”

She had been standing in his study, her hands still trembling from the photograph of Noah—her brother on a street corner outside his university, unaware of the figure watching him from a parked car. Adrian had taken the photograph back from her with infuriating care, sliding it into a leather folder already swollen with secrets.

“I thought you said they were your enemies,” she had said.

“Some are.”

“And the others?”

His gaze had moved over her face, slow as a blade being drawn. “Worse.”

Then he had told her what her father had done.

He stole something from us the night he died.

The words had lodged beneath her ribs and remained there, barbed and poisonous. Her father—gentle, exhausted, ink-smudged Thomas Voss, who had taught her to coax saints from smoke-damaged plaster and repair shattered glass so the fracture became part of the light—had stolen from the Blackthorns. Adrian had said it with certainty, not accusation. As if the theft were a weather report. As if grief could be corrected with evidence.

He had refused to tell her what was missing.

“Not until you survive dinner,” he had said.

Elara looked again at the dress.

“Bastard,” she whispered.

Then she put it on.

The silk slid over her skin like cold water. The fit was exact. Too exact. She laced the hidden fastenings herself, fingers clumsy with anger, and pinned her hair again when a strand escaped. There were black heels beside the wardrobe; she ignored them and wore her own boots, polished leather with scuffed toes, the kind that had climbed scaffolding in cathedral naves and knelt in dust where angels had lost their faces.

Let the council choke on them.

When she opened the door, Mrs. Vale stood in the corridor with a candelabrum in hand.

The housekeeper’s face was carved from the same grey resolve as the cliffs outside. Her white hair was coiled at the back of her head, not one strand loose. She took in Elara from throat to boots, and for the first time since Elara had met her, something nearly like approval flickered in her eyes.

“They’re in the long dining room,” Mrs. Vale said.

“How many?”

“Seven at table. More in the walls.”

Elara paused. “That’s comforting.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Mrs. Vale turned and began down the corridor. Elara followed, the candle flames bowing with every draught. The eastern wing of Blackthorn Hall had been shut for decades, but tonight the western heart had awakened. Sconces burned along the gallery. Portraits emerged from shadow—men with cruel mouths, women with pearls strangling their throats, children painted like porcelain dolls and buried before they became real. Some faces had been slashed. Others had been turned to the wall.

Elara’s restorer’s eye catalogued damage automatically: flaking varnish, smoke residue, damp blooms spreading beneath gilt frames. She had spent her life reading what decay tried to hide. But Blackthorn Hall was not merely decayed. It was wounded. There were places where wallpaper had been patched in haste, where stone had been scrubbed too hard, where the floorboards retained faint dark stains no polish could erase.

At the top of the main staircase, Mrs. Vale stopped.

Below, the entrance hall opened like a mausoleum, vast and candlelit. Men in dark suits stood in clusters near the hearth. Women glittered like knives. Their laughter rose in small, controlled bursts, never reaching their eyes. Servants moved among them with trays of crystal and silver, silent as mourners.

And at the foot of the stairs stood Adrian.

He wore black like it had been invented for him. No ornament except a signet ring on his right hand and a strip of white cuff beneath his jacket sleeve. His dark hair was brushed back from a face too severe to be beautiful until he looked up at her—and then the word became unavoidable. Severe beauty. Cruel beauty. The kind carved on tombs for saints who had died badly.

His gaze found her boots.

Then her face.

Something almost imperceptible changed in his expression.

Not a smile.

Worse.

Approval.

It warmed nothing. It struck sparks against her temper.

Mrs. Vale descended ahead of her. Elara followed, refusing to grip the banister though every eye in the hall lifted toward her. Conversation thinned. A woman’s laugh broke in the middle. Someone murmured a name—Voss—with the delicate disgust one might reserve for rot discovered beneath wallpaper.

Adrian waited until she reached the final step. He offered his arm.

Elara looked at it.

“Is this part of the performance?” she asked under her breath.

“Everything is.”

“Then I should warn you. I’ve never been good at playing docile.”

“I know.” His eyes did not leave hers. “That is why I chose the dress.”

She hated the small, traitorous shiver that crossed her skin.

She placed her hand on his arm.

The room watched.

Adrian’s body was warm beneath the immaculate wool. Solid. Controlled. She could feel the restrained power in him, not in the obvious flex of muscle but in the stillness. He was a man accustomed to rooms rearranging themselves around him. Tonight, however, as he led her toward the double doors of the dining room, Elara sensed not obedience from the assembled guests but hunger.

They were not followers greeting their lord.

They were wolves circling another wolf’s kill.

The long dining room had been prepared as if for a funeral feast.

A table of black oak stretched nearly the full length of the chamber, polished to a dark mirror. Silver candelabra stood in procession down its center, their flames reflected in crystal glasses and in the rain-black windows beyond. The walls were paneled in ancient wood. Above the fireplace hung a portrait larger than the rest: a Blackthorn ancestor in hunting red, one hand on the head of a hound, the other gripping a stag’s severed antlers.

