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Fiona steps deeper inside while the door clicks softly shut behind her. “He insisted,” she says simply, “on wildflowers. Specifically cornflower blue and foxglove purple. Down to the edge of your skirt.”

My mouth goes dry. “Liam picked this dress for me?”

She nods. “He approved every detail. The cut. The fabric. The thread. Told the seamstress you’d want something timeless. No glitter, no sequins. Just something... honest.” Her voice gentles, but not with pity. “The same for the ceremony and reception details. He refused to let anyone else take over the planning.”

That admission sinks straight into the places I thought were closed off for good.

I can’t answer. Not with the way my heart is lodged in my throat.

Because suddenly I’m sixteen again, wide-eyed and cracked open, hearing the way he used to say my name. Feeling the careful way he never quite looked at me, too long, when he was with my brother. And I’m telling myself, fiercely, that those buried feelings don’t matter now.

That the affection I once clung to with shaking hands won’t turn into vines around my throat.

But they’re still there. That old love. I don’t think it ever died; just turned small and hidden after the void left inside after my brother’s funeral.

“You okay?” Lizzy’s voice floats in. I nod before I realize I have.

She picks up on it quickly. “I’ll give you guys space,” she mutters, eyes narrowing at Fiona before softening toward me. “Holler if she gets weird or asks you to smuggle guns or something.”

With that, she’s gone in a sweep of sass and suede boots.

The air tightens as silence falls between me and Fiona.

“May I?” she asks, nodding toward a velvet chair near the window. The golden light halos around her and I think about the times I followed my big brother to the O’Reilly’s house and saw her drinking tea in her backyard.

I nod and sit down stiff-backed across from her.

She pours two teacups with deliberate, elegant movements. Everything about her is restrained power dressed in linen and subtleties. I wonder if Liam gets that from her. Or if it’s what he learned watching her survive this world with her chin high and heart guarded.

“I remember always finding you on the back porch,” she says softly. “Braids still damp from the pool, following your brother and Liam like his little shadow. You’d always demand Liam make lemonade, and you always said he cut the lemon slices too thick.”

I blink, caught off guard by the memory.

Her gaze softens. “You were just a girl. And Liam, well, he was already shouldering more than most grown men. Even then.”

I stare at my teacup, the delicate china so different than the mugs she would offer when I was over at their home.

“I’m not here to try to convince you that the way Liam is going about this wedding and mating ceremony is right–”

I shoot my gaze up, holding her too-understanding eyes with my own. “Then why aren’t you stopping it? Why aren’t you helping me leave instead of taking a stroll down memory lane with me?”

The bone china teacup in her hands clicks gently in its saucer as she sets it down.

“Though I wish it were different, Liam isn’t doing this just because of some legacy or alpha obligation,” she says gently. “He’s responding to something older, something that he has no choice in either. You’re his mate.”

I chew the bottom of my lip as I consider everything I know about werewolves. After Seth shared Liam’s secret with me, I researched and learned everything I could about werewolves and their cultures. I spent too many days daydreaming about Liam declaring me his mate.

My hands tighten on the teacup handle. I hate the way something in me reacts—how the old ache, the broken heart I swore I buried, flutters behind my breastbone like it’s listening.

“If I’m his fated mate, then why did he cut me off?” I demand. The breath at the end of the question trembles. “Why did he humiliate me and then disappear for a decade? And Seth’s funeral? They werebestfriends and even if he broke my heart, he could have still been there for me as my friend. I needed him.”

Fiona looks at me for a long moment. Not with pity. Something clearer.

“Because Liam wasn’t allowed to be there.”

The air staggers from my lungs.

She leans forward, tea forgotten, and lays her hand over mine. “Your parents gave my husband a very clear message. Liam was never to show himself around your family again. Threatened him with the police.” Her voice falters slightly before smoothing over, “They blamed him. Your father, especially.” She swallows. “Perhaps not fairly. But completely.”