The Princess and the Rogue Alphas

Chapter 6: The Map

Kael's quarters felt smaller in daylight.

The torch had been replaced by a single crack of grey light slicing through a gap in the stone ceiling. It cut across the dirt floor like a scar. I sat cross-legged on the bedroll with a scrap of leather and a piece of charcoal he'd tossed at me.

"Draw."

I stared at the leather. My hands were steady. Drawing was the one skill my tutors had never banned. It wasn't political. It wasn't dangerous. It was just lines and shapes and silence.

I sketched the eastern tower. Three levels. Spiral staircase on the north side. Servant's passage hidden behind a false wall in the chapel. Guard rotations—two men at the main gate, one at the dungeon entrance, shift change at midnight.

Kael crouched across from me. Watching. Close enough that I could see the flecks of darker silver in his irises. Close enough that his scent—washed away, but not gone, never fully gone—curled into my lungs like smoke.

"You draw well," he said.

"Useless talent."

"Nothing is useless if it keeps people alive."

I glanced up. He wasn't looking at the map. He was looking at my hands. The charcoal dust on my fingers. Something shifted in his expression. Softening at the edges before he caught it and hardened again.

"Guard change at midnight," he repeated. "How do you know that?"

"I counted."

His eyebrow lifted.

"Every week. For six months. I sat in the chapel and counted the footsteps until I knew the pattern better than my own name." I shaded the hidden passage. "It was the only control I had. Knowing exactly when I could move without being seen."

Kael was quiet for a long moment.

"Liora did the same thing," he said. "Counted. She used to count the seconds between thunder claps. Said it made storms feel smaller."

My chest ached. I didn't draw for a few seconds. Just let my hand rest.

"Tell me about her."

"No."

The word was sharp. Final. A door slamming shut.

But I'd seen the crack in his armor. The wetness in his eyes. And for reasons I couldn't explain, I wanted to push my fingers into that crack and pull it open.

"She counted because she was afraid," I said softly. "Like me."

"You're nothing like her."

"Then why can't you look away from me?"

He flinched. Actually flinched, like I'd struck him. His jaw worked. The silver in his eyes flickered—wolf close to the surface, agitated and hungry.

"Finish the map, Seraphina."

My name in his mouth was a warning. A brand. I returned to the leather. Added the final detail—the dungeon key. Where it hung. Which guard carried it.

"Done."

He took the leather from my hands. Our fingers brushed. A spark shot up my arm, sharp and electric. I gasped. He dropped the map like it had burned him and stood abruptly, putting three feet of distance between us.

"This is good." His voice was strained. "Too good. If Ronan verifies this—"

"He will."

"If he does, you've just bought yourself two days." He pressed his back against the wall, arms crossed, looking at the ceiling. Anything to avoid looking at me. "After that, you're a liability again."

"Then I'll find another way to be useful."

He laughed. Bitter. Broken. "Do you hear yourself? You're a princess in a den of rogues talking about usefulness like you're one of us."

"Aren't I? My father sold me for dead. Your pack kidnapped me. I have no crown, no kingdom, and no one coming to save me." I stood. My torn dress hung loose on my shoulders. "The only difference between me and you is that you chose this life. I'm still learning how."

Kael looked at me then. Really looked. And something in his expression terrified me more than any of the other three rogues ever could.

Because Kael didn't look at me like I was prey.

He looked at me like I was exactly the kind of disaster he'd been running from his entire life.

"You should rest," he said. "Tonight is going to be complicated."

"Why?"

He turned toward the door.

"Because Ronan called a pack vote. And you're the subject."

The door closed behind him.

I stood alone in the dark, my heart slamming against my ribs.

A pack vote.

I didn't know what that meant.

But the way Kael had said it made me certain I didn't want to find out.