LL

the moment Azriel

s-the ones spoken aloud

special about a h

is, she stood up and said take

chose that broken girl as a breed

make sense. It ju

at hasn't been sorted yet. My ribs ache when I breathe too deeply. My cheek throbs where the guard's hand left its mark. I'm still in the same torn clothes from t

her f

of the hall without effort. He doesn't

parts without being asked, opening a path through the middle of the hall, and I walk it alone. Each step echoes. I'm aware of every eye in the room tracking

w feet in f

his back, relaxed but commanding. His da

eases to exist." He lets that settle for a moment. Around me, the pack members flinch almost

ands rigid beside him, stari

tion. I offer you strength. What I do not offer is patience for resistance.

re Black Stone Pack is on the floor. Pack members I've known my whole life, faces I've spent seve

eels. Dyl

mewhere behind them.

nough to be deliberate, Julia sinks to her knees.

" Azri

l falls

e look

ok

somewhere around his collar. I li

ely toward his thoughts-reaching for that current I can feel beneath almost everyone else's surface

e more than I

you'd state the terms of a contract. "Your fate from this point forward depends

comes out steadier than

gone so quickly I can't name it. He holds m

back to

s still around my shoulders. The sounds of the hall fall away behind us as we move into the corridor-the low murm

ing under my feet and try to ma

u to notice someone. This was different. Azriel looked at me the way you'd look at an object you've acquired and

on, you l

nd something in it. A second meaning

thing. Jus

ettles into me cold and flat. That's all

ther into the pack house than my old Omega's room, which s

other says. "You stay her

ep i

ow with actual glass. A basin and pitcher on a side table.

of it and don't know w

den box. She's older-maybe fifty, with warm brown skin and the kind of face that has spent a long time lookin

e are bandages, a small tin of salve, and some folded strips of clean linen. "

ek with brisk, careful hands, pressing gently at

opens the tin and starts applying salve. It stings, then tur

register the relief wh

-these wear the royal insignia, and they have the rigid posture

ft says. "You're to bathe and dress with

hen she resumes smoothing the salve with th

ave. The door

I hear it-the thought she doesn't say aloud, d

. She might not be able to withsta

nishes, the way people do when they don't

e at t

one in this room with a maid wrapping my wrists and guards posted outside my door, I can't avoid them anymore. I k

just used a cleaner

nd-I used that up a long time ago. This is older. It sits in my chest l

it off neatly. She sits back and studies

something

no

mediate staff, and I am the exception only because I was appointed before he had a say in the matter." She folds the extra linen and sets it aside. "He does not do this. He has nev

ok a

a mate bond?"

She meets my eyes. "You und

ard each other in that forest might have been real for him too.

only said he wouldn't reject me. Even that felt

quietly, "it would be the

on doesn't chang

says. "It

kind of thing a servant would wear, but whole and unworn and mine. I sit on the edge of the bed while she pins my damp hai

pent seventeen years being afraid in front of

ng foolish. I kno

warning about bad weather-not direct fear, but the respect you give something that can kill you if you're careless. Cold-

I've ever seen. That's what I'll keep

k at t

oothing the front of

oor o

to take up space. She's striking in a way that announces itself: high cheekbones, dark eyes, black hair pulled into a severe knot at the back of her head. She's

southeastern territory's Alpha. She visited the Black Stone Pack once, two y

oks at

l it-the thought, sharp and clear and i

eathed on her. She's nothing. She's less than nothing. How long bef

face compl

op to a precise, fo

, every edge concealed beneath perfect courtesy. "I serve as the

nd her expression holds nothing bu

gaze for

lly. Not as a last resort. Now

nformation aw

othing the front of the gray dre