THE KING'S UNWANTED MATE

THE ATTACK

Chapter Twelve

It started with the border alarm.

Three sharp pulses through the palace comm system — the signal for a breach. Not a probe. Not a Seer. A full breach.

Draven was on his feet before the third pulse finished.

"East border," Cain said through the earpiece. "Multiple entry points. Coordinated."

"How many?"

"Still counting. Twelve minimum."

Draven looked at Selene. They were in the war room — had been there for two hours going over Diana's intelligence, mapping the Circle's timeline, building the counter-plan piece by piece.

"Stay here," he said.

"Draven—"

"Cain stays with you." He was already moving. "Don't leave this room."

"This feels like a distraction," she said.

He stopped. Turned.

"What?"

"Twelve entry points simultaneously," she said. "That's not an attack. That's noise." She held his gaze. "They want you at the border."

He looked at her for a long moment.

"Cain," he said into the earpiece. "Split the response. Half to the east border. Half to the interior — full sweep, every corridor." He looked at Selene. "You might be right."

"I'm definitely right," she said.

He almost looked like he agreed. "Stay here."

He left.

Cain moved to the door. Positioned himself. The specific stillness of a man who had done this before and would do it again.

Selene looked at the war room screens.

The border breach was real — she could see the response teams deploying, the red indicators moving. But the palace interior cameras showed nothing. Every corridor green. Every room empty.

She watched them.

Green. Green. Green.

Then one went dark.

Not red. Dark. Camera disabled.

Second floor. West corridor.

"Cain," she said.

"I see it," he said.

A second camera went dark. Third floor. East corridor.

"They're inside," she said.

"Yes." Cain was already on comms. "We need—"

The war room door handle moved.

Both of them looked at it.

It moved again. Someone on the other side testing the lock.

Selene stood up.

"There's a secondary exit," Cain said quietly. "Behind the map panel on the north wall. Press the lower left corner."

She moved to it. Found it. The panel swung open — a narrow corridor beyond, dark, smelling of stone and age.

"Go," Cain said.

"You're coming with me."

"I'm covering the door."

"Cain—"

"Go." His voice was final. "Straight ahead, second left, comes out near the library. Find Sera. Stay together."

She looked at him.

The big scarred Beta with his hand on the door and his jaw set and the energy of someone who had made a calculation and was comfortable with it.

"Don't get killed," she said.

"I never do," he said.

She went.

---

The tunnel was narrow and old and completely dark.

Selene moved through it with one hand on the wall and the bond like a compass in her chest — Draven somewhere to the east, present, alive, the specific warmth of him that she had stopped pretending she didn't feel.

She found the second left.

She found the exit.

She pushed it open carefully.

Library. Empty. The candles still burning from this morning.

She moved through it quickly toward the door.

Stopped.

Voices. In the corridor outside.

Not wolves she recognised.

She pressed herself against the wall beside the door. Listened.

Two of them. Moving slowly. Checking rooms.

"—not in the war room. Moved before we cut the cameras."

"Doesn't matter. She's in the building. The Seer confirmed it."

"The King's mate. Soul Blessed. We take her alive."

*Alive.*

She filed that. They wanted her alive. Which meant the immediate threat to Draven had already been deployed elsewhere.

She needed to find Sera.

She needed to find Draven.

She needed to—

The library door opened.

One of them stepped in.

He saw her immediately.

For one second neither of them moved.

Then he moved toward her and she did the thing Draven had taught her — not push, draw — she reached for the bond, for the warm certain presence of him, and she pulled.

The man flew backward through the door.

Into the corridor wall.

Hard.

He didn't get up.

The second one came through the door fast. She was ready — drew again, harder, and he went sideways into the bookshelf and the shelf came down on top of him and the books scattered across the floor and he didn't get up either.

Selene stood in the library with her hands at her sides and the power humming through her and two unconscious Circle operatives on the floor.

"Okay," she said to herself. "Okay."

