The King in the Passage

Elysia

I stay crouched beneath the kitchen window until the pressure in my chest eases enough for me to breathe.

It doesn't leave. It dulls into a steady ache, like a bruise somebody keeps pressing. My wolf paces in tight circles, whining low in her throat. I tell her to settle down. She ignores me, which is a first. She has never ignored anything. She has barely spoken in twenty-four years.

"Elysia!" Cook claps her hands twice. "On your feet. We're short a pair of hands."

I scramble up. "I'm meant to stay out of sight. Killian said—"

"Killian isn't the one counting cups." She shoves a tray at me. It's loaded with a dozen silver goblets and a heavy jug of spiced wine. "Two girls are sick, and Alpha Greaves wants the hall running like a clock. Go. Pour, smile, and don't spill on the king."

"What if the king spills on me?"

"Then it'll be an improvement." She spins me toward the door with a flick of her wrist. "Move."

I go. I tell myself I'll stay close to the walls. I'll pour fast. I'll be a ghost, just like Dax said, a very round one.

The great hall has never looked so grand. Banners hang from every beam. Warriors stand in perfect lines along the walls with their chins up and their boots polished. Alpha Greaves sits at the head of the long table in his best coat, his smile stretched tight enough to snap. Killian stands beside him, a perfect picture of the dutiful son.

He sees me and goes pale.

I look away. The room smells of smoke and wine and wolves in their best clothes, and I'm used to not being able to sort it into anything useful. Tonight there's something else underneath it, something I can't name. It prickles my skin like the air before a storm.

Then the doors open.

I don't see him at first. I only see the pack bowing and hear the scrape of boots. A heavy, quiet pressure settles over the hall, the weight an Alpha puts into a room just by walking into it. Every wolf in the place lowers its gaze. My own knees try to buckle.

I stay up. I have a tray. I focus on the tray.

By the time I lift my head, the king has already passed me and taken his seat. I can only see his back, wide and dark and perfectly still.

My heart pounds anyway.

***

For the next hour I pour, and nobody looks at me, which suits me fine.

Then I walk down the side passage toward the cellar for more wine, and somebody steps into my path.

"Well, well." He's a visiting Beta, big and red-faced, with a royal crest pinned to his collar. He's holding a goblet and swaying slightly. He sniffs the air and frowns. "What is that? You smell like nothing."

"Excuse me, my lord." I try to step around him.

He moves with me. "No, really. I've never smelled anything like it. A wolf with no scent." He laughs. "They must have run out when they got to you, eh? Not that it matters. With a figure like that, you won't be missing anything."

His eyes slide down me in a slow, ugly line.

"Let me pass," I say.

"Don't be shy." He catches my wrist. His fingers dig in hard enough to hurt. "I'm only being friendly."

"Release me."

"Or what?"

My wolf snarls. It's the loudest she's ever been, and it startles me so much that I stop thinking. I lift my foot and drive my heel down hard on his.

He bellows. His grip loosens just enough, and I wrench my arm free. The tray flies out of my other hand and crashes on the flagstones. Wine and silver go everywhere.

"You little—"

His hand rises.

I flinch and turn my face away. I've been hit before, and my body knows what to do.

The blow doesn't come.

"Do you often mistake a servant's position for permission to touch her?"

The voice is cold, quiet, and absolutely steady. It doesn't need to be loud. It fills the passage the way water fills a glass.

The Beta's arm freezes in the air. I look past it.

The man standing at the end of the passage is very tall. His shoulders almost fill the narrow space. His hair is black, silver at the temples, and his eyes are the color of steel under a winter sky.

Something flashes at the back of my mind, torchlight, an old boundary stone, a low voice asking why I was crying. I push it away. It can't be. A king wouldn't stand alone in the dark at the edge of a pack he wasn't visiting. It's the wine fumes and my own stupid hope.

My sternum burns. I press my palm against it, and it doesn't help.

"Your Majesty." The Beta lowers his hand. "A misunderstanding. The girl was clumsy, and I only meant—"

"I saw what you meant."

The Beta swallows. "I can explain."

"You can explain it to the guards escorting you out." The king doesn't raise his voice, and somehow that makes it worse. "You'll leave Silvercrest tonight. If I hear of another incident like this one, you'll lose more than your dignity."

