CHAPTER 84: CHAPTER 84: DANGEROUS GAMES

MAEVE’S POV

Of course I’d been nervous! I wanted her to deny she ever started it—it would be dangerous dancing that close to the Council of Ash Creek.

If they smelt even a drop of blood in the water, Nina would be exposed, and eventually, me. Our mission would be damned.

But Nina had assured me, only requesting that I tell her everything I remembered from the night of the Severance.

Not much had happened, if I was being honest—I’d told her how Ivan had thrown Rivierre against the tree and stormed off in rage, but nothing more had happened.

I’d advised that she stick to the script, that she saw him fling the priest and seem unsteady—but she only gave me a smug smile and returned a few hours later with an even brighter one.

"It went perfectly," she had said. "Devon would be proud of how far we’ve come. And I’m even more proud of you for putting the good of Darkwind over your past with Ivan. You’d make an excellent Luna to Darkwind."

I should have asked what her words meant then—demanded to know every single detail of what had happened within the closed doors of the Council chambers.

Maybe even asked if Ivan was okay... but I didn’t ask. I didn’t ask for the details. I didn’t want them. The thought of lying that hard, that clean, pressed on my lungs.

But I kept repeating the only thing that would let me sleep: greater good, greater good, greater good.

I didn’t come back to Ash Creek to play fair or coddle Ivan with love and care. I came back for the Black Book. For leverage. For the door out. For revenge.

So if it meant his damnation, then so be it.

That had kept me going for the last few days, and even when the outlandish rumors suddenly broke out on Asha and I, I ignored them. The snide looks. The mutters about me being a fraud, about my son being—well. I wouldn’t repeat it.

Let them rot in their own bile. The pack had always needed an easy villain, and if I have to wear the horns to get what I need, I’d wear them.

I just needed to move faster. Before the mess died down. Before Ivan stopped pretending not to see me and turned that full, obsessive attention back where it had always been—me.

Find the book. Get it to Devon. Get my son out clean. That’s the plan. Everything else was noise.

That would explain why I was currently consumed by my search for the bloody book in the late Alpha King’s private study—which was more like a library, accessed exclusively by a few and guarded heavily by the pack warriors.

All week I’d waited for the perfect opportunity to slither in and get this over with, but the guards circled the premises like lions, never letting even the maids come too close.

That meant this was the jackpot location of the Black Book.

I’d be damned if I let the opportunity slide when a royal announcement was passed for the summoning of every member of the mansion to the throne room.

It seemed serious, and in another life, I might have been consumed by curiosity and followed the swarm of guards and workers to the destination, but my relentless need to finish this job outweighed everything else.

And once the guards left their spot, it was like a ray of sunlight had finally descended on this dark and dreary journey so far.

Already, I had mapped out a bunch of areas that were the most promising to ransack in the late Alpha’s study.

It was a large, massively official space with a mini library at the other end of the room—featuring war books, wolf biology, plans, and all sorts of fiction and nonfiction texts.

There were also the back-end shelves, organized in uniform rows, with barely any space between them.

There was the safe behind the study table. It was mostly hidden away from view and seemed like the perfect spot to hide something as shady as the Black Book.

Lastly was the drawer atop the fireplace. The drawer had always been locked, from the few times I’d come in here to invite the late Alpha Roderick for dinner years ago.

But from my knowledge, in which I had worked here as a maid-bride, I knew that the key was stowed away next to the fireplace’s grater.

As I ran my fingers through the surface of the grater, I was pleased to find that even after five years, the key was still being kept there.

I pulled the key out and went about trying to get the drawer to open.

For a moment, I hesitated—this was it. If I found that book, there would be no going back. Ivan’s fate would be sealed. And so would my place at Devon’s side.

But at what cost...?

The drawer clicked open after a few more tries. Hurriedly, I pulled the top off and rummaged through the contents.

There were mostly papers inside the drawer. Bank statements. Legal contracts. Treaties and deals between Ash Creek and other packs.

No sign of the Black Book.

Fucking hell.

Undeterred, I re-locked the drawer, taking care to return the key to the exact spot I had taken it from.

I gravitated toward the study table next. Thankfully, the drawers behind the table were unlocked. Searching them was quite easy. The next was the safe, using a code hidden away in the drawers.

It seemed the late Alpha’s books and journals were yet to be cleared out of the desk.

There were stacks of books and scrolls, all bearing his curvy handwriting. There was even a half-written letter among the pile of papers.

It seemed he had been in the middle of writing a letter to the High Elders’ Council before he had died.

The letter bore his concerns about Ivan’s succession to the Alpha throne.

His sentences were imploring and pretty much beseeched the council to instate Ivan as Alpha upon his death, regardless of the fact that he had no heirs.

I returned the letter to the drawer and searched through the pile of books a second time before I concluded that the Black Book wasn’t in the drawers or safe.

With the drawers out of the way, I approached the bookshelves. My heart pounded as I searched the aisles.

My fingers shook as I scanned the spine of every last book on the rows.

I said a prayer to the Goddess for my fingers to finally come in contact with the book.