She stepped over them and went to find Sera.

---

She found her in the corridor outside Selene's old room.

Sera was on the floor.

Not unconscious. Awake. Her hand pressed against her side. A dark stain spreading through her fingers.

Selene dropped to her knees beside her. "Sera—"

"I'm fine," Sera said.

"You're bleeding."

"Superficially."

"That is not superficial—"

"Selene." Sera's voice was sharp. Her eyes were sharp. The sharpness of someone in pain who was refusing to let the pain matter. "There are three of them between here and the throne room. I counted before they—" She gestured at her side. "Before this."

"What are they doing at the throne room?"

"Setting something," Sera said. "I don't know what. A device. Circle tech — I've never seen it before." She grabbed Selene's arm. "Don't go near it until Draven—"

"Can you move?"

"Yes."

"Then move." Selene got her arm under Sera's. Helped her up. "We're going to the throne room."

"I just said don't—"

"I heard you," Selene said. "I'm going anyway."

Sera looked at her.

"You're different from three days ago," she said.

"Three days ago I didn't know what I was," Selene said. "Come on."

---

The throne room doors were open.

Three Circle operatives inside. The device — Selene didn't know the word for it, but she felt it the moment she got close. Something that pressed against the bond like interference. Like static between her and Draven. Designed to weaken it.

Designed to weaken her.

She understood immediately what it was for.

Not to attack the palace.

To cut the bond long enough for something else — something happening at the border — to reach Draven without her power amplifying him.

She looked at the device.

At the three operatives.

At Sera leaning against the wall beside her, hand pressed to her side, jaw set.

"Stay here," Selene said.

"Selene—"

She walked in.

The three operatives turned.

She drew.

Not carefully. Not the controlled steady current of the training room. Something bigger — the full weight of the bond, Draven's presence like a anchor in her chest, and she pulled everything she could reach and she pushed it outward in all directions at once.

All three operatives went down simultaneously.

The device shattered.

Every window in the throne room cracked simultaneously.

The chandeliers swung violently.

The murals on the walls — the old Soul Blessed queens painted in gold and silver — flickered in the sudden surge of light that came from nowhere and everywhere.

And Selene stood in the middle of it all and felt the power and felt what it wanted — what it was reaching for — and it was not done.

It wanted more.

It wanted to keep going.

Past the throne room. Past the palace. Past the border where Draven was fighting — she could feel him, could feel the fight, could reach it, could end it, could—

*Stop.*

Her own voice. Inside her head. Clear and deliberate.

*Stop.*

The power pulled against her like a current.

*Stop.*

She held it.

Held it.

The chandeliers stilled.

The light normalised.

The three operatives were on the floor. Unconscious. Breathing.

The windows were cracked but not shattered.

Selene stood in the throne room on shaking legs and breathed.

In. Out.

In. Out.

"Selene." Sera's voice from the doorway. Rough. Careful. "Selene, are you—"

"I'm here," she said. "I'm here."

She looked at her hands.

Steady. Externally.

Inside — the echo of what the power had wanted. The direction it had been pulling. How far it could have gone.

*Too far.*

---

Draven found her twenty minutes later.

The border breach had collapsed the moment the device shattered — whatever it had been interfering with had snapped back into place and twelve Circle operatives had found themselves facing a fully amplified Alpha King and had made the sensible decision.

He came through the throne room doors and stopped.

Took in the cracked windows. The unconscious operatives. The scattered evidence of what had happened.

Then he found her.

She was sitting on the steps of the throne. Not dramatically. Just — sitting. Because her legs had decided they were done.

He crossed the room in about four steps.

"Are you hurt?" he said.

"No."

"Sera—"

"Alive. Injured. Not critically." She looked up at him. "She needs a doctor."

"Already called." He crouched in front of her. Eye level. Close. "What happened?"

She told him.

All of it. The tunnel. The two in the library. Finding Sera. The three in the throne room. The device.

