Royalty Twistの小説

First MeetingFarron found her the next morning before she'd even finished her first task of the day."You're wanted," he said, appearing at the edge of the laundry yard with the kind of unhurried authority that made it clear refusal wasn't really an option. "Now, if it's convenient. Now regardless, if it isn't.""Wanted by who?""You'll see."He led her through the pack compound without much conversation, past the training grounds and the council hall, toward a smaller building set apart from the rest, built of the same dark timber as everything else in Silver City but somehow quieter, as if the whole structure had learned to hold its breath. Farron stopped at the door and gestured her through without following.Ivy hesitated. "You're not coming in?""Not invited," Farron said, with the faint, dry humor of a man who'd made peace with that fact a long time ago. "Go on. He doesn't bite. Usually."The door led to a study lined with maps and ledgers, sparse in a way that suggested the ma

The Lycan Everyone FearsXavier ate alone most nights, and most nights, that suited him fine.The eastern hall emptied out around him the way it always did once his presence was known, not through any order he gave, never that, but through the quiet, practiced instinct of wolves who had learned, over years, exactly how much space to leave a Lycan they didn't fully understand.He was halfway through his meal when the council's second, a steady old wolf named Farron, took the seat across from him without asking. Not many did that either."You look like a man doing math he doesn't like the answer to," Farron said."Border reports.""They're not good.""They're not good." Xavier set down his cup. Two rival packs to the east had spent the last month testing Silver City's patrol routes, small incursions, nothing that demanded open conflict yet, but the kind of probing that always preceded something larger. "Whoever's behind it is patient. That's the part I don't like. Patient means planned.

The Silver City PackIvy woke to unfamiliar ceiling beams and the smell of burning cedar.For a long moment she didn't move, didn't trust her own body enough to try. Everything ached in the deep, bone-level way that came after real exhaustion, and her throat was so dry it took two attempts before she managed a sound at all."Easy." A voice, female, brisk without being unkind, somewhere to her left. "You're not dying. You just tried to walk three days on no food and half a fight with a rogue. Your body's still deciding how it feels about that."Ivy turned her head. A woman stood beside the bed, arms crossed, watching her with the flat, assessing look of someone who'd seen a great many collapsed strangers carried through a gate and had opinions about most of them. She was older than Ivy, though not by much hard-eyed, scarred along one forearm in a way that suggested the scar had a story nobody had asked to hear yet."Where a

The Woman Damian ChoseDamian hadn't slept.He stood at the window of his father's study, still in the remains of his ceremonial dress, watching the pack lands turn from black to grey as dawn came on. Behind him, the study door opened and closed without a knock. Only one person in the pack house didn't bother knocking anymore."You look terrible," his father said."I feel terrible.""You feel guilty. There's a difference." The Alpha crossed to his desk and sat, unhurried, the way he did everything. Decades of command had worn all the urgency out of him. "Guilt passes. Sit down."Damian didn't sit. "The enforcers went after her last night.""They did their job.""I didn't order that.""No." His father's eyes were steady, unbothered. "Seraphine did. And you'll let her, because she's your Luna now, and a Luna who can't act without her mate's permission isn't worth the title." He gestured at the cha

Unclaimed GroundIvy didn't stop walking. Stopping would tell whatever was out there that she'd noticed.She kept her pace even, her breathing steady, and let her eyes do the work instead of her feet, scanning the tree line without turning her head, the way Bertram had drilled into every young wolf who'd ever picked up a blade under him. Panic tells a predator everything it needs to know. Calm tells it nothing.The scent came again on the next gust of wind. Sharper this time. Closer.Not pack. She would have known pack, known it the way you know a voice you grew up hearing. This was something else musky and wild, undisciplined, the scent of a wolf that answered to no one and hadn't in a long time. A rogue.She had heard about rogues her whole life the way children hear about storms, something dangerous that happened to other people, in other places, far from anywhere safe. She understood now, with her heart hammering and her bag suddenly heavy across her shoulders, that she had walked

What the Bond TakesIvy didn't have the strength to run.She stayed on her knees in the wet grass, one hand still pressed to her chest, and watched three shapes come toward her out of the dark. Torchlight caught them before their faces did. She recognized the uniform first pack enforcers, the ones who answered only to the Alpha's household and then, a step behind them, a face she wished she didn't know so well. Seraphine.Still in her ceremonial white, though someone had thrown a cloak over her shoulders against the night air. She stopped a few feet away and looked down at Ivy with an expression that wasn't quite triumph and wasn't quite pity. Something colder than both."You shouldn't be out here alone," Seraphine said. "It isn't safe. Not tonight, of all nights.""I'm fine." Ivy forced herself upright, though her legs shook doing it. "You can go back to your party.""It isn't a party anymore. It's a coronation." Seraphine's eyes flicked over her, taking in the state of her, the gra