The Lunar Curse: A Second Chance With Alpha Draven novel Chapter 422

Chapter 422: Draven Answers to the Council

[Third Person].

Meredith’s name landed like a stone.

The next moment, chairs shifted, glasses paused halfway to lips. Some faces betrayed surprise; others slid into thin smiles.

For Meredith, the sound of her full name spoken by Draven in public, with no hesitation or evasions, felt like armour.

Just then, Draven seated himself and, under the table, let his fingers find hers. The gesture was subtle but unmistakable: his hand closed lightly over hers, an everyday claim that turned the air around them taut.

It was protection, yes, but also a quiet declaration to anyone who might test them.

On the other hand, Wanda sat with the practised mask of civility in place. Her lips curved in the correct way for applause, her glass rose with everyone else’s—but her eyes did not leave Draven.

She watched the hand between them, felt a burn of something close to panic under the smile. She swallowed it down and turned her head politely toward the person beside her, forcing a laugh that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

She would keep her composure; she always had. But the sight of Meredith sitting accepted, named, beside Draven was a coal in her chest.

Oscar, who had been quiet up to that moment, allowed the ghost of a small smile—then set his goblet down and observed the room.

He moved his gaze from Draven to Meredith and back again, reading the table with the ease of someone who had seen councils and courts and knew which conversations would turn to knives.

Dinner began in practised rhythm: platters passed, wine poured, talk kept polite. Yet underneath the surface, the room had shifted; the Elders were cataloguing and testing.

Voices quiet as they were, questions and calculations started to circulate like an undertow.

Meredith caught her father’s eye once more as the first plates were served. But he glanced away quickly, as if even the barest recognition was too much courtesy to give.

She did not reach for him or demand it. The old ache sat in her ribs for a breath, then eased eventually.

Across the table, Draven exchanged quick, economical words with Dennis and Jeffery—updates in a language that needed no long sentences. Oscar leaned in, and quietly, the three men began to thread over a conversation.

Meredith listened but did not join them. Instead, her fingers occasionally rested against Draven’s, and each time, his squeeze conveyed: I am here with you. I will protect you and handle them.

Wanda, for all her effort at calm, watched each small sign—how Draven brushed Meredith’s hand away from a spilt drop of wine and laughed at something Dennis said, how Oscar’s look softened into something unreadable.

She had grown up with them, so it was difficult to watch the scene without any emotion. She swallowed a jealous, bitter little sound behind her throat and swallowed it again.

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