Unclaimed: Loved By The Lycan King

What She Carried

Aria's room held less of her than she expected.

She stood in the doorway for a moment before she made herself move, taking in the space that was supposed to have been hers and Cassian's—the bed she'd slept in alone more nights than not, the closet still half-full of dresses she'd bought for a life that never quite started. It took less than twenty minutes to pack everything that actually mattered to her into a single canvas bag.

That fact alone told her everything about the last three hundred and twelve days.

"You're allowed to take the jewelry, you know." Talia stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching Aria fold a worn sweater instead of the sapphire earrings Cassian had given her as a bonding gift. "It's yours."

"I don't want anything with his name attached to it." Aria zipped the bag shut. "Not anymore."

Talia's expression softened, then turned uneasy. "Aria. Do you actually know anything about this King? Because everyone in this pack has a story about the Obsidian Throne, and none of them end well."

"I know he's terrifying. I know he just upended my entire life in under ten minutes." Aria slung the bag over her shoulder. "I also know he's the first person to look at me in almost a year like I was actually standing in the room."

"That's not the same as safe."

"No," Aria agreed quietly. "But it's more than I had here."

She didn't have an answer for the ache that admission put in her chest, so she didn't examine it too closely. She walked past Talia into the hallway, and that was when Evelyn stepped out from the shadow of the stairwell, Milo nowhere in sight, her earlier panic replaced with something colder and far more controlled.

"Leaving so soon." Evelyn's voice was silk over steel. "Before you go, I think you deserve honesty, don't you? After everything?"

Aria kept walking. "I don't need anything from you."

"The border patrol schedule that had you working nights for four months straight." Evelyn fell into step beside her, unhurried. "The 'miscommunications' that meant you were never told about pack dinners. The healer who happened to be unavailable every time you asked about your bloodline markings." She smiled, small and satisfied. "None of that was an accident, Aria. I made very sure Cassian never had a reason to really look at you."

Something cold settled in Aria's stomach, but she kept her face even. "Why are you telling me this now?"

"Because it doesn't matter anymore, does it?" Evelyn's eyes glittered. "You're the Lycan King's problem now. Do try to survive him."

Aria stopped walking long enough to meet her eyes directly, the first time she'd ever held Evelyn's gaze without flinching. "You spent a year making sure I stayed small and invisible. And it still wasn't enough to stop this." She stepped closer, close enough to see the flicker of uncertainty c***k through Evelyn's composure. "Enjoy Cassian. You worked hard enough for him."

She left Evelyn standing in the hallway with her mouth slightly open, and for the first time in three hundred and twelve days, Aria felt something close to victory.

Cassian was waiting at the front gates.

He'd changed—out of the Alpha's formal coat and into something plainer, like he'd meant to look like a man instead of a leader for whatever he was about to say. Fenris's convoy idled beyond the gates, three black vehicles and a line of silent guards, and Aria could feel Fenris's attention on her even from this distance, though he made no move to intervene.

"Aria. Wait." Cassian caught her arm, gently, and she let him only because pulling away would mean touching him longer. "You don't have to do this. I can fight the treaty claim. I can call an alliance council, buy time—"

"To do what, Cassian? Finally claim me?" She looked down at his hand on her arm until he released it. "You had three hundred and twelve days."

"I know I failed you. I know that. But this—" his voice cracked, and she almost believed the desperation was for her instead of what her leaving meant for Silver Dawn's standing among the packs, losing an Obsidian bloodline wolf to the Lycan King himself in front of every ally watching. "Let me fix this."

"You don't want to fix us." Aria's voice was steady, almost gentle, which surprised her. "You want to fix how this looks."

He didn't deny it. That was answer enough.

She walked past him, through the gates, into the cold morning air, and didn't stop until she reached the first black vehicle, where a tall, sharp-eyed man with a scar through one eyebrow held the door open for her.

"Ronan," he said, by way of introduction, his gaze assessing her with open, unhidden curiosity—not the wary suspicion she expected from a King's second, but something closer to relief. "His Majesty said to make sure you're comfortable."

"Is he not riding with me?"

"He's ahead, with the second vehicle. Making arrangements." Ronan's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "He doesn't sit still well when there's a clock running."

Aria climbed into the vehicle, sinking into the leather seat, watching Silver Dawn's gates shrink in the side mirror as the convoy pulled away. Cassian didn't chase after them. He simply stood there, growing smaller, until a bend in the road erased him entirely.

She should have felt something. Grief, maybe, or fear.

Instead she felt Ronan settle into the seat across from her, felt him studying her with the same searching curiosity Fenris had shown in the courtyard, and heard him murmur into a comm device at his wrist, voice pitched low but not quite low enough.

"...confirmed the marking. It's her. Tell the healers to prepare the ritual chamber—if the curse timeline is right, we've got maybe three months before the King's next Turning, and if she's not ready by then—"

He caught Aria watching him and cut the comm off immediately, his easy expression sliding back into place like a mask.

"Ritual chamber," Aria repeated slowly. "Turning. What exactly did I just agree to?"

Ronan's smile didn't reach his eyes. "That's really a conversation for the King."

Outside the window, the Obsidian Throne's black spires had just begun to rise on the horizon, and Aria realized, with a slow chill spreading through her chest, that she'd traded one kind of danger for a much larger, much darker unknown.