REJECTED BY ONE ALPHA, CLAIMED BY HIS DEADLIEST RIVAL

A TRAITOR AMONG ELDERS

The ring sat heavy in Grier's palm, a small piece of silver that had just rewritten everything Ariana thought she understood about the danger circling her.

"Say that again," she said. "Slowly."

"Someone inside Silverfang's elder council," Grier repeated. "Not Kael. Not the pack at large. The council itself."

"That's not possible." Ariana's voice shook. "Kael sat right there in that chamber. If someone on the council was moving against Blackthorn, wouldn't he know?"

"Not necessarily." Lucien took the ring from Grier, turning it slowly in the torchlight. "Elder council business often stays within elder council walls. Even the Alpha isn't privy to every decision they make."

"So one of them ordered an attack on your territory. Without telling their own Alpha."

"It would appear that way."

Mira crossed her arms, expression tight. "Question is why. What does a Silverfang elder gain from sending assassins after a Blackthorn target."

"Confirmation," Ariana said quietly, remembering the wounded man's words. "He said they were sent to confirm I was here. Not capture me."

"Confirmation for who," Lucien said. "That's what matters now."

Grier shifted uncomfortably. "Alpha, there's something else. When we searched the second body, we found this too."

He held out a folded scrap of parchment, edges stained dark with blood. Lucien unfolded it carefully, and Ariana leaned in despite herself, reading over his shoulder.

Confirm the bloodline. Report directly. Tell no one, including Draven.

No signature. No name. Just those four lines, damning enough on their own.

"Tell no one, including Draven," Ariana repeated. "Whoever wrote this doesn't trust Kael either."

"Or they're protecting him," Lucien said. "Keeping him ignorant so he can't be blamed if this goes wrong."

"Protecting him from what, exactly?"

"From whatever they're planning to do with you once they've confirmed what you are."

The words settled cold in Ariana's chest.

"We need to bring this to the council," she said. "Show them the ring, the note. Force them to explain."

"And alert whoever sent it that we know," Lucien said. "The moment we bring this forward, they'll cover their tracks. Destroy evidence. Silence anyone who might talk."

"So we do nothing?"

"We do this carefully." Lucien's eyes moved to Grier. "Get the wounded prisoner stable. I want him questioned the moment he can speak, away from anyone outside this room."

"Understood, Alpha."

"And find out which elders have private guards capable of producing rings like this. Narrow the list."

Grier nodded and moved off toward the healer's quarters, the wounded man's limp form already being carried inside. Mira lingered a moment longer.

"You should sleep," she said to Ariana, not unkindly. "Both of you. Nothing more gets solved tonight."

"I'm not sure I can."

"Try anyway." Mira glanced at Lucien. "Watch her door personally tonight. I don't trust anyone else with it right now."

"Already planned to."

Once Mira had gone, the courtyard emptied slowly around them, warriors returning to their posts, torches burning lower as the night stretched toward its final hours. Ariana wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly aware of how cold the air had turned.

"You should rest," Lucien said.

"So should you."

"I will. After I know you're safe behind a locked door."

"You keep saying things like that." She looked up at him, exhaustion and fear tangled together in her chest. "Like my safety matters more to you than your own."

"It does."

The simplicity of it caught her off guard.

"Why," she asked again, the same question she'd asked twice already tonight, still unanswered.

Lucien was quiet for a long moment, studying her in the dim torchlight like he was deciding something.

"Because the first time I saw you tonight," he finally said, "kneeling in the dirt after everything Kael did to you, you didn't beg. You didn't break the way anyone else would have." His voice roughened slightly. "I've led this pack for six years. I've watched wolves far stronger than you fall apart under half that humiliation. You didn't."

"That's not an answer to why it matters to you personally."

"No," he admitted. "It's not."

"Then give me the real one."

Something shifted in his expression, walls she'd watched him keep carefully in place all night finally cracking just slightly.

"Because somewhere between finding you in those woods and watching you stand up to an entire council chamber," he said quietly, "I stopped thinking of you as someone I was protecting out of obligation."

Ariana's breath caught. "And started thinking of me as what."

He didn't answer right away, and for a moment she thought he might close himself off again, retreat behind duty and titles the way he had every other time this conversation had gotten close to something real.

Instead he stepped closer, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to hold his gaze, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating off him in the cold night air.

"Someone I don't want to lose," he said. "Not to Kael. Not to whoever's hunting you. Not to any of it."

Ariana's heart pounded so hard she was certain he could hear it.

"Lucien—"

A sudden crash echoed from somewhere deep inside the stronghold, glass shattering, followed by a scream that ripped through the quiet night and froze them both where they stood.

Lucien's head snapped toward the sound, every trace of softness vanishing instantly.

"That came from the healer's quarters," he said.

Ariana's stomach dropped as they both broke into a run, the wounded prisoner's fate suddenly the least of their worries the moment they saw smoke curling out from beneath the healer's door.