Elara noticed at once that the stag’s eyes had been painted human.

Her stomach tightened.

Adrian’s hand covered hers briefly on his arm. A warning, perhaps. Or a claim.

“Lady Blackthorn,” he said, his voice carrying without effort, “allow me to introduce the council.”

The title struck the room like a thrown glass.

Lady Blackthorn.

Elara felt the impact pass through the gathered faces—amusement, displeasure, calculation. Her spine straightened.

“Aunt Beatrice Blackthorn,” Adrian continued.

The woman at the right of the hearth inclined her head by an inch. She was tall and skeletal, draped in steel-grey satin, her diamonds old enough to have witnessed executions. Her hair was white-blond, pinned beneath a black net. Her eyes were the color of rainwater collected in a grave.

“Adrian,” Beatrice said. “How theatrical of you.”

“I learned from family.”

Her mouth tightened.

“Lord Alistair Crane,” Adrian said.

A broad man with silver hair and a fox-red face lifted his glass. His smile was all polished teeth. “I knew your father, Mrs. Blackthorn. Fine man. Tragic business.”

Elara heard the trap in the softness of his tone.

“Did you?” she asked. “How fortunate. Then perhaps you can tell me why everyone who claims to have known him speaks as though they attended his autopsy.”

The silence after that was sharp enough to cut meat.

Lord Crane’s smile faltered, then widened. “A lively one.”

Adrian’s fingers flexed once beneath her hand.

“Lady Marwen Sloane,” he said.

A woman in emerald silk lounged beside the mantel, her black hair cut at her jaw, her lips painted the red of fresh wounds. She looked Elara over slowly and made no attempt to hide her contempt.

“The restorer,” Lady Sloane said. “How industrious. Do you repair husbands as well as cathedrals?”

Elara smiled faintly. “Only when the structure is worth saving.”

Across the room, someone choked into his drink.

Adrian moved on as if nothing had happened, but Elara felt his attention sharpen beside her. “Sir Magnus Vale, Mrs. Vale’s brother and solicitor to the estate.”

Sir Magnus was thin, dark-skinned, and immaculately dressed, with wire spectacles and a face that revealed nothing. He bowed with precise courtesy. “Lady Blackthorn.”

Unlike the others, he did not make the title sound like an insult.

“Mr. Felix Harrow.”

Felix Harrow looked younger than the rest, perhaps in his early thirties, with golden hair, delicate hands, and eyes like wet slate. He wore velvet. Of course he did. He bowed over Elara’s hand before she could prevent it, lips hovering just above her knuckles.

“Enchanted,” he murmured. “Blackthorn Hall has been desperately dull since the last bride.”

The last bride.

The words slipped into the room and found their mark.

Adrian went very still.

Elara looked at Felix’s bent head and considered yanking her hand away. Instead, she leaned slightly closer.

“Then I’ll try not to die before dessert.”

Felix’s eyes flicked up.

There it was again—that tiny shiver through the pack.

Not outrage.

Interest.

Predators loved a thing that bled. But they loved even more a thing that showed teeth.

Adrian guided her to the table. The place at his right had been set for her. At his left sat Beatrice, spine rigid, hands folded over bone-white knuckles. The seating was deliberate. Elara between Adrian’s protection and the council’s appetite. Or perhaps on display.

The first course arrived beneath silver domes: oysters on crushed ice, black bread, butter molded into roses. The scent of brine rose like the sea had been invited indoors. Elara had not eaten since morning, but her stomach felt tied in wire.

Adrian did not touch his food. He watched the room.

“So,” Lord Crane said after the servants withdrew, “the marriage took place quietly.”

“Legally,” Adrian said.

“That was not the word I used.”

“It was the only one that mattered.”

Lady Sloane lifted a pearl spoon. “One usually expects notice before the head of a house marries. Unless, of course, there is some urgency.”

Her eyes slid to Elara’s stomach.

Elara set down her fork with a soft click. “If you’re wondering whether I’m pregnant, you may ask directly. I’m told aristocracy values breeding above manners.”

Sir Magnus covered his mouth with a napkin. Beatrice’s diamonds flashed as she turned her head.

Lady Sloane smiled without warmth. “And are you?”

“Mannerless?” Elara asked. “Increasingly.”

Adrian reached for his wine. The corner of his mouth did something dangerous before the glass hid it.

Beatrice spoke for the first time since introductions. “You have married beneath you, Adrian.”

“No,” Adrian said. “I married where the contract required.”

“The contract was never meant to be honored.”

The room tightened.

Elara looked from Beatrice to Adrian. “Interesting.”

Beatrice’s gaze cut to her. “Do you imagine that document makes you one of us?”

“God, I hope not.”

