Page 79 of Guarded By The Alpha

The lawyer had no rule ready for that framing.

I saw the senior seat lean forward.

Tara gave the bloodline analysis when I finished. She delivered it with the matter-of-fact precision I'd come to rely on—the way she made the biology translate into something a board could weigh, finding the exact line between science and what the rules would admit.

"The records show a consistent pattern of finding bloodlines, suppressing them, and holding them," Tara said. "The markers in Ms. Hale's mother match methods that have been in use for at least thirteen years."

The chamber went quiet.

Not the quiet of shock. The quiet of a room reorganizing around new information.

The lawyer made one last motion—a request for recess and outside review before the board decided anything.

The senior seat denied it without conferring.

"The evidence is sufficient for this board," he said, his voice carrying the weight of decades. "We'll proceed."

Forty-seven minutes.

I sat at the table and didn't move. Didn't look at the back of the hall. Didn't reach for the bond even though I wanted Roan's presence more solidly under my hand.

I'd done what I came to do. The rest was out of my hands.

When it came, the senior seat delivered it flat.

"The Council's bloodline program is a documented violation of accord law," he said. "The Council's authority is suspended pending full review. Lucian Drake is transferred to oversight custody for proceedings."

A pause. His eyes moved to me.

"The Pack Guard Agency's standing is confirmed."

The chamber began to empty.

I was still gathering my records when Roan reached me.

He moved through the thinning crowd with the precision of a man who was done standing on the far side of any room I was in. Not rushing. Not hesitating. Simply arriving, because that was where he meant to be.

I looked up and found him there, gold still at the edges of his eyes, his breathing not quite steady.

I didn't say anything clever.

"Nova," he said.

"I know," I said.

He put his hand over my mark—not possessive, not as a claim—the way a man touches something already and completely and permanently his. The silver warmed under his palm, the bond resonating between us like a circuit finally, fully closed.

Through it, I could feel him: relief so deep it shook through the connection, certainty underneath, and something else—something that had been waiting for this moment longer than either of us had words for.

The team gathered in the corridor outside.

Jace gave me a single chin-dip. Economical. Unmistakable. From a man who didn't overspend his approval, it was the highest praise he had.

Gideon let himself, briefly, wear the expression of a man who'd spent three years building toward this and was allowing himself to know it had worked. Contained. Precise. Entirely him.

Maddox caught my eye across the corridor with the slow nod I'd learned meant I'd been folded fully inside the line of what he protected. Not an outsider who'd done well. Pack.

Tara linked her arm through mine and walked out beside me. I let her without pulling back. Neither of us said anything, because we were both women who knew when a thing didn't need narrating.