The Hunters Alpha's Mate

The Frame

Chapter 4

Kade's POV

I didn't sleep after Lyra left.

I lay there staring at the ceiling with her name still clouded over my memory, thinking about her hazel eyes and a blade and the way her heartbeat had felt under my hand, until the guards finally stopped searching the halls and the castle went quiet again.

I must have drifted off eventually because the next thing I heard was someone pounding on my door hard enough to break it.

"My King." My personal guard, Tomas, didn't wait for permission. He shoved the door open, and behind him, I could see more guards in the hallway than I'd seen at one time since the last actual siege. "You need to come to the council chamber. Now."

"It's barely dawn."

"It's not about last night." His face told me it was worse than that. "It's about three nights ago."

I sat up immediately, and something in my chest went tight because three nights ago meant nothing to me.

Three nights ago, I'd been right here, dealing with border reports and a stack of trade complaints from the eastern villages, boring enough that I remembered every hour of it clearly.

"What happened three nights ago?"

Tomas wouldn't look at me straight on, which told me everything before he even said it.

"The hunter village across the river, Cael's Hollow. Someone attacked it at night, and most of the families were wiped out." He finally met my eyes. "They're saying it was us."

I was already pulling on a shirt before he finished the sentence. "Us meaning the pack, or us meaning me specifically."

"You specifically, my King. That's what I'm trying to warn you about before you walk in there."

The council chamber was already full by the time I got there, every seat taken, which never happened this early unless someone had called an emergency session behind my back.

My beta, Garrick, stood at the head of the table instead of sitting. His arms were crossed, and a stack of papers lay in front of him. It looked like he'd been working all night.

"Garrick," I said, taking my seat at the head of the table like nothing was wrong because showing panic in that room was as good as admitting guilt. "You want to explain why half the council is here before sunrise."

"I think you know why."

"I don't, actually. Enlighten me."

He slid the papers down the table toward me instead of answering directly.

I picked them up and began to read. After just a few lines, I felt my stomach tighten.

Witness accounts. A woman who survived the attack said she saw wolves with the Ashborn crest branded into their fur. They attacked the village in the middle of the night while everyone slept

A second report describing an Alpha giving orders at the scene, tall, dark haired, matching my description almost too well to be a coincidence. And underneath both reports, a torn piece of fabric in a sealed bag, Ashborn colors, allegedly recovered from the site.

"This is fabricated," I said, and I meant it, but I heard how it sounded coming out of my own mouth, exactly the kind of thing a guilty man says first.

"That's an interesting response," Garrick said, "considering we found this in your own chambers an hour ago."

He set a second bag on the table. Inside, it was a hunting knife I'd never seen before in my life. The blade was stained with old, dried blood. The Ashborn royal seal was stitched into the handle. I recognized it at once.

"That's not mine."

"It was under your bed, my King." Garrick said my title like it tasted bad in his mouth now. "Along with a ledger listing payments to three known mercenaries, dated the same week as the attack."

"I've never seen that ledger. I've never seen this knife. Someone put those there."

"Convenient timing, don't you think?" He scoffed. "The same night a hunter breaks into your chambers with a blade to your throat, and somehow you walk away from that completely unharmed, no memory loss, no injury, nothing except a story about a secret passage none of us knew existed."

The room fell silent. Every council member already knew what had happened the night before. One look at their faces told me they had all come to the same conclusion.

That maybe I'd let the hunter go on purpose. That maybe there was more going on than an Alpha showing mercy to a girl who reminded him of someone from his past.

"The hunter had nothing to do with this," I said, keeping my voice calm, even though every part of me wanted to slam my hand on the table. "She came to kill me over something completely separate. This ledger, this knife, none of it belongs to me, and I want to know who had access to my chambers to plant it there."

"Half the castle has access to your chambers, my King. That's rather the point." Garrick's voice stayed calm, as if he'd expected this question. "What we need right now isn't a list of suspects. We need an explanation for why an entire hunter village is dead and every piece of physical evidence points at you."

I looked around the table, searching for one face that wasn't already leaning toward believing this, and that's when I found Rowan.

My brother sat near the far end of the table with his arms folded and his jaw clenched, and he wasn't even trying to hide how he felt about it.

Rowan and I had never been close, not the way brothers were supposed to be, not since our father died and the title came to me instead of him even though he was two years older.

But I still hadn't expected the look on his face. He didn't look concerned, there was something closer to satisfaction, buried just barely under the surface.

"Rowan," I said. "You have something to add?"

"I have plenty to add." He stood up slowly, the room fell silent as every eye turned to him.

"I've said for years that this council gives you too much benefit of the doubt because of the crown, not because of the man wearing it." He said. "Well, there's your evidence. A village wiped out, physical proof found in your own room, and a hunter who walked away unharmed the very same night."

"You think I ordered an attack on innocent people."

"I think," Rowan said, "that we've spent three years making excuses for decisions you make without consulting anyone, and now people are dead because of it, whether you pulled the trigger yourself or not."

"That's not fair, and you know it."

"Fair doesn't bring back the families in Cael's Hollow." He turned to address the rest of the council instead of me now, which stung more than anything he'd said directly. "I'm not asking for an execution. I'm asking for a proper investigation, with the Alpha's title suspended until it's finished, because right now we cannot have someone under this much suspicion sitting at the head of this pack making decisions for the rest of us."

Murmurs filled the room. People exchanged glances and quiet nods before Garrick even called for the vote.

I tried to argue, laid out everything I actually knew, which was almost nothing, because the truth was I had no idea who had done this or why they wanted it to look like me. Nothing I said mattered any more. Not with the papers, the blood, and the knife carrying my family's seal sitting right in front of them.

The vote came back seven to two.

"Effective immediately," Garrick said, not meeting my eyes, "you have seven days to bring this council proof of your innocence. If you cannot, the title passes to the next in line, pending a full trial."

I already knew who the next in line was. He was sitting three seats down from me, arms still crossed, refusing to look even slightly satisfied in front of the room even though I could feel exactly how satisfied he was underneath it.

"Seven days," I repeated, standing up slowly so I wouldn't do something I couldn't take back. "And if I find out who actually did this."

"Then you'll have your proof," Garrick said. "And your throne stays yours."

I looked at Rowan one last time before I walked out of that chamber, and for one second, just one, something crossed behind his eyes.

It looked like fear.

And I had no idea yet whether that fear was for me or because of something he already knew and hadn't told anyone in that room.