Page 90 of Mane Rival in Store

“Breezy timed it. She was on the phone.”

“Breezy was on the phone at four in the morning?”

“Breezy is always on the phone. Breezy doesn’t sleep. Breezy is powered by organizational fury and the knowledge that without her, this entire operation would collapse into chaos.” Lark poked his chest. “She also timed your roar the other night. Eleven seconds. She’s filed it in a document titled ‘Supernatural Event Log.’”

He dropped his forehead to hers. Closed his eyes. The laughter building in his chest was the kind that would have been impossible eight weeks ago—the kind that required surrender, that required trusting another person with the parts of yourself that weren’t curated or controlled or arranged under glass.

“You’re smiling,” she observed.

“Apparently.”

“The full one. The one that makes Dekel text your sister.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Good.” She kissed the corner of his mouth. Light. Proprietary. The kiss of a woman who had mapped his expressions and claimed her favorites. “Keep doing it.”

The bell above the shop door chimed. Rune’s arms didn’t drop—they adjusted, shifting Lark to his side, one arm around her shoulders, the reflexive repositioning of a mated alpha who kept his mate close in public and no longer bothered to pretend the gesture was accidental.

Yara Vender-Lindgren stood in the doorway.

The councilwoman’s gaze swept the store with the calibrated precision of a woman who assessed every room she entered for threats, allies, and furniture that needed rearranging. She took in the scene: Rune and Lark side by side, his arm around her, her hand resting on his chest, the archway between the stores glowing purple and gold, takeout containers on the counter beside a case of authenticated first prints.

“Alpha.” The formal address. The signet ring tapping once against her thigh—the gavel sound, the processing tell.

“Councilwoman.”

Yara’s eyes moved to Lark. The assessment was thorough, unhurried, conducted entirely through silence. She took in the bandaged shoulder. The blazer that covered it without concealing it. The posture—standing beside the alpha, not behind him. The hand on his chest that was not seeking support but offering contact.

“I’ve been informed of the legal proceedings against Fallon Creed.” Yara’s English was precise, accented, each word carrying the weight of centuries of Pride protocol. “The evidence was compiled through a joint operation between the alpha’s mate and the Sterling security apparatus.”

“Correct.”

“The alpha’s mate conducted the undercover transaction personally. And sustained injury protecting a member of the Sterling bloodline.”

“Also correct.”

Yara was silent for four seconds. Rune counted them. Each second was a tectonic plate shifting beneath the surface of the councilwoman’s worldview—decades of tradition grinding against the evidence of a human woman who had bled for the Pride, built a case against its enemies, and stood in a conference room and dismantled a threat with words instead of claws.

She looked at Lark.

“You faced him.” Not a question. An acknowledgment.

“I did.” Lark’s voice was steady. No bravado. No performance. The same tone she’d used in the conference room—the Coleman cadence, earned through a lifetime of watching powerful women speak with precision.

“And the building?”

“Challenge filed. Acquisition will be voided.”

Four more seconds. The ring tapped twice. Then Yara performed an act Rune had never witnessed in years of council proceedings. She inclined her head. Not a nod—an inclination, the Scandinavian formal gesture of recognition, the physical language of a Pride elder acknowledging an equal.

“You are…” The word that followed cost Yara Vender-Lindgren a debt she would carry in her jaw for weeks. She paid it anyway. “…acceptable.”

Lark blinked. Her eyes cut to Rune. His expression was carefully neutral, which she recognized as the face he wore when he was suppressing a reaction so large that any fraction of it would crack the whole facade.

“Thank you, Councilwoman.” Lark’s voice was gracious. Measured. The voice of a woman who understood the weight of the word she’d received and would not diminish it with humor.

Yara nodded once more. Turned. Walked out with unhurried authority—the foundations of her worldview shifted, the aftershock hers to process in private.