The Bloodline Of Betrayal

The kitchen

Morning came with the smell of bread and the sound of voices she didn't recognize.

Serah reported to the kitchens before dawn, the way Mira the housekeeper was expected to. She kept her head down, her hands busy, her ears open. Eleven years of training had taught her that information moved fastest through the mouths of people no one thought to guard themselves around.

By midmorning she'd learned three things worth knowing.

The pack was preparing for something. Extra guards at the eastern wall, extra supplies coming in by the cartload, tension threaded through every conversation like a held breath. Whatever it was, it hadn't been announced to the staff, which meant it mattered.

The man from last night had a name, finally, one the kitchen girls said with a mix of nerves and reverence. Ezra. The alpha's son. The heir.

And the third thing, the one that unsettled her most: nobody seemed to know he'd been at the gate last night at all.

"He doesn't usually greet new staff," said the older woman working beside her, kneading dough with the ease of decades of practice. "Doesn't usually notice new staff, if I'm honest. You must've made an impression."

Serah kept her hands moving, her voice light. "I doubt that."

"Mm." The woman didn't look up, but there was something knowing in the sound. "You watch yourself around that one. Kind to the people who work for him, colder than winter to everyone else. Man like that, you never know which version you're going to get."

Serah filed that away too.

She didn't see Ezra again until the sun was low, when she was sent to deliver a tray to the study wing and found him standing at the window instead of at the desk, watching the eastern wall like he could see through it to whatever was coming.

"You're supposed to knock," he said, without turning.

"The door was open."

"It wasn't." He turned then, and something in his face had shifted since last night, sharper, more guarded, like whatever softness had leaked through at her door had been carefully put away. "You're good. I'll give you that. Most people I catch lying get worse at it once they know I'm watching. You got better."

"I'm not lying about the tray."

That almost pulled something like a smile out of him. Almost.

"No," he agreed. "Just about everything else." He crossed the room, took the tray from her hands, close enough that she caught the low, woodsmoke scent of him, close enough that her pulse did something she didn't authorize it to do. "I did some asking today. About Kael's witch. The one nobody's supposed to know exists."

Serah's breath went very carefully even.

"There's a rumor," he said, voice dropping lower, "that Kael's been training someone since she was a child. Someone he's kept hidden for over a decade. Someone he's planning to use." His eyes didn't leave hers. "I'm starting to think I'm looking at her."

"That's an interesting rumor."

"It is." He set the tray down without looking away from her. "Here's what I can't figure out, Mira, or whatever your name actually is. If Kael sent you to destroy this pack, why do you look more afraid of him than you are of me?"

The question landed somewhere she wasn't prepared to defend.

"I need to get back to the kitchens," she said, and left before he could see exactly how close he'd come to the truth.

Behind her, he didn't call her back. He didn't need to.

She could feel him watching until the door closed between them.