Chapter 11 A Marriage For The Pack

• Five years is long enough for a wound to scar over without ever fully healing, and in Everleigh, King Edmund had aged into a sadder version of himself, slower on his feet, quieter at supper, a man who still, on certain full moons, thought he heard singing drifting from an empty room down the hall and had to remind himself, every time, that the room really was empty and always would be now. His son's wolf had never once, in five years, gone fully gold again, the fire in Julian's eyes banked down to something duller, steadier, a man who did his duty well and laughed less than he used to and never spoke of the forest at all if he could help it.
• "It has been over five years since anyone has asked for your hand," the King told Ivy one evening, over a supper neither of them had touched much, in a way that had little to do with pack law and everything to do with the years since his hound had died, since the household had gone quiet in ways it had never fully recovered from. "You will need to mate, Ivy. Everleigh will need an heir from you as well as your brother, and your wolf, forgive me for saying it plainly, is not strong enough on its own to hold this pack after I am gone. You will need a mate whose strength can stand where yours cannot."
• The words landed exactly where they were aimed, and Ivy said nothing, only nodded, some old, tired part of her almost relieved to hear out loud the thing she had always known everyone was thinking anyway.