Chapter 5
1082 Words
SEB
Roman was standing at my gate like he owned the ground under it.
Twelve wolves behind him, all of them in Ironspire colors, all of them positioned to look like a statement rather than a threat, because Roman understood the difference and always chose statement.
So I walked out to meet him alone.
Ryder Cole fell in behind me without being asked, because Ryder Cole had been doing that for eleven years and had never once needed to be told.
Roman smiled when he saw me."Seb," he said.
"Roman," I said. "I think we both know why I'm here.
"You want the girl back," I said. "No,"
Something moved in his expression, controlled and buried, but I had been reading Roman Lockwood since we were children, and I caught it.
"She's my betrothed," he said."Under Pack law that carries weight.
"The bond cancels the betrothal," I said."You know the law.
"There's no confirmed bond," Roman said smoothly. "There's been no mating ceremony, no formal claim, nothing that the territories would recognize as binding. I could have her back by tonight with the right documentation.
I looked at him. He was right about the legal gap. He was always right about the legal gaps. It was the thing I hated most about him, not his violence, not his ambition, but the patient, careful way he used the structure of the law to do things the law was not supposed to allow.
"Try it," I said.
"Seb," he said, and his voice dropped, went almost warm, the voice of the brother I had grown up believing in before I understood who he actually was."This doesn't have to be what it's becoming. She was always going to be a political arrangement. Give her back, and I'll consider the matter settled.
"You tried to have me killed," I said pleasantly.
"I don't know what you're referring to.
"Three years ago, the road outside the Greymoor border, two contracted wolves who didn't finish the job," I said. "You were very thorough about covering it, I will give you that, but not quite thorough enough.
Roman's smile didn't move."Serious accusations," he said. "Yes," I agreed, "They are.
We stood in the silence between us, the silence of two people who knew each other completely and had run out of the version of this conversation that sounded polite.
"Give me Ariana," Roman said.
"No," I said.
"You'll regret this.
"I've been regretting things you did to me for six years," I said. "At this point it's just part of my routine.
Something cold moved through his expression.
He looked past me toward the compound, just briefly, a flicker that was meant to remind me he was noting the layout, noting the wolves, noting the vulnerability of everything I had built. Then I let him look. Let him file it.
Let him carry the inventory home with him and stare at it.
"Formal challenge," he said quietly, "I'll file one before the week is out, Seb, and when I do, the territories will have to weigh in.”
"I know," I said, "I'll be here.
He held my gaze for one more moment, and I saw it then, just under the polish, just beneath the smile that never reached his eyes, the one thing Roman Lockwood had never been able to fully bury.
He was afraid of me.
He had always been afraid of me. Everything he had done, the exile, the assassination attempt, the stolen throne, all of it traced back to the same root. Roman had always known I was stronger and had spent his entire life trying to make that not matter, He turned and walked back to his wolves.
They left.
Ryder Cole stepped up beside me."That's not over," Ryder Cole said.
"I know," I said.
"He had twelve wolves with him just to deliver a message.
"He wanted me to count them."
"Seb," Ryder Cole said, and his voice was lower now, carrying the particular frequency he used when he was saying something he needed me to actually hear, "Theo Cross wasn't at the gate.
I went still.
"He was in the yard this morning," I said. "He left twenty minutes ago," Ryder Cole said.
"Didn't tell anyone where he was going.
I stood at my own gate and felt the information settle through me like cold water.
Theo Cross, who had been at my side for eleven years. Who knew the layout of this compound better than anyone?
Who had been standing on the steps last night when I brought Ariana home. I thought about the flicker in his expression.
The thing I had filed and hadn't examined yet. "Find him," I said quietly.
"Already on it," Ryder Cole said.
Then I turned back toward the compound,
Ariana was standing in the doorway watching me. She had seen everything, and the look on her face was not surprise, it was not confusion, it was the careful expression of a woman who had just watched something confirm something she already suspected,
Which meant she had suspected it before there was reason to.
I walked toward her. "You knew about Theo Cross," I said. It wasn't a question.
She held my gaze, and for the first time since she had kissed me in front of my brother and upended everything I thought I had planned, I saw something in her eyes that looked almost like fear, not of me, but of the conversation that was now unavoidable.
"Not everything," she said carefully, "But enough.
"How? I asked.
She was quiet for a beat that lasted too long."That," she said, "Is a very complicated answer. "I have time," I said.
"Not yet," she said, "Give me a little more time, and I will tell you everything, Seb, I promise you that, but right now Roman just left your gate and Theo Cross is missing and you need to be focused.
I looked at her.
The mate bond pulled steady and warm between us, and Draven, who trusted nothing and no one, was completely quiet in a way that meant he believed her.
"Soon," I said.
"Soon," she agreed.
Then she turned and walked back inside, and I stood in the morning light with the knowledge that the woman carrying my mate bond was keeping a secret large enough to change everything. The certainty, low and absolute, that when she finally told me, nothing about either of our lives was ever going to look the same again.
- Writer
