Shattered Bonds A Second Chance Mate (by Yui) novel Chapter 200

Chapter 200

The morning began with warmth and work.

By the time the first gold reached the lintels, the dining hall had already shed its old skin.

Windows thrown wide; shutters unlatched that hadn’t moved in years; dust coaxed out of beams with brooms and laughter.

Maria moved through it all like a captain on a ship she had secretly loved for years–barking gentle orders, tying aprons, tasting sauces, tapping a spoon on a copper pot to call for more salt, more heat, more heart.

Maria…. The woman who had helped me go to Florence when I was no one–eyes empty, pockets emptier- and pressed a warm roll into my hand with a look that said eat first, cry later. The woman who quietly asked no questions and then quietly sent me to another country to find my future because she knows about my talents.

Now she was here, sleeves rolled, hair pinned, ruling a French kitchen in Italian.

She caught my eye as I came in from the garden and, just for a heartbeat, her sternness cracked into a grin wide enough to be a hug.

“Don’t just stand there, bambina,” she called, shooing a boy away from a tray of figs. “If Luna wants flowers on a breakfast table, Luna had better pick them.”

“I did,” I said, holding up a basket of lavender and rosemary. “And if you complain about the rosemary, I will tell everyone how you used to scold your previous Alpha for stealing the leaves off your roasts.”

She sniffed, unashamed. “God bless him. And I dare slap his hand.”

I give her a small smile since we all know what happened with her old territory, the place where my rejected mate became her Alpha. And now they’re gone.

We worked until the hall breathed.

It mattered that breakfast was more than food.

The previous Alpha–Henri–had hoarded rooms like coins, locked doors like secrets, turned hallways into silences. No more. If we were to mend this place, we would do it where packs learn each other’s faces: at a table.

When the platters finally went out, the smell made even the guards swallow hard: roasted game and eggs with herbs, bread still steaming, cheeses dusted with rosemary, bowls of figs and apples, honey set in shallow dishes like little suns.

Silver plates lined the center, polished until they caught the light and gave it back twice.

The flowers I’d brought from the garden were tucked into small clay jars–humble, fragrant, honest.

People drifted in.

12:00

Tue, Sep 30

Chapter 200

Warriors first, shy as wolves in a new clearing. Then elders, carrying their dignity and their suspicion in equal measure. Children peeked around skirts and were promptly caught by Maria and handed pieces of pear with fierce mercy.

A few dignitaries from neighboring packs, and a handful of French Alphas‘ lieutenants who had not yet ridden home with their masters–men who measured the room in angles and leverage. All of them slowed when they saw the table. All of them breathed different when they saw the windows open.

And then Francesco.

He entered like he always did–quietly, and yet the air seemed to stand to attention. Alfonso at his shoulder, Marlow somewhere to the side with a mouth already set for work, a pair of high warriors posting themselves like bookends by the far doors.

“Good morning,” he said, and smiled.

The room startled.

There’s a sound a hall makes when it realizes the wolf at the head of the table has teeth and tenderness both.

It’s small–like a held breath that escapes by accident.

That sound went around the room, and my heart softened at it.

“This is different,” he murmured to me, and when he brushed a kiss against my mouth there were audible gasps from a few of the French men clustered near the arch.

I felt his smile widen against my lips at the collective shock. He knew exactly what I was doing.

He set his palm over mine in full view and did not move it.

“There are more people coming into our territory,” I said, my voice carrying just enough, “so we should know them. And they should know us.”

He looked at me as if I had planted the sun.

“You’re right,” he said, turning to the room. “I should have welcomed you properly. I left too much to Alfonso.”

Alfonso bowed his head, unoffended and a little awed.

Several warriors who had never seen the King apologize for anything blinked as if they’d seen him change shape. Perhaps they had. A king who could hold a sword and a plate at the same time was a different kind of

power.

“Eat,” I called, lifting a carafe of wine. “Break bread with us.” I looked at the elders, at the young warriors with hollow cheeks, at the lieutenants whose eyes were sharp enough to shave wood. “We start as we mean to go on -in the open, with the windows unlatched.”

Chairs scraped. Platters moved. A hum rose that did not have to ask permission to be happiness.

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Chapter 200

州园

Maria swept by with a basket, thumped it down in front of a boy with a half–starved look, and then rapped the knuckles of a lieutenant who tried to serve himself before an elder. “We seat by age she informed him inca tone that could have curdled milk. “Not arrogance.”