Two warriors in dark armor appear from nowhere. The Beta goes with them without another word, limping on his bruised foot.

The silence afterward rings.

I wait for the lecture. *Servant, you disturbed the king's evening. Apologise. Kneel.* I'm already tucking my hands behind my back.

Instead, he asks, "Are you hurt?"

I blink. "What?"

"Your wrist." His gaze drops to it. "Did he hurt you?"

I look down. There are red marks where the Beta's fingers dug in. I tuck the arm behind me. "It's nothing."

"That isn't what I asked."

"I'm fine, Your Majesty. I can handle myself."

"So I noticed."

It's the barest thing. A flicker at the corner of his mouth, a tilt in his voice, so faint I almost miss it. But it hits me in the stomach like a stone, because I've heard that tone before. Or I think I have.

For one strange breath, we only look at each other. Not king and servant. Not Alpha and omega. Just two people standing in a narrow passage with spilled wine around our feet. His eyes hold mine. The warmth under my ribs flares so hot it almost hurts.

Then his face closes. It's like watching a door swing shut.

"Your name," he says.

My mouth goes dry. "Elysia, Your Majesty. Elysia Belrose."

He goes very still. Something passes behind his steel-grey eyes, quick and unreadable, and gone.

"You're dismissed."

"Your Majesty, I—"

"*Dismissed.*"

I bow. My legs aren't steady. I gather what I can of the tray and the broken goblets and walk away without looking back, though I feel his gaze on my spine until I turn the corner.

***

"What were you thinking?"

Killian drags me into the empty pantry and shuts the door. He's furious, white around the mouth, pacing in the cramped space between the shelves.

"I told you to stay out of sight."

"Cook needed—"

"I don't care what Cook needed! Do you know how that looked? The king stopped in the middle of a gathering to speak to a *servant.*"

"A Beta grabbed me."

"I don't care about the Beta!" He drags a hand through his hair. "What did he say to you?"

"He asked if I was hurt."

"What else?"

"He asked my name."

Killian goes rigid. "And you told him."

"What else was I supposed to do?"

He stares at me, and I realise something that makes my stomach turn. He hasn't once asked about my wrist. He hasn't asked if I'm all right. He's only asking what the king said, and whether the king remembers me.

"Go back to your quarters," he says. "Stay there until the delegation leaves. Do you understand?"

"Killian—"

"Do you *understand*?"

I nod. My wolf has stopped whining. She's gone quiet and sulky, the way she does when she knows I'm lying to myself.

***

Rhaegar

It was irritation. That's all.

I stand at the window of the Alpha's guest chamber with my hands clasped behind me and my jaw clenched hard. A man abused his position tonight. I put a stop to it. I would have done the same for any servant in any hall in my kingdom.

I'm not thinking about the girl.

I'm thinking about the wrist, the red marks left by a Beta's fingers. I'm thinking about the Beta's red face and how much I wanted to break it.

My wolf is awake and pacing, and I can't get him to lie down. He hasn't done that for years.

*Her*, he says. One word, low and hungry.

I ignore him.

There was no scent. I'd noticed it as soon as she stepped into the passage. A wolf with nothing, no pack, no rank, no fear, no lies. A hollow where a person should be. And still every instinct I own turned toward her like a compass needle.

Elysia Belrose. I know that name. I couldn't say from where.

I lost my mate twenty years ago. I buried her and her child in the same grave. I've spent every year since refusing to want anything that could be taken from me. I'll not be undone by a nameless servant with a sharp tongue and a bruised wrist.

*Mate*, my wolf says.

"No."

I say it out loud in the empty room. It doesn't sound like the truth.

***

Elysia

The servants' quarters are dark by the time I get back, long after the feast should have ended. I'm halfway down the corridor, carrying the cracked remains of the tray, when I hear it.

Voices behind the door at the end of the hall. A storeroom. Someone has left it ajar, a thin line of candlelight on the floorboards.

I know that voice.

I'd know it anywhere. It's the one that says be *patient* and *I chose you and stay out of sight.* It's low and rough and pleased with itself, and it's coming from the room where I'm not supposed to be.

I creep closer. The tray trembles in my hands.

A woman laughs, light and silvery and delighted. A laugh like a bell.

"Oh, darling," she says. "You're *terrible.*"