REJECTED BY ONE ALPHA, CLAIMED BY HIS DEADLIEST RIVAL

SOMEONE ELSE

"Someone neither of us has ever met," Ariana repeated. "That's not an answer, Kael. That's a riddle."

"It's all I have." Kael's voice tightened. "Corvin's been careful. Everything he's done for Silverfang looks legitimate on paper. Trade agreements, border negotiations, elder rulings. But tonight, when he pushed me to march on Blackthorn before your seven days were up, he slipped."

"Slipped how," Lucien called down.

"He mentioned a client." Kael's jaw worked. "His exact words. He said the client was growing impatient. Then he caught himself and tried to cover it, but I heard it clearly enough."

Ariana's stomach turned over. "A client. Like he's selling something."

"Like he's selling you," Lucien said quietly, beside her now, his hand finding the small of her back without seeming to notice he'd done it.

"That's not confirmed," Kael said. "But it's the only explanation that fits everything else. The assassins at the border. The breach tonight. The prisoner silenced before he could talk."

Grier stepped forward along the wall. "Alpha Draven, why should we trust anything you're telling us. You marched an armed escort to our gates in the middle of the night."

"Because if I wanted war, I'd have brought my entire pack, not a fraction of it." Kael's eyes flicked to Grier before returning to Ariana. "And because Corvin isn't done tonight. He knows I refused him. Which means he'll move on his own, without pack authority, before anyone can stop him."

"Move how," Ariana asked.

"I don't know exactly. But he wasn't planning to wait out the full seven days either. That much he made clear."

Silence stretched across the wall, broken only by the shifting of torches below and the restless movement of Kael's escort waiting at the tree line.

"Let him in," Ariana said.

Lucien turned sharply. "Absolutely not."

"He just gave us information that might save my life. The least we can do is hear the rest of it somewhere that isn't shouted across a wall in the middle of the night."

"It could be a trap."

"Everything could be a trap right now." Ariana held his gaze steadily. "But if Corvin's about to move without waiting for the deadline, we need every piece of information we can get, and Kael clearly has more."

Lucien's jaw worked, torn between instinct and logic, before finally exhaling. "Alone. No escort past the gate."

"Agreed," Kael called back immediately.

"And you answer to me the moment you're inside these walls. Not to her. Not to anyone else."

"Understood."

The gate groaned open minutes later, admitting Kael alone while his escort remained at the tree line, torches burning steady in the distance like a warning that patience had limits. Ariana watched him cross the courtyard, exhaustion evident in every line of his posture, nothing like the proud Alpha who'd rejected her in front of his entire pack less than two days ago.

They gathered in the same study where Lucien had first explained the Moonblood legend, fire crackling low, tension thick enough to choke on.

"Tell us everything," Lucien said, arms crossed, standing close enough to Ariana that Kael couldn't miss the message in it.

Kael's eyes moved briefly to the closeness between them before he looked away, jaw tight.

"Corvin's been advising Silverfang for over thirty years," he said. "Longer than I've been alive. My father trusted him completely. I trusted him completely, until tonight."

"What changed."

"He came to me an hour after the council session ended. Said the seven day deadline was too risky, that outside forces were already circling and we needed to act fast, secure Ariana under Silverfang protection before someone else claimed her." Kael's hands curled into fists on his knees. "When I refused, he got angry. Said things he shouldn't have said if he wanted to keep hiding what he really is."

"Like what," Ariana pressed.

"Like the fact that he's never actually cared about Silverfang's interests. Only about whatever deal he's made with whoever he answers to." Kael met her eyes directly. "He called you an asset. Not a person. An asset that needed to be delivered before the price dropped."

The word landed like a slap.

"Delivered to who," Lucien demanded.

"I don't know." Kael shook his head. "But whoever it is, they're patient, organized, and apparently willing to pay enough that a thirty year council elder would betray his own pack for it."

Ariana wrapped her arms around herself, the fire doing nothing to warm the cold settling in her chest. "So I'm not just hunted by strangers in the woods. I'm being auctioned."

"We don't know that for certain," Lucien said.

"It's certain enough." Her voice shook despite her best effort to steady it. "Corvin called me an asset with a price. That's not a metaphor."

Kael's expression shifted, something like guilt flickering behind his eyes. "I should have protected you from all of this from the beginning. Instead I handed you straight into it with my own rejection."

"That's not the same thing, and you know it."

"Isn't it? If I hadn't rejected you in front of the entire pack, Corvin might never have had a reason to notice you at all. You'd have stayed hidden, ordinary, safe."

"Or I'd have stayed trapped, invisible, and just as vulnerable the moment anyone else discovered what I am." Ariana shook her head. "Stop trying to make this about your guilt, Kael. Right now I need facts, not apologies."

He nodded slowly, chastened.

Grier appeared in the doorway then, expression grim, interrupting whatever Kael might have said next.

"Alpha. Alpha Draven." His eyes moved between them. "One of the border scouts just returned. Corvin's private guard left Silverfang territory an hour ago. Small group, moving fast, heading toward the coast."

"The coast," Lucien repeated. "There's nothing out there but the old trade docks."

"Exactly, Alpha." Grier's voice tightened. "Which means whoever Corvin's client is, they're not coming by land."

Ariana's blood ran cold as the pieces clicked together.

"They're coming by ship," she said.