DRAVEN’S POV…
The air in my private study was suffocating, thick with the scent of expensive tobacco and the metallic tang of my own failure. I stood by the obsidian hearth, staring into the dying embers, my knuckles white as I gripped the edge of the mantle. The signed treaty, that cursed, blood-stained parchment, lay on my desk like a shroud.
I had been outplayed. In my own hall. In front of my own lords.
The door creaked open, a timid, hesitant sound that set my teeth on edge. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. The scent of jasmine and fear always preceded her.
"Draven?" Lyra’s voice was a fragile whisper, a thread of glass ready to snap.
I turned slowly, my Alpha aura flaring with a violent, jagged heat that made the shadows in the room cower. Lyra stood by the door,
