The Debt He Owed My Wolf

Chapter 4

Kade

She doesn't wake for the entire drive.

I keep her against my chest the whole way, one hand pressed to her back, counting the shallow rise and fall of her breathing just to have something to focus on besides how badly I want to turn this car around and burn Corwin's council hall to the ground with him still standing in it. Rowan doesn't c***k a single joke the entire trip, not one, which tells me more about how bad this looks from the outside than anything he could have said out loud. Even he knows better than to test me right now.

“She's too light,” Aero says, quiet for once instead of pacing. “A pup weighs more than this.”

I don't answer him. There isn't an answer that doesn't make my chest feel like it's caving in.

By the time we reach Ironfall, the sun is coming up fully over the ridge, gold light spilling across the training fields, and Wren still hasn't stirred once. I carry her straight through the packhouse and up to the east wing, ignoring the stares from omegas already up and starting their morning chores, a few of them pausing mid-task with baskets of laundry still balanced on their hips.

"Get Faye," I tell Marek before he's even fully out of the car behind me.

She meets me at the door to the guest room, already pulling her dark hair back into a knot, half-dressed like she rolled straight out of bed the second someone woke her. "What happened?"

"She fainted during a council meeting. Hasn't woken since." I lay Wren down on the bed as carefully as I know how, which still isn't gentle enough, judging by the small, pained sound she makes even unconscious.

Faye's professional calm slips the moment she peels back the blanket to check for obvious injuries and finds the fresh cut along Wren's forearm, already crudely bandaged with strips of cloth that look nothing like anything from an actual hospital.

"Who wrapped this?"

"She did. Herself. Last night, apparently, hiding in a kennel in the dark rather than ask anyone for help."

Faye's mouth thins into a hard, flat line. She works quickly and methodically, checking pulse, pupils, the shallow rasp of Wren's breathing, and then carefully, gently, the way only someone who's done this a thousand times can manage, lifts the hem of Wren's dress to check for other injuries, the way any competent doctor would as a matter of course.

I watch her face change in real time.

"Kade." Her voice comes out tight, strained in a way I've rarely heard from her. "You need to see this."

I cross the room in two long strides. The bruising along Wren's ribs is old and new all at once, layered like rings inside a tree trunk; yellow fading into purple fading into fresh black, over and over, as if there has never once been a full week in years where her body was given the chance to properly heal before the next injury landed on top of it. Whip marks crisscross her lower back, thin and precise, the unmistakable work of someone with a great deal of practice.

Her arms are bare of a single mark. Her chest, entirely untouched. Her thighs, clean and unmarked.

Every single injury sits somewhere a sleeve or a hemline would hide it from a casual glance, from a guest's glance, from exactly the kind of glance I gave her the moment I walked through Corwin's front door.

"They didn't want anyone to see," Faye says quietly, echoing the exact thought already burning a hole through my chest. "Not you. Not any visiting Alpha. Not anyone at all. This was deliberate, Kade. Someone planned this out."

“I should have known the second I caught her scent,” Aero snarls, pacing so hard against the inside of my skull that my temples ache with the force of it. “We should have taken her the very first week we heard the rumors, instead of waiting for a trade meeting to justify it.”

I didn't know. That's the part that guts me most completely. I've spent an entire month hearing whispers about the "poisoner sister" locked away somewhere inside Ashgrove and did absolutely nothing about it, assuming whatever punishment she was serving was at least survivable, at least bearable in some minimal sense.

It clearly was never meant to be either of those things.

"Can you heal this?" I ask, my voice rougher than I intend.

"Not without her wolf," Faye says, straightening. "Whatever's binding her needs to come off eventually, or none of this heals the way it should, no matter how much cream or stitching I apply. For now, I can clean the wounds properly, treat the infection risk, keep her as comfortable as possible." She hesitates, glancing back at me. "Kade. How long has she actually been like this?"

"Since she was six," I say. "According to her brother's own account, given proudly in front of a room full of witnesses."

Faye's jaw tightens in the exact same way mine does whenever I hear it repeated. "Sixteen years."

"Sixteen years," I repeat, and the number settles into my chest like a stone dropped down a well, sinking further than I expect it to.

Wren stirs slightly on the bed, a small, pained sound escaping her throat, and both Faye and I go quiet at once, watching her face for any sign that she's truly waking this time. Her eyes flutter open, unfocused at first, then sharpening fast with panic the moment she registers unfamiliar faces looming above her and unfamiliar sheets beneath her.

She yanks the blanket up over herself in one desperate motion, covering the exposed bruising with shaking hands, humiliation flooding her face so quickly it's almost harder to watch than the injuries themselves were a moment ago.

"You weren't supposed to see that," she whispers, voice cracking.

"I know," I say, holding perfectly still so I don't startle her further. "That's exactly the problem."

She doesn't answer right away. Her eyes dart between Faye and me, calculating, the way I imagine she's calculated every room she's ever woken up in, measuring exits, measuring threats, measuring exactly how much trouble she's currently in.

"Am I in trouble?" she asks finally, and the question lands like a blow, because I can tell she means it sincerely. Somewhere in her mind, being seen injured is still a punishable offense.

"No," I say. "You are not in trouble. Not here. Not ever, for something that was done to you."

Faye busies herself with a fresh roll of bandages, giving Wren a moment to absorb that without an audience studying her too closely. "I'm going to clean these properly," she says gently. "It'll sting. I'll be as quick as I can."

Wren nods, still clutching the blanket like a shield, though some of the raw panic in her eyes has started to ease, just slightly, replaced by something more like exhaustion.

"Where am I?" she asks.

"Ironfall," I say. "My territory. You're safe here."

"For how long?"

The question catches me off guard, though it shouldn't. Why would she assume anything about this arrangement is permanent, when every other constant in her life has been temporary, conditional, revocable the moment she stops being useful?

"For as long as you want to be," I tell her. "That part's entirely up to you."

She studies my face like she's waiting for the catch, the fine print, the part where I explain what all of this will cost her. When I don't offer one, something in her expression flickers, not quite trust, not yet, but the first faint c***k in whatever wall she's spent sixteen years building around herself.