MATED TO THE ALPHA KING'S QUADRUPLETS

The first time the king threatened to have my head chopped off, I was standing on my porch with a royal summons in one hand and a secret belonging to my dead father in the other. Considering I had spent most of my life avoiding trouble, I found the situation deeply offensive. I'd only wanted to attend my graduation, collect my certificate, and return home before anyone remembered that an Omega like me was supposed to be grateful for whatever scraps of recognition the pack offered. Apparently, the Moon Goddess had other plans. Ashfall Pack's graduation ceremony had been exactly as unpleasant as I expected. The Alpha's son delivered a speech about unity while conveniently forgetting that unity rarely extended to people like me. The graduates received their certificates in alphabetical order, and I received mine after a girl who had once called me a glorified servant. I smiled for the photographs anyway. My father had taught me that dignity was something nobody could confiscate unless you willingly handed it over. He had also taught me how to pick a lock, which was considerably more useful advice. "Your father would've been proud of you." Marda, one of the older women from our pack, stood beside me with a plate of pastries. Her expression softened when she mentioned Gideon Ashvane, and I struggled to return her smile without allowing the familiar ache to settle too deeply in my chest. "He would have complained about the ceremony first," I said. "Then he would have asked whether the food was free." Marda laughed. "That sounds like Gideon." It did. My father had been a war hero, a decorated soldier, and a man who could make a room full of important people uncomfortable simply by asking an honest question. He had died five months ago, leaving me with a small house, a collection of unanswered questions, and a talent for pretending I was managing perfectly well. He had also left behind a strange collection of letters from the palace. I had found them after his funeral, but every one of them had been sealed, and I had never managed to discover what they contained. Whenever I asked him about the royal family while he was alive, he changed the subject with the confidence of a man who believed that avoiding a question counted as answering it. My father had many irritating qualities. Being mysterious was among the most expensive. "Eleanor!" Tamsin Quill appeared with a paper plate of cake and enough enthusiasm to suggest she had personally defeated the entire dessert table. She worked in the pack records house, where she spent her days sorting documents and her evenings collecting information nobody had asked her to investigate. "Congratulations, graduate. I brought you cake because your face suggests you need it." "My face is perfectly normal." "Your face looks like somebody told you the Moon Goddess had rejected your application for happiness." "Then perhaps you should stop studying my face." She handed me the cake anyway. We spent a few minutes discussing the ceremony, the terrible punch, and the Alpha's son's speech. Then her expression changed, and she leaned closer. "Someone came to the records house asking about your father." I stopped chewing. "Who?" "I don't know his name. Tall, dark green coat, silver buckles on his boots. He asked for Gideon's military file, his deployment records, and correspondence from the years he served the crown." "Why would anyone need those?" "That was exactly what I wanted to know. He was particularly interested in the years your father spent working directly under the king." My fingers tightened around the plate. "Did you give him anything?" "Of course not. I may be nosy, Eleanor, but I'm not stupid. Besides, some of those records require royal authorization." I tried to laugh, but the sound came out poorly. My father had been dead for five months. Whatever business someone had with him should have ended at his grave. Unless it hadn't. I left the ceremony shortly afterward, claiming a headache. Tamsin offered to accompany me, but I refused. I needed to think, and I knew she would ask questions until my thoughts became a public event. The walk home took twenty minutes. By the time I reached our house, the afternoon sun had begun to fade, and an uncomfortable feeling had settled between my shoulders. I checked the front door before entering. The lock was intact, and the windows were closed, but something about the house felt wrong. My father's study was the first place I checked. The chair behind his desk had been pushed in. That alone was enough to make my stomach tighten because Gideon Ashvane never pushed his chair in. He considered it an unnecessary courtesy to furniture. The papers on his desk had been arranged too neatly, and the books on the lower shelf were no longer in their usual order. I stared at it for several seconds before approaching the desk. Whoever had entered the room had searched it, but they had taken care to leave almost everything where it belonged. There was no broken window or damaged lock. Whoever it was might have had a key. That thought frightened me more than the possibility of a stranger breaking in. I checked the drawers and found nothing missing. My father's old military medals were still in their wooden case, and the documents I had already examined remained untouched. Then I noticed a narrow compartment beneath the desk, one I had never managed to open. I crouched and examined the lock. It was old, but not particularly complicated. My father had taught me better than to trust a lock simply because it looked expensive, and I had become reasonably skilled at opening the stubborn ones. A hairpin and a few careful movements were enough. Inside