Serena had perfected her smile long before she perfected restraint.
It curved softly, elegantly, never revealing teeth unless she chose to. It warmed rooms without inviting intimacy. It reassured elders without promising obedience. It concealed the tremor beneath her ribs when memory rose uninvited.
Tonight, she wore it like armor.
The estate hall glowed beneath chandelier light, gold spilling across polished floors, shadows gathering between columns like whispered conspiracies. Wolves clustered in small circles, voices low, glances sharper than claws.
Public claims are dangerous.
Alessandro had made one.
And she had felt it land like a blade she once expected for herself.
She remembered the ceremony as if it were carved into bone.
The incense smoke had curled upward in thin gray spirals. The elders had stood in solemn arc. She had worn white—not for innocence, but for lineage. For bloodline. For political inevitability.
