She awoke up to a smell, she couldn't quite place a finger on. How long had she passed out? She was too confused to focus on a single line of
thought as the events that had led her here, poured through her mind.
The banquet had dissolved into panic. Screams tangled with the sharp crack of glass, chairs overturned, and the music which had died mid-bow.
Kaelen didn't think. He was still half-drugged, still tasting the resin on his tongue, but instinct prevailed over poison. The arrow that should have pierced his throat sank instead into her side.
Lyra Vale. The Queen's fixer. The woman who had leashed him with silk and a smile sharp enough to slit throats.
She staggered, breath caught, blood darkening her gown in a fast, ruinous bloom.
The Wolf of the West moved.
Chains or not, he leaped across the floor in a heartbeat. Courtiers scattered, shrieking, too horrified to tell whether he meant to save her or finish her off. Kaelen had caught her against his chest before she collapsed. She was lighter than she should have been, all steel and edge until she went slack in his arms.
The hall gasped. A prisoner carrying the Queen's right hand? They were too preoccupied with keeping their own heads to go after him. They stared cowardly, as the fixer laid wrapped up in the monster's hold.
Lyra's lips brushed his jaw, the whisper thin and furious. "Don't make a spectacle."
Too late.
He strode out of the banquet chamber as if the Queen herself had commanded it, ignoring the cries behind him, ignoring Captain Delan's call for guards, as the court parted before him like reeds before fire.
The chamber she woke up in had not heard music in years. It was just stone and shadow, the air damp with the scent of long-dead fires. Once, Kaelen had hidden here as a soldier turned mercenary in the Queen's early campaigns. Now it was a hell-hole, they had forgotten.
Lyra was laid on a couch, dressed in moth-eaten velvet. The blood had already pooled beneath her, dark against her pale skin.
"Hold still." He'd commanded, voice was gravel, steady, commanding as he tore off her clothes with fierce savagery.
Her eyes were sharp and flew open even through the pain. "What are you doing? you'll ruin the gown."she'd said, sounding vain and alarming at the same time.
"You'll ruin yourself, if you keep talking," he countered, looking unruffled and unaffected by her.
He tore his shirt from his body and wrapped it around her while he pressed a cloth to her side. She'd given up and just hissed but didn't flinch. His hands were scarred, calloused, meant for swords, but his touch had been precise, almost delicate. He tied the makeshift bandage with the efficiency of a man who had saved comrades in worse places than this.
"You've done this before?" she murmured overcoming her embarrasement.
"Too many times." His pale eyes met hers in the gloom. "But never for someone who glares while bleeding."
She managed a weak laugh, but it was sincere.
The Silence stretched, heavy and strange. He could hear her breath quicken, could feel her pulse through the fragile bones of her wrist when he steadied her. She was fire and calculation even with blood on her lips, and it unsettled him more than the poisoned resin had.
"You'll never be free of them," she said finally, her voice a blade.
"The Queen's men. Delan. The court. They need someone to hang for Harrow's murder, and your head is the most appetizing."
"I don't run from hounds," Kaelen growled.
"Fool." She pushed herself upright with a hiss of pain. His hand went to steady her instinctively, warm against her ribs, and for a moment she let it linger. Too much. She shoved him away with a glare. "You can't fight an empire alone."
He leaned back, studying her as if the candlelight itself were a test. "And you?"
"I don't fight. I scheme and plot." Even with her fragile body, her voice was sharp enough to slice the air.
"Obey me for thirty days. That's the arrangement. You follow my lead and I keep you alive. After that..." She let the words trail, dangerous in their absence. "...We'll see."
"Thirty days," he echoed, low. It sounded less like surrender, more like an oath.
Lyra's eyes glittered. "If you disobey me in public, I'll let them cut your head off and call it a lesson. If you run, I won't follow. If you touch me without leave..." Her mouth curved, cold as winter. "...you'll regret it."
His gaze slid to her lips before returning to her eyes. "And if I stay?"
She leaned closer, pale but unbroken, breath sharp against his jaw. "Then you're mine."
Silence again. The kind that burned.
Kaelen's smile was a dangerous thing, slow and wolfish. "Yes," he murmured, gravel warm for the first time. "My lady."
Her lashes trembled, the smallest betrayal.
A crash outside shattered the moment. Someone shouted in the corridor, orders muffled by stone. The Queen's men were already sweeping the place.
Kaelen stood, every inch of him a storm. His shoulders bore scars like trophies, his stance both soldier and predator. Yet when he looked back at Lyra, bandaged, cold, furious, he almost seemed like something else.
Not brute. Not beast. Something sharper. Something more.
She caught that thought and locked it away. Dangerously unnecessary. When she rose to her feet, leaning only slightly against the couch, she saw it too, the way he filled the room, the way shadows bent toward him.
The Wolf of the West. The war-scarred mercenary. The man whispered about in taverns and courts. The man they all thought was disposable.
And yet... he moved with a rugged grace like he had once belonged among kings.
Lyra straightened her spine despite the pain. "We go back, it's already been a day." she said.
"You're still bleeding a bit."
"I'm calculating," she corrected. Her mouth tilted, sharp with purpose. "Let them see me at your side. Let them whisper. Every rumor buys us time."
Kaelen's eyes held hers. For one heartbeat, she thought he might refuse. Instead he extended his arm with a courtly precision that did not fit a mercenary at all.
She stared at him, at the refinement wrapped around scars, at the contradiction no one else seemed to notice. Then she placed her hand lightly on his arm, claiming the leash she'd fashioned, even as her pulse betrayed her.
"Thirty days," she reminded.
"Thirty days," he repeated, voice rich as sin.
When the chamber doors opened, the court would see them. Her pale but unbowed, him scarred but tethered. They would whisper that the Wolf carried her into the shadows, and now she led him out again.
And somewhere in the palace, a deadly scheme hatched, waiting eagerly to welcome them, right where they were wanted.
When the chamber doors opened, the court would see them. Her pale but unbowed, him scarred but tethered. They would whisper that the Wolf carried her into the shadows, and now she led him out again.
And somewhere in the palace, a deadly scheme hatched, waiting eagerly to welcome them, right where they were wanted.