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"Peace is a luxury afforded only to those who have strong men to fight for them," Mei Ling observed, her tone smooth as silk and twice as sharp. I sensed her eyes not on me, but on her son.

The faint clatter of silver on porcelain signaled the movement of my husband. A moment later, a plate was set in front of me. The scent of premium ribeye, charred just enough on the outside to lock in the juices, but essentially raw and dripping with dark, crimson blood, hit me.

I picked up my steak knife and fork, my fingers finding the silver. "It smells divine."

I cut a clean, precise piece, the blade gliding through the tender, raw meat. I brought it to my lips and ate, savoring the rich, metallic taste of the blood.

"Exquisite," I said, looking directly in Mei Ling’s direction with my clouded, unseeing eyes.

There was the faint rustle of her silk sleeve as she rested her chin on her hand, her sharp eyes cataloging every millimeter of my composure. The fabric whispered when it moved. Gunnar's cotton-polyester shirts made a duller, rougher sound when he shifted, fabric dragging against fabric.

"Yet you navigate your plate with remarkably little trouble, Rosalind." That was Fenrir's deep alpha voice. The wool he wore was a quiet, muffled hush.

"I may look like a sheep, but I'm still a wolf at my core."

"Interesting metaphor," said Mei Ling. "A sheep among wolves."

"I feel entirely comfortable here."

"I never said you were the sheep, dear."

"If I were leadership material, I doubt my mother would have been so eager to sign a marriage contract before I was a teenager. I'm not useless, but I'm also not very useful other than to tie a knot. So here I am, all in a pretty little bow."

Beside me, Gunnar’s hand moved under the kitchen island. His broad fingers brushed against my knee in a silent warning, or perhaps a gesture of protection. It was cute either way that he thought he had any control over me. There was a part of me that wanted to sass him. See if that would make him chase me out of this room and up to his bed.

"My mother certainly has grand ambitions," I confessed, leaning into Gunnar's touch. "She's a lioness who believes the entire forest belongs to her. But you misunderstand my role in her grand design, Mei Ling."

"Do I?"

"Sorsha views me as her greatest masterpiece, but also her greatest disappointment. She believes my blindness makes me defective, yet she expects me to be her perfect, obedient tool. She thinks she is the ultimate puppet master of the matriarchs. But from where I sit... I think she has severely underestimated her opponent."

By framing Sorsha as the arrogant aggressor and flattering Mei Ling’s terrifying competence, I accomplished three things at once:

First, I fed Mei Ling’s ego while acknowledging her true authority.

Second, I positioned myself as a disgruntled, mistreated daughter who might be willing to betray her mother out of spite.

And third, I set the stage for the two most powerful matriarchs in the tri-state area to lock jaws in a brutal shadow war for dominance. It was a masterstroke of political theater.

"You think I'm your mother's opponent?"

"I believe my mother thinks you are. I don't care either way. I'm out of her house, which was my goal since she signed that contract. What kind of mother could sign their child's life away like that?"

The accusation hung in the air because the Blackwoods had done, and would do, the same thing to each of their children.

"Luckily, I think it's going to work out for me." I picked up my fork again. "You can go head to head with my mother if you want. I'm going to focus on baby-making to assure my role here is secure."

Gunnar’s hand on my knee tightened briefly—a firm, heavy squeeze—before he pulled it away. I didn't need to see his face to know that squeeze matched the quick wince that had crossed his features. Was he thinking back to our wedding night and his breach of my hymen?

I was too. Though my memory of the brief pain had all but disappeared and all I could remember was the stretching and fullness. I wanted to feel that again before I left this house for good.

I had no desire to get pregnant. Not when I could pass this disability onto another living soul. I wasn't that cruel.

Gunnar likely took me at my word and thought I was trying to secure my place in the Blackwood pack. He had no idea what I was really up to. No one did. And I would keep it that way until my plan was done.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

GUNNAR