Chapter 8 · Celeste Moves Into Master Bedroom

Celeste Vane had always been patient.

She'd waited three years while Sebastian married a designer with no pedigree and a smile that made pack elders uncomfortable. She'd waited through the mating ceremony, the Luna coronation, the charity galas where Zaia Blackwood stood in borrowed glory and pretended she belonged.

She'd waited through the whispers that the Alpha was *soft* on his human-raised mate, that the bloodline was diluted, that the pack needed a Luna who understood tradition.

She'd waited.

And when Sebastian finally cracked—when the pressure from the elders and the board and his own restless wolf converged—Celeste had been ready.

The master bedroom should have been hers from the beginning.

She stood in the center of it now, directing movers with the efficiency of a woman who'd rehearsed this moment a thousand times. Zaia's closet—what remained of it—was empty. The movers had taken the last boxes to storage, per Sebastian's instructions. The bathroom drawers had been cleared.