Bound by Blood and Fire

The Brother

Ravenna found Ren waiting for her outside the dining hall the next morning, arms crossed, expression carefully pleasant in a way that didn't reach his eyes.

"Emissary Ashcombe." He said the false name like he already knew it was false. "Or should I call you something else? I find myself curious what your real name might be, given how thoroughly it seems to have escaped my brother's composure last night."

"I'm not sure what you mean," she said.

"No, I imagine you're very practiced at not being sure of things." He fell into step beside her, unbothered by her silence. "You should know — I don't share my brother's optimism about this alliance. Or his apparent willingness to be bonded to whatever it is you actually are."

"A wolf," she said. "That's what I actually am."

"That remains to be seen." His smile didn't warm at all. "Convenient bonds have a way of unraveling once people start asking who benefits from them. I intend to ask, Emissary. Often. Loudly, if I have to."

He left her standing in the corridor, unsettled in a way she hadn't expected a stranger to manage so easily — not because she feared him exactly, but because she recognized, with a cold, sinking certainty, that he'd already guessed there was something worth digging for.

He doesn't know the half of it, she thought, and wondered, uneasily, how long that would stay true.