99 Moons with Alpha Rhaegar

THE SCENT OF A GHOST

ELYSIA’S POV

I woke up at nothing o’clock again.

No sound. No nightmare. Just my wolf, pacing circles in the back of my mind like she’d forgotten how to be still.

*What*? I asked her.

She didn’t answer. Just kept pacing.

I lay there staring at the ceiling of my small, windowless room, listening to the castle breathe around me. Distant footsteps. The far-off clang of something metal. The deep, settled quiet of a place that had existed long before me and would exist long after.

*What is wrong with you?* I asked again.

Still nothing. Just that low, restless whine.

I gave up on sleep and got dressed in the dark.

The kitchens were already alive when I arrived, steam rising from pots, the smell of bread thick in the air. I fell into the routine without thinking. Peel. Chop. Stir. Carry. The kind of work that kept your hands busy and left your mind dangerously free.

I was halfway through a pile of onions when Marta appeared at my elbow.

“You.” She pointed at me, then at the ceiling. “Study. Second floor, east corridor. Take the breakfast tray.”

I blinked. “The study?”

“His Majesty’s study.” She was already turning away. “Don’t dawdle. Don’t speak unless spoken to. Set it down and leave.”

My hands went still on the onion.

*His study.*

My wolf stopped pacing.

“Go,” Marta said, without looking back.

I went.

The tray was heavier than it looked. Bread, cheese, a small pot of something hot, a cup. Simple. I carried it up the staircase with both hands, my eyes on my feet, telling myself it was fine. I’d drop off the tray, leave, come back downstairs. Thirty seconds. Less, even.

The east corridor was quieter than the rest of the castle. The walls here were lined with dark wood panels, the floors covered in thick rugs that swallowed the sound of my footsteps. Candle brackets flickered at intervals, casting long, uneven shadows.

I found the door and stopped.

From behind it came the low scratch of a quill, then silence, then the soft thud of something being set down.

I knocked.

A pause.

“Enter.”

Low. Rough. Like gravel wrapped in cold cloth.

I pushed the door open.

The room hit me all at once.

Maps everywhere. On the table, pinned to the walls, rolled and stacked in the corner. Candles burned at every surface, wax pooled thick around their bases, like they’d been burning for hours. Books were stacked with no particular order, some open, some half-open, some clearly abandoned mid-thought.

And then there was his scent.

Pine. Smoke. Something sharp and clean underneath both.

It rolled over me like a wave, and my wolf went completely still.

Not calm. Still. The way an animal goes still right before it bolts.

Alpha Rhaegar sat at the desk, his back half-turned to me, studying a map spread across the table. He hadn’t looked up yet. His dark hair was loose, falling slightly across his forehead, the silver streaks catching the candlelight. He had one forearm braced on the desk, the other holding a quill he’d clearly just set down.

I crossed the room. Set the tray on the small table near the window. Kept my eyes down. Kept my breathing even.

*You’re doing fine*, I told myself. *Set it down. Leave.*

I was straightening up when I saw it.

A dark cloak, hanging on the hook beside the door. Heavy fabric. Deep charcoal. The kind that swallowed shadow.

My brain went very quiet.

Then it cracked open.

Dark trees. Cold air. Bark rough against my palms. A stranger’s hands gripping my waist, low and certain, like he already knew exactly what he was doing. A voice in my ear, rough and unhurried: *don’t think. Don’t talk. Just feel.*

And God help me, I had felt. I had wanted it. I had pressed back into those hands and let myself be held like I mattered, and then he had stepped away and left me standing in the cold, and I had spent every day since then hating myself for the part of me that still remembered how it felt.

My fingers went numb. The tray tilted.

I grabbed the edge before it could slide, steadying it with both hands, my knuckles pressing white against the metal. My throat had sealed itself shut. I swallowed once, hard.

*Breathe*, my wolf said.

I breathed slowly, then carefully, which was a mistake, because his scent was everywhere in this room. I set the tray all the way down and straightened up. My face was blank. It had to be. But my fingers were still shaking where they pressed against my thigh, and I couldn’t quite make them stop.

I turned for the door.

“Elysia.”

I stopped.

He said just my name. That was all. No question in it. No command either. Just my name in that low, cold voice, dropped into the room like a stone into still water.

I turned back slowly. He was looking at me now.

He’d shifted in his chair, one arm resting on the back of it, his steel-gray eyes fixed on my face with the kind of attention that made you feel like every single thought in your head was visible.

“Is there anything else you need, Your Majesty?” My voice came out level. Barely.

He didn’t answer right away. His jaw worked slightly, just once, like he was chewing on something.

“How are your injuries?” he asked.

“Better your majesty. Thank you.”

“The healer will check on you again this evening.”

“That’s not necessary…”

“It wasn’t a question.”

Right. I nodded once. “Of course.”

He held my gaze for one second longer than was comfortable. His expression didn’t shift. It never seemed to shift. But something in his eyes moved, something brief and unreadable, like a door opened and closed in the space of a blink.

My wolf screamed. Not in fear, not exactly.

Just one word, over and over, beating against my ribs like something trying to get out.

*Him. Him. Him.*

I turned and walked out.

I pulled the door shut behind me and stood in the corridor, my back pressed flat against the wall, one hand pressed hard against my sternum like I could push my own heartbeat back down into something manageable. It wasn’t working.

My legs felt like they’d been replaced with water. I stared at the opposite wall and tried to remember how to breathe like a normal person.

*It’s him.*

The cloak. The voice. The scent—God, the scent…I’d smelled it that night and buried it so deep I’d almost convinced myself I’d imagined it. Pine and smoke. That specific, sharp something underneath. I’d smelled it again when he carried me on his horse and I’d thought *familiar* and my exhausted, broken mind had simply filed it away and moved on.

I hadn’t moved on.

My wolf had known. She’d been pacing all morning because she knew, the way she always knows things before I’m ready to hear them.

The stranger from the forest. The man who pressed me against a tree and made me feel wanted for five whole minutes and then told me I was the biggest mistake of his life.

He was the Alpha King.

He was Sabrina’s father.

He was the man I had been living under the same roof as for days now, eating his food, sleeping in his castle, walking his corridors.

And I had no idea, none at all, whether he had recognized me too.

I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth harder.

Because if he hadn’t, then I had a secret that could get me thrown out into the Wildlands to die.

And if he had…

I didn’t let myself finish that thought.

Down the corridor, a door opened. A guard stepped out and glanced in my direction.

I pushed off the wall, straightened my dress, and walked back toward the staircase like my entire world hadn’t just tilted sideways.

But my wolf was still whispering, quiet and certain, with the patience of something that already knew how this ended.

*He remembers. He just hasn’t realized it yet.*