The lieutenant, unused to being scolded by anyone, looked ready to bristle–until Francesco’s eyes slid Laxity in his direction and then away again.

The man sat down very quickly and reached for bread with humility he hadn’t known he possessed.

As plates filled, conversations unspooled.

An elder from the lakeside pack–one of Henri’s old allies who had stayed out of fear more than love– cleared his throat near me. “Luna,” he said, hesitating. “In our customs we… we do not sit with Alphas this informally.”

“In Florence,” I said gently, “we sit with those who are hungry.” I nodded toward the end of the table, where a fistful of boys were devouring eggs as if they were currency. “Our rank remains. Our manners remain. But so does our appetite for each other’s company.”

He studied me, the lines around his mouth softening. “It is… warm.”

“Yes,” I said with a small smile plastered on me. “It is.”

At the far side, a pair of French lieutenants–both of them quick–eyed men who’d clearly made careers reading the expressions of kings–watched Francesco with the fascination of hunters who’d discovered their prey sings. One of them leaned to the other. I heard the mutter, meant to be private: “They say the last Lycaon never smiles.”

“He does,” the second answered, almost grudging. “For her.”

I poured wine into both their goblets without breaking eye contact. “He smiles for those who intend to stay,” I said lightly. “Wine?”

They flushed.

Took the wine.

Near the middle of the table, Monica sat wedged between two elderly women, refilling their cups as she quietly lectured a broad–shouldered warrior about letting the elders reach the platter first.

Audrey stood behind my chair, not eating, eyes doing her constant circuit of doors, faces, hands.

When she found mine, I tipped my chin toward a gap two chairs down.

“Sit,” I mouthed.

She shook her head.

Then Maria swept behind her, pressed a heel of bread into her palm, and pushed her bodily into the empty chair with a look that brooked no argument.

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Chapter 200

6:

Audrey–Audrey!—sat. I could have kissed Maria’s feet.

879

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It was going well. It was going human. That was precisely what I wanted–wolves who had learned to brace themselves in dining rooms learning to unclench their jaws.

Naturally, someone decided to test it.

He was tall, handsomely unpleasant, one of the French contingent who hadn’t left with Dorian–too curious, or too ambitious, to ride before the dust had settled. He’d watched the morning like a man counting coins, and when he finally chose his moment he stood with a goblet and a look that asked the room to notice him.

“To new customs,” he said. The room fell quiet by habit, not respect. “To windows open and tables wide. To a King who smiles.”

There was nothing wrong with the words.

It was the angle of his mouth that sharpened them.

Francesco lifted his goblet with serene politeness. “To full plates,” he agreed. “And to hands that do the work to fill them.”

The lieutenant’s eyes flicked. He hadn’t drawn blood. He sharpened the point. “And to history,” he added, louder now. “May it not repeat itself. We all know breakfast is pleasant. But Europe remembers the name Lycaon for other reasons.”

Damn it!

Conversations stilled; forks hovered.

I felt the room search Francesco’s face, hungry for the moment the wolf would stop smiling.

I set my goblet down and stood—not with a clang, but with a sound like a page turning.

“History does remember,” I said easily. “I remember it too. I remember the last time French Alphas decided rumor was easier than reading what was in front of them.”

A ripple. His eyes cooled.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he said, silk over stone.

“Of course you do,” I returned, sweet as honey left in the sun. “You came to our ward, saw a woman who raised a blade against her Luna being tended by our healers, and still you rode back to your masters with your pockets full of whispers. It’s heavy to carry a story that isn’t true. Come–set it down. Take bread instead.”

A quiet chuckle rolled along the table; Maria smothered a smile in a napkin.

The lieutenant’s mouth tightened.

He pushed again. “And what of the other stories? Of the Lycaon who ended his own brother? Of the father who ruled like a god? A kitchen does not erase a century of fear.”

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Chapter 200

“No.” I agreed gently. “A kitchen feeds the mouths that pass those stories along so they have the strength to learn new ones.”

Something like surprise flashed in his eyes.

He had expected a snarl.

He’d received a ladle.

He was not good with ladles.

He tried one more angle. “There is a saying in the north,” he said, glancing around for allies who were not there. “That a Lycaon’s mercy is a knife with a smile.”

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“Then it is a better knife than the one between your people’s shoulder blades,” I returned, my smile sharp enough to catch light. “We do not promise freedom and deliver famine. We do not call treachery a treaty. We do not claim to love our packs and then starve their tables to embarrass a king”

The line landed.

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