CHAPTER 83
MATTEO
PATIENCE IN SHADOWS
The room felt smaller than its actual was. Like I was trapped. Cold stone walls, faint wards humming like restrained power, the air thick with scent markers and dominance I couldn’t quite ignore. My wolf snarled quietly inside me at the sensation, muscles tensing and coiling with every careful step. I hadn’t crossed Alessandro’s territory this deeply without a plan. Now that I was here, the truth hit me: plans were fragile things, like mist over iron, easily scattered if you weren’t precise.
I sat in the single chair placed deliberately in the middle of the chamber, far from the windows, far from the door, far from anything that resembled freedom. My hands rested on my knees, but they twitched occasionally. The wolf wanted to pace, wanted to hit, w
