The Maid Who Stole My Alpha

Chapter Five

(Bardolph POV)

“You should be resting,” I said, though the words sounded colder than I meant them to sound.

“I cannot rest while my Alpha suffers because I told the truth,” Ashina whispered, and tears gathered again in her eyes.

I looked away because her tears made me feel cruel, and Daciana’s silence made me feel worse.

Ashina stepped closer, but not too close, only near enough for her jasmine scent to touch the air between us.

The scent pulled me back to last night, to confusion, pain, and the terrible moment I let weakness become comfort.

I had not marked Ashina, but I had let her hold me when I believed my mate had chosen another Alpha.

That memory burned with shame, and shame quickly became anger because anger was easier for an Alpha to carry.

“Leave us,” I ordered Hrolf, needing one moment without old eyes watching the pieces of my life collapse.

Hrolf bowed and left, though his mouth tightened as if my private grief displeased him.

Ashina remained near the desk, her face soft with fear, and I hated that I could not read her as clearly as Daciana.

“My Alpha, she will use the bond to weaken you tonight,” Ashina said, making my eyes snap back to hers.

“What do you know about the bond?” I asked, because no maid should speak of a sacred mate bond so easily.

Ashina lowered her gaze at once, but I had already seen the quick flash of panic beneath her lashes.

“Only what servants hear when healers talk,” she said, but her answer came too quickly to feel clean.

A knock saved her from my next question, and Farkas entered before I gave permission because he was too old to fear doors.

“Alpha, I checked the letters again,” Farkas said, ignoring Ashina as if she were furniture placed in the wrong room.

“And?” I asked, feeling my wolf rise with a hope I did not want to admit.

“The handwriting is close, but the pressure is wrong, and the seal wax smells of our own storehouse, not Northridge.”

Ashina dropped the cup.

The sound cracked through the room like a bone breaking, and every eye turned toward the tea spilling across the floor.

She bent quickly to clean it, but not before I saw the blood drain from her face.

Farkas watched her now, and for the first time that day, someone looked at the maid the way I should have looked sooner.

“What else?” I asked, though my voice had changed into the cold tone my enemies feared most.

Farkas stepped closer and placed a small black thread on my desk, taken from the ribbon around the letters.

“This thread belongs to the mourning cloth used in the east storage room, where only elders, healers, and senior servants have keys.”

My heart pounded once, hard and ugly, because Ashina had been given senior servant keys when Daciana made her personal maid.

Ashina lifted her face slowly, and tears rolled down her cheeks before anyone accused her of anything.

“My Alpha, she is doing this again,” Ashina cried, pointing toward the window where Daciana still stood far below.

I followed her finger and saw Daciana looking up at my study, her pale face unreadable behind the dirty glass.

For one breath, the world felt split between the woman my wolf loved and the maid who had proof of pain.

Then a warrior burst into the study, breathing hard and carrying a broken arrow wrapped in black cloth.

“Alpha, a border patrol was attacked near the north road,” he said, lowering his head as blood dripped from his sleeve.

My body went still, because the north road was one of the routes named inside the letters found in Daciana’s room.

“Who attacked them?” I asked, already fearing the answer before the warrior forced it through his teeth.

“Northridge wolves, Alpha, and they carried a message saying Luna Daciana opened the way for them.”

(Daciana POV)

I heard the alarm bells before I saw the smoke rising beyond the trees near the northern border.

Every servant in the wing began running, but my door was locked from outside, trapping me like an animal waiting for s*******r.

I slammed my shoulder against the wood, calling for Lowell, Bardolph, anyone who still remembered I had once protected them.

Nobody answered, and the bells kept screaming while my wolf paced inside me with a terror that did not belong only to us.

Then something struck the window, and a small stone rolled across the floor with paper tied around it.

I rushed toward it, untied the note, and felt my blood freeze as I read the words written in rushed black ink.

“Run before sunset, Daciana, because Ashina’s second lie will not send you to the servant wing.”

My hands shook so badly that the paper almost tore between my fingers before I reached the final line.

“It will send you to your grave.”