Only for Her

Milley Pov 

I wiped the last streak of paint from Liam's desk and stepped back to check my work. His room was finally spotless.

In my old Pack, a room this clean would have earned me a grunt at best. Here I couldn't tell what it would earn me, and that unsettled me more than a scolding would have. I had noticed small things since I arrived. The kitchen maids hummed while they worked. The guards teased the stable boys. When Matthew crossed a room, people spoke to him instead of going quiet. Where I came from, silence was how you showed respect. Here it seemed to mean something had gone wrong.

Downstairs, voices rose from the entrance. His mother's carriage had arrived. The window sat open a crack, enough to let the sound in, and I went to it.

She stepped out in a deep burgundy traveling gown, a tailored coat across her shoulders. Exhaustion shadowed her face, but her back stayed straight and her movements unhurried. The Mate  of the High War Councilor had no need to raise her voice to command a room. The servants lining the steps hadn't been told to stand taller, yet every one of them did. Halfway across the courtyard she lifted her eyes to my window, as if she had felt someone watching, and I stepped behind the curtain before she could find me.

Liam stood at the foot of the steps. "Mother."

His voice had lost its usual edge.

"You look thinner," she said as she came to him.

"You look tired."

"I've been traveling."

"You should have sent word. I'd have come to get you."

"And deprive you of the pleasure of pacing?"

"I wasn't pacing."

"Of course not."

She held out her hand, and he bent to kiss her knuckles, then drew her into a careful embrace, one hand cradling the back of her head. For a moment he looked younger. He was no longer the Alpha who could silence a room with a single cutting remark, only a son relieved to have his mother standing in front of him.

"Have you eaten?"

"Yes."

"Properly?"

"Liam."

"Fine. I'll have tea sent to your room."

"I can still decide when I want tea."

"And I can still worry when you look like you haven't slept."

She gave him a long look before a faint smile touched her mouth. "You haven't changed."

"Neither have you."

He passed her bag to Matthew with instructions to ready her room, then offered his arm and walked her toward the sitting room. I gathered my cleaning things and went downstairs. There was no reason to stay in his room now, and if I lingered, he would only find something else for me to scrub.

Matthew caught me at the bottom of the stairs. "Milley. A word." He glanced toward the sitting room, where tea was being carried in. "Liam's mother needs a quiet evening. Serve the tea, keep your head up, and if she speaks to you, answer her."

"Keep my head up?"

"She notices when people are afraid." He rubbed the back of his neck. "She doesn't like it. Usually she's angry at whoever caused it."

"Yes, Commander."

"Matthew."

"Yes, Matthew."

He looked at me as though he wasn't sure it had been worth the trouble, and walked off.

By the time I reached the sitting room, the tea had been poured. I kept to the edges, collecting empty cups from a side table while Liam settled across from his mother. She lifted her cup, and I saw her fingers tremble before she steadied them. Liam saw it too. He said nothing, only moved the sugar bowl closer to her hand, as though that had been his plan all along.

"Adrian tells me you've been refusing Father's suggestions again," she said.

His expression tightened a little. "Adrian needs a better hobby."

"He worries about you."

"Everyone seems to, lately."

"Perhaps you give us reasons."

He leaned back, but there was no anger in his face. "I'm managing."

"I know you are." She stirred her tea. "That isn't what I asked."

He held her gaze a moment, then changed the subject with the ease of a man who knew exactly which battles he was willing to fight. "How's the academy coming?"

"Your father says the new training wing is nearly finished."

"Not that one. The night school."

She set down her spoon. "You still haven't finished it?"

"The classrooms are ready. We need more tutors."

"And you mean to find them yourself?"

"I started it. I should make sure it works."

She studied him over the rim of her cup. "You've always had a talent for taking on more than you can carry."

"Someone has to."

"Your father thinks it's a distraction. He thinks the money would do more good on the borders."

"The borders have money. The people in my Pack who can't read the contracts they sign don't."

"And who's paying for the school?"

"I am." She gave him a look. "Most of it," he admitted.

A small smile crept onto her face. "There he is. My son, spending money before anyone can stop him."

"Would you rather I spent it on drinking?"

"I'd rather you did neither."

He laughed under his breath and reached for his tea. I slowed as I picked up a cup from the side table. A night school? Liam kept talking, unaware that I had stopped listening to my task and started listening to him.

"Most of the people who joined my Pack never had the chance to study. Some couldn't afford lessons. Others weren't allowed to go. A few can barely read." He said it flatly, as though discussing repairs to a roof. But he had built classrooms for people who had been denied the very thing I had spent my life secretly reaching for.

"So you're building a school for them," his mother said.

"Not just my Pack. Anyone who needs it can attend. Lessons run at night so people can work during the day." He turned his cup on its saucer. "A wolf who can read the law can't be lied to about it."

I stared down at the cup in my hands.

The first word I had ever sounded out was stamped on a flour sack. I had taught myself the rest from labels, from scraps of paper no one wanted, and finally from a battered book I had to hide under a floorboard. I had spent years stealing minutes, vanishing whenever someone walked in, learning what I could before someone took the pages away. I had imagined a classroom more times than I could count, a room where I could learn without glancing over my shoulder, a place where I could ask questions without fearing what came after. And if I could read the law, I could read what it said about men like Garrick. An Alpha's authority is bound by the laws of his Pack. It had never occurred to me that a place like that could exist inside an Alpha's Pack.

My fingers tightened around the cup.

Anyone who needs it can attend.

The words kept turning over in my head. I wanted to ask what they meant. Whether anyone truly meant anyone. Whether a wolf who had spent her whole life serving others could sit in one of those classrooms and learn as though she belonged there. But wanting something and asking for it were two different things, and I had learned that long before I learned to read.

Liam's eyes flicked toward me, and I realized I had gone completely still. His gaze narrowed. I waited for the sharpness, the what are you staring at, the order to get out.

"The cups, Milley," he said, without any of the edge I had expected.

I picked up the last one. I should have moved away. I should have kept my mouth shut and carried on as I'd been taught. Instead, I heard myself speak.

"Alpha?"

His attention shifted fully to me. I nearly swallowed the rest of the question. My old Alpha would have demanded to know why a servant thought she had the right to interrupt, and my fingers pressed into the cup until its edge dug into my skin.

"The night school," I said carefully. "Would someone like me be allowed to attend?"

The room seemed to grow quieter. His mother looked at me, but I kept my eyes on Liam. I had asked now. I couldn't take it back.

"Someone like you?"

I wished I'd said nothing. "An Omega. Someone who's never been to school."

For a moment he didn't answer. His gaze moved from my face to the cup clenched between my hands, and I made myself loosen my fingers before I broke it.

"The school is open to anyone who wants to learn."

It was a simple answer, with no promise in it and no offer to arrange anything for me. Yet he hadn't laughed, hadn't asked why I would need an education, hadn't reminded me that I was there to serve.

"Even me?" The words escaped before I could stop them.

His expression changed. It wasn't pity, which I would have hated, but something more intent, as though he were finally hearing the question beneath my question. "That's what anyone means, Milley."

I couldn't think of a single thing to say. For once I wasn't wondering whether I was allowed to want something. I was wondering what I might do if the answer was yes.

"Alpha?"

The voice from the doorway made me straighten. A guard stood there and bowed. "Forgive the interruption. A messenger has arrived with a request."

Liam turned toward him. "What request?"

"The Lycan Princess is traveling through our territory. She fell ill on the road, and her escort asks whether she may stay here tonight before continuing."

The room went quiet. Liam's mother slowly lowered her cup.

"The Lycan Princess?" Liam said.