CLAIMED BY THE RUTHLESS ALPHA KING

chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Black Moon Court

I barely slept that first night. Kept going over it, the way he'd stood at that table, how his voice dropped when he stopped being careful. Told myself over and over it didn't mean anything. By morning I still hadn't talked myself into believing it.

Greta came back at first light. Introduced herself properly this time, said she'd run the King's household since before he took the throne. Her face didn't give much away, but she wasn't unkind about it, just busy, like she had a hundred things to get through before noon and I was somewhere on that list.

"He wants you fed before the court sees you," she said, laying a dress across the foot of the bed. Deep green, plainer than anything I'd worn to my own ceremony, but well made. "You'll meet the household today. Some of them won't be happy about it."

"Why not?"

She glanced at me like the question caught her off guard a little. "Because you're the first woman he's brought here meaning to keep. That makes you a problem for people who liked things fine the way they were."

I didn't push for more. I was already figuring out I wasn't going to get much explained to me here, not by anyone, not without asking three times over and still walking away half informed.

Breakfast was in a smaller room than the one from the night before, a table set for two, though only I sat down. Damian didn't come. Greta said he'd gotten called away early, something at the border, and didn't say more than that. Part of me was relieved. I don't know if I could've sat across from him again so soon without either finally asking the question I hadn't asked, or losing my nerve trying not to.

The court wasn't what I pictured either. I'd imagined something grand and cold, full of people who looked like they belonged in a story about a ruthless King. Instead I found a long hall of pretty ordinary looking wolves going about ordinary business, messengers, stewards, a few nobles standing around in small clumps, all of them going quiet the second I stepped in.

I felt every one of those quiet seconds on my skin like something physical.

A man broke off from one of the clumps and came my way, tall, dark haired, dressed sharper than most everyone else in the room. Easy smile that didn't quite make it to his eyes.

"You must be Elara Stone." He said it like he was testing the sound of it. "Lord Renard Ashby. Don't believe we've met."

"We haven't."

"No, I suppose not. Long way from Silver Hollow." His eyes dropped to my stomach for a second before coming back up, quick, on purpose, making sure I noticed him do it. "The King's announcement caught most of us off guard. He's never had much use for taking a Luna before. There must be quite a story behind you in particular."

"There's a story."

"You'll have to tell it to me sometime." His smile stretched a little, still nowhere near his eyes. "I've always had a soft spot for a good one."

Greta showed up at my elbow before I had to figure out how to answer that, said something about the King wanting me settled before the midday meal, and steered me off with a light hand on my arm. I let her, glad for the excuse to stop standing in front of a man who'd made it plain in under a minute exactly how unwelcome I was.

"Who was that," I asked once we'd gotten some distance.

"Lord Ashby." Greta's mouth went thin. "He's got a daughter he hoped might catch the King's eye. He didn't take the announcement well."

"He seemed pleasant enough."

"He's good at seeming things." She looked at me sideways. "Watch yourself with him. He keeps track of every kindness and every slight, and he treats both like currency."

The rest of that day was spent getting shown around a castle too big to memorize in one pass, meeting more people than I could keep straight, most of them polite in a way that felt rehearsed, a few not bothering to hide what they thought of me at all. One older woman, some kind of advisor from the way people deferred to her, looked me over and said, loud enough for a few others to catch it, that she hoped the King knew what he was doing, because from where she stood it looked like he'd gone soft over a pretty face and a sad story.

I didn't have a good answer for that either. I was starting to think I didn't have good answers for much of anything in this place.

I saw Damian again at the midday meal, seated at the head of a long table with maybe a dozen others, Ashby among them, the advisor woman a couple seats down. He didn't say much through the meal, mostly just listened, and I noticed how conversation seemed to organize itself around whether or not it would catch his attention, people watching him sideways the way you watch weather that might turn.

He caught me looking at him once, halfway through, held it a beat too long, and I felt my face go warm before I made myself look away.

"You've gone quiet," Ashby said from across the table, to me, loud enough for half the room to catch it. "Hoping Black Moon hospitality hasn't disappointed you already."

"Not at all."

"Good. Shame if you'd come all this way and ended up unhappy." His eyes flicked to Damian, quick, calculating. "Though I imagine the King would want to know if you were. He seems unusually invested in your comfort."

"Ashby." Damian's voice cut across the table, low, and every conversation dropped at once like somebody had pulled a cord. "You've made your point. No need to make it twice."

Ashby's smile didn't move, but something behind it did. "Of course, Your Majesty. No offense meant."

"Then it shouldn't be hard to stop giving it."

Nobody said anything for a long stretch after that. I felt every eye in the room bounce between Damian and Ashby and then, of course, land on me, everybody trying to work out exactly what I'd done to earn that kind of defense from a man the whole region seemed to agree didn't defend anybody.

I didn't get it either. Not really. Not enough to explain it to myself, let alone a room full of strangers already busy deciding what to make of me.

Once the meal ended and the hall started clearing out, Damian found a reason to walk near me, close enough to talk without being overheard.

"Ashby's going to keep testing you," he said, quiet. "He's not going to stop because I said something at dinner. Men like him don't work that way."

"Why does it matter to you? What he says to me?"

Something shifted in his face, quick, there and gone again the same way it had the night before. "Because you're under my protection now. Whatever else is true or isn't, that part's not complicated."

"Nothing about this feels uncomplicated to me."

"No." He looked at me a beat too long, same as the night before, like he was weighing how much to say and landing, again, on less than he wanted to. "I don't imagine it does."

He left it there, walked off toward whatever was waiting for him, and I stood in the emptying hall going over the whole thing again, no closer to an answer than I'd been the night before, except now I had a name attached to the doubt keeping me awake. Ashby. A court that didn't want me here. A King who wouldn't tell me why he'd asked for me by name but wouldn't let anyone else forget he had.

I thought about the necklace I'd left on that mountain three months ago, wondered where it ended up, wondered if whoever had it was standing somewhere in this castle right now, close enough to reach, still not willing to say the one thing that would make sense of any of it.

I didn't have proof. Just a feeling I couldn't shake, and a room full of strangers watching me try to hide it.