The Alpha Rejected Me, But I Carry His Heir

Chapter 6: The Serpent's Welcome

There is a problem, a major one, yet I say the word again with a familiar twang and savor the taste of bitter herb. "No, Lady Seraphine. I am here for a treaty.

Trouble would be...

Indiscreet."

Mm. She sweeps into the hall with a fluid grace and my every instinct honed by Silvercrest notes her: the Eastern dyes against pale skin, the smooth expanse of throat that lacks a mate-mark, the territorial way she orbits Kaelen without ever quite touching him. Not his Luna, then.

Not his mate.

But hovering on the perimeter of power like a scavenger at the feast of the dead. You’ve changed. I don’t recall seeing you outside a building. Last time you were carried by your ankles.

Dragged, in actuality. I say it with a calm I doubt my pulse could ever match. Accuracy is key, after all. It's how both of us will make it through this evening.

In the wake of her passing I catch Kaelen's eyes flicker.

A warning?

A plea?

Don’t-as if I would ever be foolhardy enough to unravel the meticulous secret of my own past before the very last person who deserved to keep it safe.

I meet his gaze blankly and move past it as easily as furniture.

"Kaelen," Seraphine says lightly, "you'll wish to have the Silvercrest delegation housed in the east wing. As far from the family quarters as possible. There is no need to have guests confused in halls which have no relevance to their stay."

"The heir Silvercrest," Rurik says, the words low and flat, "goes where the heir Silvercrest chooses."

It's perfectly all right, Rurik. I manage a smile at Lady Seraphine. I would very much prefer to be in the east wing.

My sleep is light, and I am a woman who has always slept with locked doors.

Habit dies hard, Rurik, when one has a lifetime of experience with being physically removed from domicile.

She flinches. Barely, but it is there.

"Enough."

Kaelen’s voice cracks through their exchange, and for the first time this entire evening it carries the full authority of the Alpha he is. "Seraphine.

The heir of Silvercrest is my guest and is here under the protections of treaty law.

She, and the entirety of her household, will be housed and attended to with appropriate respect in my hall. It is not your task to manage this."

The silence is tiny and venemous. Seraphine’s composure does not waver-she is far too refined for that-but I see the flicker of sheer recalculation behind those clever eyes, the frantic scramble of a woman who has just realized her foothold is less secure than she’d anticipated.

"My apologies," she says smoothly. "I meant only to be helpful." Her gaze skims past Kaelen and lingers, deliberately, for a long second on the corridor where the nurse disappeared with my children.

" I heard the most fascinating little rumor on my way in today.

It concerned our Silvercrest guests of honor and the sweet little things they brought with them-twins, I believe it was said." Her head tips to the side, a studied angle. "How fascinating. I had no idea the modern Silvercrest household permitted their heir to have children unattended and unclaimed.

Unless," a beat, delicate as a blade against glass, "they are yours, of course.

You do carry some claim through blood."

My every muscle wants to stiffen-want to shout-but I do not give it permission.

They are mine, I say without inflection, and not an inch less. They are mine through blood, and through bond and everything in between. Beyond the simple fact of their kinship, Lady Seraphine, the affairs of my family are of no business to this treaty, and it is entirely unfair of you to strain your perfectly beautiful neck reaching for rumors that are not to be found.

And so there are not, she agrees with saccharine sweetness. I am sure there is nothing that can be found.

Her eyes, however, flick from me to Kaelen, to the strange rigid stillness in him, the way he cannot take his eyes off me now, and I watch her add this observation to her mental repertoire. Not an conclusion. A question. A thread to pull at later.

She's changed since the time before. That's much more dangerous than her blatant enmity had been.

"I'm tired," I announce, before she can push any further. "It's been a very long ride and a much longer supper. Rurik, the east wing.

And Alpha Thorne-" I incline my head the precise measure of diplomatic regard and no fraction more-"we will begin our discussion of the full terms tomorrow.

All of them."

I feel the double meaning lodge itself somewhere deep in his throat, and I see his jaw clench.

Tomorrow.

Straightening my spine and tucking the last of my composure into a secure place within my heart, I walk the length of the hall toward the entrance and leave the sight of their faces-her smugness, his quiet tension-and step out into the welcoming arms of shadows. It’s not until I’m alone in the corridor, and the shadows close in on me like a blanket, that my hands begin to tremble.

Rurik falls into step beside me. He doesn’t speak until we are well around the bend of the hall before he murmurs close to my ear, She knows. She doesn’t know the details yet. But she knows that something is wrong.

I know.

The children have slipped wards that are not meant to fail under normal circumstances. Silvercrest wards don't falter for stray younglings. Someone had to open them.

Someone had to want my children here, right here, this evening.

To see this woman with him.

I stop walking.

The implication lands cold and complete, freezing solid everything I had been so carefully managing to push away. She's right. They're bold, my children, yes-but they are five years old, and neither two five-year-old wolves, nor the three hundred miles of Silvercrest’s best magic that separates us from them, could explain away the failure of wards set with such intention.

Someone had to have been the one who opened the door for them.

Someone wanted Kaelen Thorne to see those silver eyes.

Find out who, I murmur softly. Quietly. And trust no one.

And as I ascend the stairs toward the east wing, toward the room where my children are sleeping, still blissfully unaware of any danger, the question that has been haunting me all evening follows close behind, circling me like a wolf in the dark:

Just who else already knows my secret, and how much will they demand to keep it?