A laugh burst from Felix Harrow, bright and delighted. “Oh, she’s marvelous.”

“She is temporary,” Lady Sloane said.

Adrian set down his wineglass. The sound was not loud, but every conversation died around it.

“Careful, Marwen.”

Lady Sloane’s eyes glittered. “Is that a warning?”

“A kindness.”

Elara felt the temperature drop. The candle flames bent as if a door had opened somewhere behind the walls.

Servants entered with the second course: venison in dark sauce, roasted pears, potatoes cut thin as coins. The meat was nearly raw at the center. Blood pooled beneath it, staining the porcelain. Elara stared at her plate and thought of the portrait above the fireplace, the stag with human eyes.

Lord Crane carved into his portion with relish. “Tell us, Mrs. Blackthorn—”

“Lady,” Adrian corrected.

Lord Crane paused. “Of course. Lady Blackthorn. Tell us, what did your father say of this arrangement?”

Elara’s fingers tightened around her knife.

“He’s dead,” she said.

“Before that.”

“We didn’t discuss my hypothetical forced marriage over tea, if that’s what you mean.”

“Forced?” Beatrice repeated softly.

Elara looked at Adrian. He looked back, unreadable.

There were a dozen ways to answer. A dozen snares. If she accused him outright, she weakened herself before them. If she pretended affection, she handed Adrian a victory he had not earned. If she stayed silent, they would write the story for her.

So she smiled.

“You all seem disappointed,” she said, “that I arrived alive and opinionated. Was there another version of dinner planned?”

Felix leaned back in his chair, eyes shining. “Perhaps we expected tears.”

“Then you should have married him.”

Lord Crane barked a laugh. Lady Sloane’s mouth hardened. Beatrice did not move at all.

Adrian’s gaze rested on Elara as if he were seeing her in a different light. Not softer. Never that. But closer. As if some hidden mechanism inside him had turned, recognizing a matching gear.

It made her angry that she noticed.

It made her angrier that heat gathered low in her body beneath the weight of his attention.

Don’t be a fool.

The warning sounded in her father’s voice. Or perhaps her own.

Sir Magnus spoke quietly. “We are not here to frighten Lady Blackthorn.”

“Aren’t we?” Felix asked.

“No.” Sir Magnus looked down the table. “We are here because the estate has entered a legal alteration, and certain protections have been triggered.”

“Protections,” Elara said. “That’s a pleasant word for a room full of people who look as if they’re deciding how to divide a carcass.”

Beatrice lifted her glass. “A house like this is not a romance, girl. It is an inheritance. A weapon. A debt. You have married into centuries of obligation without understanding the first thing about the blood you’ve stepped in.”

“Then enlighten me.”

Beatrice smiled. “No.”

Adrian’s knife rested untouched beside his plate. “Enough.”

“Not nearly.” Beatrice turned to him. “You bring Thomas Voss’s daughter into this house days after his death, bind her name to yours, and expect no questions?”

Elara’s pulse jumped.

“Ask them,” Adrian said.

“Very well. Did he give it to her?”

The words struck Elara with the force of a slap.

Adrian did not move.

“No,” he said.

Beatrice’s eyes narrowed. “You’re certain?”

“I searched what she brought.”

Elara turned on him. “You searched my things?”

“Yes.”

No apology. No shame. Just that calm, infuriating honesty.

Her face burned. “When?”

“Before you woke this morning.”

The room listened greedily.

Elara leaned toward him, voice low. “Touch my belongings again and I’ll break your fingers.”

Adrian’s eyes dropped briefly to her mouth. “I believe you.”

The intimacy of it—quiet, dark, and entirely misplaced—sent something electric across her skin. She looked away first and hated herself for it.

Lady Sloane swirled wine in her glass. “A charming marriage.”

“Better than some,” Elara said. “At least both parties are breathing.”

The instant the words left her mouth, she knew where they would land.

The room froze.

Adrian’s first wife entered without footsteps, without flesh, summoned by a sentence.

Celeste.

Elara knew the name because every whisper in town had given it to her. Celeste Blackthorn, found dead at the foot of the old chapel stairs. Celeste, with a broken neck and bruises no one explained. Celeste, whose face had been scratched from at least three portraits in the western corridor.

Adrian’s expression did not change, but something behind his eyes shuttered.

Beatrice looked pleased.

“Careful, child,” she said. “Some ghosts dislike being mocked.”

Elara held Adrian’s gaze across the narrow space between their chairs. For one terrible second, she saw—not guilt. Not anger.

Pain, buried so deep it had fossilized.

Then it was gone.

“Celeste loved dinner parties,” Felix said softly. “Until she didn’t.”

Adrian turned his head.

Felix’s smile remained, but his fingers tightened around the stem of his glass.

“Say her name again,” Adrian said, “and I will have Vale draw up your will before coffee.”

Felix went pale beneath his golden charm.