lay a small silver pin engraved with a crown and four marks arranged beneath it. I had seen the symbol before, although I could not remember where. Beneath the pin was a folded piece of paper bearing a single name. AURELIAN VAELTHORNE. The name belonged to the king. I sat back on my heels, trying to understand why my father had hidden a royal insignia beneath his desk. A memory surfaced from eleven years earlier, when a royal messenger had visited our house. I had been young enough to believe every important visitor brought gifts, and I remembered my father sending me outside before the conversation began. When I asked him about it later, he had placed a hand on my head and said, "Some promises are safer when they're forgotten, Eleanor." Just before I could reflect on how much information that reply had cost me, a knock sounded at the front door. I slipped the pin into my pocket and closed the compartment before standing. Through the window, I saw a man in a dark formal coat waiting on the porch. His posture was rigid, and the silver emblem on his collar identified him as a royal envoy. I opened the door cautiously. "Eleanor Ashvane?" "Depends who's asking." "Corvin Dray, royal envoy to the Vaelthorne Crown. I carry a summons from His Majesty, King Aurelian." He presented a sealed document. The royal crest was stamped into the wax, and beneath it were the same four marks I had seen on the silver pin. My mouth went dry. "Why does the king want me?" "His Majesty will explain the matter personally. You are required to appear at the palace at dawn." "Required?" "An agreement was made between your father and the king eleven years ago. The terms become binding upon your arrival at adulthood." I looked at the document without taking it. "My father made an agreement involving me?" "Your father consented to the arrangement." "Then perhaps you should summon him." The envoy's expression didn't change. "Gideon Ashvane is deceased. The obligation remains." For a moment, I could not speak. My father had apparently negotiated some part of my future without telling me, and now the king expected me to appear at his palace as though I were an overdue delivery. "What happens if I refuse?" "His Majesty will address the breach before the royal court." "That sounds suspiciously like a threat." "It is a statement of the consequences." I took the summons because arguing with a royal envoy on my porch seemed unlikely to improve my situation. Corvin bowed and departed without offering another explanation. I closed the door and broke the seal. The document was written in formal legal language, but the meaning was clear enough. I was to report to the palace at dawn, where the king would reveal the nature of the agreement and the obligations attached to it. My refusal would be treated as a violation of royal law. Tamsin arrived before I finished reading. She had apparently decided that my headache was a personal insult and that following me home was the appropriate response. When I showed her the summons, she read it twice. "This isn't an invitation," she said. "It's a command dressed in expensive handwriting." "Thank you. I was worried I had misunderstood the threat." "You're going." "I don't have a choice." "Then I'm coming with you." "No." "Eleanor." "Tamsin, this involves the king, a secret agreement, and a threat to my head. I don't need you dragged into it." She folded her arms. "You think I can sit here and wait while you walk into a palace full of people who apparently know more about your life than you do?" "I think you can stay alive while I make a complete fool of myself." "That's not a convincing argument." Despite everything, I almost smiled. Tamsin had been my closest friend for years, and she was the only person who could make a royal death threat sound like an administrative inconvenience. I returned to the summons, searching for anything that might explain the arrangement. Near the bottom of the final page, I noticed a line of handwriting that did not match the rest of the document. It had been added in dark ink, without a signature. "Bring the girl who carries the name 'Sable'." The room seemed to tilt. Sable was my wolf's name. I had never told anyone outside my family, and even within it, my father had been the only person who used it. I had not heard that name spoken aloud since the night he died. Tamsin noticed my expression. "What is it?" I handed her the paper. She read the sentence, then looked at me. "Who wrote this?" "I don't know." "Does the king know your wolf's name?" "I don't know that either." The answer frightened me because it was the only honest one I had left. I turned the page over, hoping to find a signature or some indication of who had added the note. Instead, another sentence had been written beneath the royal seal. If she refuses, the king will have her head before the court. Tamsin went very still. Outside, the evening wind moved through the trees, brushing against the windows with a sound that reminded me of someone testing a locked door. I thought about the man who had searched my father's records, the study that had been disturbed, and the royal agreement nobody had bothered to explain. My father had spent eleven years keeping a secret from me. Someone had searched his study after his death, and now the king was demanding my presence before dawn. I looked down at the name on the summons again. Aurelian Vaelthorne. Whatever my father had promised the king, it had survived him. And whoever had written that final warning knew exactly where to find me. For the first time since Gideon's funeral, I wondered whether his death had truly been the end of something, or merely the beginning of a plan that had finally reached me.