Unmatched Wife: Not His To Claim Anymore novel Chapter 175

Chapter 175

MATTHEW

Beta Adam came to my office at eight–thirty in the morning.

I hadn’t expected him. Had been sitting at my desk with coffee I hadn’t touched yet, going through the messages that had accumulated overnight–pack members who’d been at the assembly, some of who had written to say they’d been listening, some of whom had questions, a few of whom had said things that were harder to read and required more careful responses.

Marcus had shown me to my office and then tactfully disappeared, which was his way of giving me tim with something before he started organizing it. He’d been doing that more in recent weeks. Noticing when I needed the unorganized version of something first.

Adam knocked and came in without waiting, which was his usual way. He was a big man, a few years older than me, with the particular bearing of someone who’d been in pack leadership his entire adult life and had the confidence that came from that. We’d had a complicated relationship across the years of my Alpha position–he’d disagreed with specific decisions, expressed those disagreements directly, and maintained a loyalty to the pack’s wellbeing that I’d sometimes found inconvenient and was now, in retrospect, grateful for.

He sat down across from my desk without being invited to, which was also his usual way.

“I’m withdrawing the petition,” he said.

I looked at him.

“Not because last night fixed anything,” he added, before I could respond. Because withdrawing it is the right move given where things are. The pack needs to settle, not go through a formal challenge process right now.” He met my eyes directly. “I’ll be watching. Everything you said last night–ll be watching to see if it holds.”

“That’s fair,” I said.

“It is,” he agreed. He stood. He hadn’t sat for more than thirty seconds. The healer situation needs to be addressed first. Before any of the trade relationships, before any of the political rebuilding. The packs health infrastructure collapsed when Blanca died and nobody’s said that clearly until now

“I know,” I said “I’ve started the outreach already There’s a qualified heater in the Westfield pack who s been considering a move Marcus is working on the contact

Adam nodded once Not approval exactly More like logging information Good He moved toward the door, then paused “Morrison What you said last night, about your son. About what he taught you He stopped there, looking at the doorframe rather than at me “My father died when I was six My mother used to say similar things about watching children handle grief. That they showed you what you were supposed to do.” He paused. “I don’t know if that’s useful information. I just thought I’d say it.

He left before I could respond.

I sat at my desk for a moment, looking at the empty doorway.

A beginning. That was what last night had been. Not a resolution, not a repair, not a clean return to h things had been before I’d damaged them. Just a beginning.

I was learning to hold those without demanding they be more than they were.

Marcus appeared in the doorway approximately three minutes later, which meant he’d been nearby a had timed his entrance to give me exactly enough space and not more. “Adam’s gone,” he said.

“He withdrew the petition.”

“I know. He told me in the corridor.” Marcus came fully into the room. “How are you feeling about it?”

“Relieved,” I said. “And aware that relief is premature.”

“That’s probably the right response.” He sat across from me where Adam had been and set down a folder. “I have the morning summary. Nothing urgent. A few responses to last night that you’ll want to read, some of them positive, two that are cautiously supportive which in pack terms is practically an endorsement, and one from Sandra Harker’s mother.”

I looked at my cold coffee.

“She doesn’t say she’s coming back,” Marcus said. “But she noticed that you noticed.”

“That’s enough,” I said.

Something had shifted in me at the assembly. Not dramatically–not the way stories described transformations, with a specific moment of change that you could point to afterward and say, there, that was it. More like something settling that had been unsettled for a long time. The particular relief of saying the true thing and surviving it. Of standing in a room full of people who had every reason to reject what you were offering and finding that some of them were willing to receive it.

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