His expression didn't change through most of it.

It changed at the end.

"You stopped it," he said. "The power. You stopped it yourself."

"Yes."

"How close—"

"I almost didn't," she said. Her voice was steady. She had decided her voice would be steady. "The power. I almost let it keep going." She held his gaze. "How close was it to the border? To you?"

"Close," he said.

"If I hadn't stopped—"

"You did stop," he said.

"Draven." She grabbed his shirt. "I need you to hear me. I almost didn't." She held his gaze. "It wanted more. It wanted to keep going and for about three seconds I wanted to let it." She paused. "How close was that to what Cassius is afraid of?"

Silence.

He looked at her for a long moment.

"Closer than I'd like," he said honestly.

She exhaled.

"Thank you," she said. "For being honest."

"You asked me to try," he said.

"I did."

He looked at her — at the cracked windows, the stilled chandeliers, the gold and silver queens on the walls watching all of it from their painted frames.

"You stopped it," he said again. Quieter this time. Like he was saying it for himself as much as her.

"This time," she said.

He looked at her.

"This time," he agreed.

He sat down on the throne room steps beside her.

Not in front of her. Not standing over her. Beside her. On the floor of his own throne room with the cracked windows and the unconscious Circle operatives and the evidence of what she was and what she was capable of all around them.

"Sera took a hit meant for me," Selene said.

"I know."

"She was covering my room. She wasn't even supposed to be in that corridor."

"She made a choice," Draven said. "Sera makes choices. You'll learn that about her."

"She could have—"

"She could have," he said. "She didn't." He paused. "She also definitely knew the risk and did it anyway, which is Sera in one sentence."

Selene looked at the doors. At the corridor beyond where Sera was being seen by the palace healer right now.

"I'm going to sit with her tonight," she said.

"I know," he said.

"Don't tell me I should sleep."

"I wasn't going to."

She looked at him sideways. "You were."

"I was," he admitted. "Then I reconsidered."

She almost smiled.

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Draven," she said.

"Yes."

"The power — when it was reaching for the border. For you." She paused. "I could feel you fighting. I could feel exactly where you were and exactly what was happening." She looked at him. "Is that — is that always going to be there?"

"The bond?" he said. "Yes. It deepens over time."

"So you could feel me too."

"Yes."

"During the throne room."

A pause. "Yes."

"All of it?"

"Yes," he said quietly.

She sat with this.

"That's very inconvenient," she said.

"Deeply," he agreed.

"You felt me almost not stop."

"Yes."

"And?"

He looked at her.

"And I felt you stop anyway," he said. "That's the part that matters."

She looked at the queens on the walls.

At Mara's eyes. Her eyes.

At the woman who hadn't stopped.

"I'm going to need more training," she said.

"Yes," he said. "Starting tomorrow."

"Tonight I'm sitting with Sera."

"Tonight you're sitting with Sera," he agreed.

They sat in the throne room in the aftermath of everything and neither of them moved for a long time and that — the sitting, the silence, the choosing to stay in the difficulty together rather than managing it separately — was the most important thing that had happened all day.

Then Selene's stomach growled.

Loudly.

Draven looked at her.

She looked at the ceiling. "I haven't eaten since this morning."

"It's nine o'clock at night," he said.

"The Circle attacked during dinner," she said. "It was very inconsiderate."

He stood up. Held out his hand. "Kitchen," he said. "Then Sera."

She took his hand. He pulled her up.

"Draven," she said.

"Yes."

"Thank you for not saying I told you so."

"You were right about the distraction," he said. "I don't say I told you so about things I should have seen myself."

She looked at him. "That might be the most emotionally mature thing you've said."

"I have my moments," he said.

They walked out of the throne room together.

Behind them the painted queens watched from their golden frames.

And one of them — the oldest, the one in the position of highest honour — had eyes that looked exactly like Selene's.

Nobody had ever told her that.

She hadn't noticed yet.

But she would.

---