The Rejected Queen

Chapter 6

Rayna POV

The shelter feels colder after his words settle into the stone. But Damon doesn’t leave.

He just moves to the edge of the threshold, crouching outside with his back against the wall, where moonlight can touch his boots but not his eyes.

A sentinel. A shadow pretending not to be made of teeth and danger.

I don’t ask him why he stays. He doesn’t offer. The shovel still rests beside me. I think he knows I’d use it.

But maybe that’s why he stays outside - not too far, not too close. Just close enough that if something comes, it’ll meet him before it gets to me. And somehow, that’s worse than if he’d left altogether.

I settle back onto the stone bench, wrapping the cloak tighter around me. The scent is stronger now - rosemary and earth and something wild. Like old forests. Or blood remembered by moonlight.

I try not to think about what he called me. Little queen. I tell myself it’s a joke. Mockery. Nothing more. But the words land too heavy. Too certain.

I close my eyes, but sleep clings to the edges of me like fog. I hear every shift in the trees, every gust of wind, every movement of the man just outside the shelter who isn’t asleep, who doesn’t make a sound unless he wants to.

My wolf stirs once - not with fear. With curiosity. And then, for the first time in too long, the ache behind my ribs eases.

Just enough to let the darkness take me.

***

I wake to the feeling of being watched. Not in the nightmare sense. Not with panic or dread. Just that quiet pressure of another presence nearby. Heavy. Still.

My eyes blink open slowly. He’s there.

Damon stands just inside the doorway now, arms crossed, leaning against the stone frame like he’s been watching the woods all night and only recently turned to watch me instead.

The morning light is gray and pale, casting his face in sharp contrast - shadows under his cheekbones, across his jaw. He looks even more dangerous in daylight. And impossibly calm.

“I let you sleep longer than I meant to,” he says.

His voice is rough from disuse, like gravel stirred gently over stone. Not tired - just low.

I sit up slowly, cloak still wrapped around me like armor. My body’s sore, but no new pain blooms. Just the dull ache of existing.

“You were watching me.”

“I said I’d keep you alive.”

“You’re creepy.”

His mouth curves. Not a smile - but close.

“You’re slow when you’re angry,” he says, pushing off the wall. “Get up. We move at dawn.”

I don’t move. “You’re assuming I’m coming with you.”

“I’m assuming you want to live.”

That shuts me up for a second. He doesn’t press. Just waits, like this is inevitable. Like I am inevitable. I hate that. But I stand anyway.

The shovel still lies near the bench. I grab it, not because I need it - just because I want the illusion of control.

He notices. Doesn’t comment. Just turns toward the path beyond the trees, then glances back.

“There’s a cabin,” he says. “Not far. Old, shielded. You’ll be safe there.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then you’ll die here.”

I stare at him.

The thing is - I believe him. And worse… I believe he cares, in some dark, twisted, unexplainable way. Not emotionally.

Strategically.

Like I’m a piece in a game he’s been playing long before I ever existed - but now I’ve entered the board, he’s not letting me fall off.

“Fine,” I mutter. “But the second you turn out to be a psychopath, I’m shifting and tearing your throat out.”

His brow lifts.

“Fair.”

I tuck the cloak tighter around my shoulders and step outside. The morning is cold. Gray. The sun hasn’t quite broken through the mist yet, and the forest feels still - too still.

But it’s the ground that makes me stop.

Blood. Slick, dark stains scattered across the clearing. Drag marks in the dirt. Deep claw gouges in the bark of the nearest tree.

But no bodies. No fur. No broken limbs. No sign of what happened to the scavengers Damon killed.

I glance back at him. He doesn’t look at the ground. Doesn’t explain. Just waits like none of this matters.

“Where are they?” I ask quietly.

“Gone.”

“Gone where?”

He meets my eyes. “Handled.”

Not an answer. Not really. A chill crawls down my spine.

“You cleaned this up?”

His jaw ticks - the smallest flicker of something under control.

“I don’t leave messes,” he says.

I look at the blood again. At the space where something violent, something real, happened. The same space I slept beside all night. And he made it disappear.

Not to protect me. To protect what I am. That unsettles me more than the blood itself. I don’t ask more questions. I just follow.

For now. But I will need more answers. Soon.