I Refuse To Be Your Luna (Flourish and Harold) novel Chapter 167

Chapter 167 Trouble Incoming

Alpha Damian’s POV

20

Finished

I’d stayed outside her building longer than strictly necessary, watching her window until the light behind the curtains finally went dark.

I’d sent five messages in a row like some love-struck fool with no discipline left in him, and she hadn’t answered a single one.

My wolf paced, restless and thoroughly unimpressed with itself, some part of me convinced I’d genuinely overstepped something tonight, though I couldn’t quite pin down exactly where.

I called Julian before I’d thought better of it.

He picked up groggy, half asleep. “Alpha Damian. What emergency requires midnight consultation now?”

“I need an answer,” I said, skipping past any pretense of small talk. “Why do women ignore messages?”

A pause. “Excuse me?”

“Why don’t women reply to texts, Julian.”

A short, dry laugh crackled through the line, entirely too pleased with itself. “Well. Most of the time, if a woman’s gone quiet, it means the man annoyed her. That’s the standard interpretation.” A beat, lazier now. “Someone leave you on read, Alpha Damian?”

I hung up without answering, my jaw tight, my wolf simultaneously irritated and, somewhere underneath that irritation, entirely too aware that Julian probably wasn’t wrong.

I was still turning that over in the back of my car when my phone rang again, Fenwick’s name lighting up the screen this time.

“Alpha Damian. You’ll want to hear this before morning.”

“Go ahead.”

“Ragnar landed twenty minutes ago. Harold called him the second he touched down, though from what my contact overheard, he downplayed most of it. Said the trend was already losing heat, nothing worth worrying about.” Fenwick paused. “Ragnar didn’t believe him. He had someone confirm the story independently before Harold finished the call.”

My wolf went still, sharpening its attention the way it always did whenever a piece of tonight’s chaos started connecting to a piece I hadn’t expected yet. “And then?”

1/3

12:00 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 167 Trouble Incoming

201

Finished

“He called Phina directly. Not gently, from what I’m told. Reminded her the Stonehedge name doesn’t survive scandal after scandal without consequence, and that once she’s married into the family, every headline reflects on all of them.”

“Understandable, given the circumstances.” I kept my voice level, though something in me was already bracing for whatever came next in Fenwick’s report, some instinct insisting the next sentence was the one that actually mattered.

“She didn’t take it well. Told him she’d been framed. And then she told him who she believed was behind it.”

I already knew the answer before he said it, my hands tightening slightly around the wheel regardless.

“Flourish,” Fenwick confirmed. “Told Ragnar that Lady Flourish orchestrated the entire scandal out of jealousy, since she and Harold used to be close before the engagement fell apart. Framed it soft, apparently. Concerned rather than accusing. Ragnar’s the kind of Alpha who responds to soft a lot faster than he responds to shouting.”

Something cold settled through my chest, colder than the frustration I’d been carrying since Harold grabbed her wrist in that parking structure an hour ago. This wasn’t simple jealousy anymore, not on Phina’s end, and I doubted it had ever been that simple to begin with. She’d taken a genuine accident, my own driver clipping Harold’s car, folded it seamlessly into a narrative that painted Flourish as a scorned woman still circling her old life, and handed the entire story to a man whose good opinion mattered enormously to how the Stonehedge council would eventually treat her once she wore their name.

“Did Ragnar believe her?” I asked, though I already suspected I wasn’t going to like the answer.

“Enough to want confirmation. My source says he’s asked his assistant to arrange a meeting. With Alpha Garret, specifically.” Fenwick’s voice tightened. “He wants to discuss his daughter’s conduct, before this reaches the council floor and becomes something considerably harder to walk back.”

My wolf came up snarling, every trace of the earlier, softer frustration burning away entirely.

Garret would fold the second Ragnar applied real pressure, desperate as he was for this alliance to actually materialize, and Flourish would be the one left absorbing whatever compromise her father struck to smooth things over.

A public apology, perhaps. A quiet withdrawal from every case connected to Phina’s name, Ethan’s included, the very case I’d just spent tonight convincing her I trusted her to carry on her own terms.

I’d told her, hours ago, that I wouldn’t decide things for her anymore. That every time, I’d explain first instead of simply acting.

2/3

12:00 Thu, Oct 1

Chapter 167 Trouble Incoming

This time, waiting to explain wasn’t a luxury either of us actually had.

Finished

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