The King's Hand

Chapter 5: The King's Torment

The silence in my study is absolute, and it is a lie. It screams with her presence. She is just beyond that door, in the rooms I gave her. My rooms. The ones that share a wall with mine. A tactical decision, I told Roric. The Hand must be close, must be accessible. A lie so flimsy a pup would see through it.

I am Fenris, Wolf King of the Stoneclaw. My will is law. My strength is legend. I have broken armies and forged a clan from blood and ice. And yet, I am reduced to this: listening for the sound of her breathing through solid stone.

This is a madness. A sweet, agonizing poison in my veins.

Every instinct I possess, every primal fiber of my being, howls for her. It is a constant, pounding drumbeat in my skull: Mate. Mine. Protect. Claim. My wolf, that great, savage beast I command, now commands me in this one, unforgivable thing. It bays for her, paces the confines of my soul, frantic to get to the silver-shadow on the other side of the wall.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but it only makes her image clearer. Elara. Not just a name anymore. It is a brand. The way she moved in the training yard, it wasn’t the brutish hacking of my warriors. It was a dance. A lethal, beautiful dance. She is a poem written in muscle and grace, and I am a man who has only ever read battle plans.

And then she touched me.

The memory is a physical shock, even now. The jarring impact of her pommel against my ribs. It wasn't the strike that felled me. It was the spark. The instant, catastrophic ignition of the bond. It was like being born and dying in the same second. The world dissolved into her scent, winterberries and cold steel and the terrifying, glorious certainty that the other half of my soul stood before me, armed and dangerous.

My reaction was shameful. Revulsion? No. Never that. It was terror. Pure, undiluted terror. The terror of a king who sees the foundation of his entire world cracking. My Hand cannot be my mate. To have my weakness, my one vulnerability, stand beside me as my protector? It is a joke. A flaw in the great design. How can I command a clan that sees me beholden to a she-wolf? How can I lead when my every decision would be questioned, seen through the lens of this fatal attraction?

So I sent her away. I poured all my fear and confusion into a look of contempt and banished her. The moment she fled, the moment that silver thread stretching between us pulled taut and thrummed with the distance, I knew I had made the worst mistake of my life.

The fortress became a tomb. Her absence was a ghost in every hall, a silence louder than any war cry. I could not think. I could not rule. I was a king without his Hand, and worse, a wolf without his mate. The duality of it is tearing me apart.

Bringing her back was a necessary agony. I told myself it was for the clan. That I needed a Hand. That Kaelan’s sister, with her cold efficiency, was the only suitable candidate. Another lie. I brought her back because I am selfish. Because I would rather endure the torment of her presence than the desolation of her absence.

Now she is here. And the torment is exquisite.

I feel her everywhere. A constant, low hum in my blood. When she trains, I watch. I tell myself I am assessing her technique, ensuring she is worthy of the title. But I am not watching a warrior. I am watching the shift of muscle in her back, the focused set of her jaw, the way a stray strand of hair escapes her braid and sticks to her damp temple. When that young fool of an apprentice dared to look at her, to admire what is mine, the jealousy was a red-hot knife in my gut. My reaction was possessive, brutal, and entirely for my own benefit. A warning to every male in this territory. They may not understand why, but they will feel the consequences of looking at her.

And tonight, in this study…

I stand by the fire, my back to her, and every sense is stretched to its limit. I hear the soft rustle of parchment as she reads. I smell her scent, and it clouds my mind like a drug. I gave her a task to justify her being here, to me, to her, to anyone who might question it. But my mind is not on border reports. It is on the space between her shoulder blades.

I cannot help myself. I turn. I move toward her. Each step is a battle. My kingly self shouts retreat. My wolf snarls advance. She is so close. The heat of her body is a beacon. My hand lifts, of its own volition, drawn to the silken fall of her hair. I want to touch it. I want to bury my face in it and breathe her in. I want to feel if it is as soft as it looks.

The bond between us vibrates, a plucked string. She has gone perfectly still. She feels it too. This terrible, beautiful connection.

And that is what stops me. The sheer control she exhibits. The absolute stillness. I am coming apart at the seams, and she is a statue of duty. It is that control, that ice in her veins, that reminds me of what she is. What I made her. The perfect Hand. Trained not to feel. Not to love.

Trained to be everything I now desperately need her not to be.

The contradiction is a vise around my heart. I want to shatter that control. I want to see her feel, to see her want, to see her look at me not as her king, but as her mate. And yet, if she did, it would undo us both.

The conflict is too much. I break. I turn and leave, the slam of the door a pathetic echo of the turmoil inside me. I stride through the cold corridors of my own fortress, a king in a gilded cage of his own making.

I end up on the high wall again, the wind whipping at my hair, trying to scour her scent from my mind. It is useless.

Roric finds me there, as he always does. He says nothing, simply stands beside me, a silent witness to my unraveling.

“She is analyzing the border reports,” I say, my voice rough, as if I have been screaming. “Her assessment will be thorough.”

“I do not doubt it,” Roric replies, his tone neutral.

“This changes nothing,” I grind out. The words are for me, not for him. “She is the Hand. Nothing more.”

Roric is quiet for a long moment. “The clan sees a king who cannot look away from his new Hand. They see a king who banished a blacksmith’s apprentice for glancing in her direction. They are not blind, Fenris. They may not know the truth, but they see the effect she has on you.”

Panic, cold and sharp, lances through me. “What are they saying?”

“They are saying you are captivated by Silverwood’s unusual daughter. They say you admire her strength, even as it vexes you.” He pauses. “They do not say the word ‘mate.’ That truth is still yours alone.”

Captivated. Yes. Vexed. Beyond measure.

“It must remain that way,” I say, the order tasting like ash. “She is to be treated with the respect due her station. No more, no less. And you will ensure no one speaks of her with… familiarity.”

Especially you, I do not add. The thought of Roric, with his kind eyes and easy smiles, near her, makes my vision tinge with red.

“Of course, my King,” Roric says, and I can hear the unspoken pity in his voice. He pities me. The mighty Fenris, brought to his knees by a pair of winterberry eyes and a spine of steel.

He leaves me alone on the wall. I look down into the courtyard, and I see her. She has left my study and is walking toward the warriors’ quarters, likely to deliver her assessment to the captain. Her head is high, her posture impeccable. She does not look up. She does not feel my gaze.

But I feel her. I will always feel her. My Hand. My mate. My eternal, exquisite torment.