just called Mira's false name toward the cottage (how he'd gotten even that much, she didn't want to guess),

watching her dress with han

rom where he found me." Mira pulled her hair back, hard, the way she di

something t

y convincing," Mira sai

the sheer number of eyes that followed her through the gate. Word traveled fast in a court built on suspicion. By the time she was brought into the hall, half the room

hrone - too practical for that, too unadorned - dressed now in a way

oment she crossed the thres

his crown on, she though

word carried more command than anyth

s collective attention shrink her. She'd spent

leathers, close enough to the throne to matter, watching Mira with open, undisguised suspicion. Later she'd learn his name was Ronan,

," Dari

an the king, his voice pitched to carry. "An unclaimed wolf, no pack mark, no explanation for her presence so close

t like a physical pressure, dozens of eyes r

s is exactly what you trained

n't about to let anyone else narrate her own story. "The same rogue, I'd guess, who left claw marks matching the wound I dresse

d to be exactly where the fire was, exactly

ross Ronan's face that hadn't been there a second before. "Interesting, isn't it? A contested border. A sudden raid on a rogue camp that, as far as I can tell, wasn't threatening anyone. And someh

went ve

," Mira went on, voice steady even as her puls

ether in the space of a single conversation - but she'd watched Ronan's jaw tighten at exactly the wrong moment, watched the color shift in hi

rius said quietly. He hadn't move

"I'm sure your Beta can explain

ention - and everyone in that hall was paying attention now. "I acted within my authority

anything else," Mira

ay from what was the strange wolf doing on the border and onto why is the Beta suddenly explaining himself. She'd walked into that hall as the accused. She was walking out of it, or would be soon

is glare without flinching.

ke a blade. He descended the steps toward her - not toward Ronan, toward her - and the room'

ugh that she caught, absurdly, the same low thread of awareness she'd felt on the ridge two nights ago. It was sharper no

in under a minute," Darius said, low e

the truth," Mira said. "Peopl

te a smile, but close to it, private, meant o

nstinct neither of them had agreed to, his fingers closing loosely around her wri

uched hers, the world

always belonged there and was only now coming home. She heard herself gasp. She saw Darius's expression crack open - shock, raw and unguarded filled his eye

a

een absolute and undeniable. Every wolf grew up knowing the signs. She'd simply never expected to feel them standing in the mi

f a whisper, half a plea to a universe that

h, to release it. Smoke. Screaming. A voice calling her name before it was swallowed by something louder. She'd never been able to picture the faces of the men who'd burne

ho destroyed everything. And m

t of her like something torn loose. "

aid her name. It sounded wrong in hi

instinct that had kept her alive for twenty-two years overriding everything else - the mate bond, the crowd

even now, even with murder in her eyes and betrayal roaring through every part of her, some traitorous corner of h

for her, gold eyes steady on hers even as she strained a

him, Ronan's hand had drifted to the hilt of his

," Mira said, breath ragged, bl

his voice cracked open in a way that made her che

r hand. Neither of the

er enemy and her mate in the same unbearable breath. That's the word for this. Not

the thought more tha

mory of how she'd gotten there, Mira pressed both hands flat agai

rstand what the mark meant. Kill him. Simple. Final. A debt owed to a

a voice that cracked when it admitted the truth instead of hiding it. Something she was never supposed to want. S

hich part of fate she

er enemy's fortress, that some part of her