Chapter 21

"Get up."

Alpha Blackwood's boot connected with Aria's ribs. She curled inward, arms wrapped around her midsection, teeth clenched to keep from screaming.

"I said get up."

Another kick. This one hit her back, right along the spine. Pain exploded through her body like lightning, white-hot and blinding.

"Second place." His voice was venom. "I told you to fail. I told you to throw it. And you placed second."

Aria tried to speak. Blood filled her mouth. She spat it onto the stone floor of his guest quarters.

"Father—"

He grabbed her hair and yanked her to her knees. She looked up at him through swollen eyes. One was already closing shut. Her lip was split in two places. Something in her side felt wrong—cracked, maybe broken.

"You think those kings can protect you?" he hissed, his face inches from hers. "You think they care about you? You're nothing, Aria. A freak. A murderer. The girl who killed her own mother."

He threw her sideways. She hit the floor hard, and her vision went white.

"Go back to your room. Clean yourself up. And if you don't throw the next trial, I'll do more than this. I'll end you. And I'll tell the world you did it to yourself, just like your mother."

Aria crawled to the door. Her fingers were slippery with blood. She managed the handle, pulled herself through, and collapsed in the hallway.

She couldn't walk. Her body wouldn't cooperate. Everything hurt—her ribs, her back, her face, her hands where she'd tried to block the blows. She dragged herself along the corridor, leaving smears of red on the stone.

She made it maybe twenty feet before a servant saw her.

The scream brought guards.

The guards brought Blake.

And Blake brought the kings.

She was in the medical wing by then, sitting on a cot while two healers worked on her face. Her left eye was swollen shut. Three ribs were cracked. Bruises covered her arms and torso in shades of purple and black. The healers kept exchanging looks—the kind that said this wasn't from training and everyone in the room knew it.

The doors burst open.

Orion came through first. His eyes found Aria, and everything in him changed. It wasn't gradual. It wasn't slow. One second he was a man. The next second, he wasn't.

His shift happened in the middle of the medical wing. Clothes shredded. Bones cracked and reformed. And where King Orion had stood, a massive wolf now stood—black fur, green eyes burning gold, and a howl that shook the windows in their frames.

The sound was agony made audible. Rage and grief and something primal that went beyond words. It echoed through the corridors, through the halls, through the entire castle.

Every person in the building heard it.

Orion's wolf lunged toward the door—toward the scent of whoever had done this. Darius caught him. Not gently. He wrapped both arms around the wolf's neck and held on, his feet dragging on the stone floor as Orion tried to break free.

"Brother. Stop." Darius's voice was steel. His eyes were black—fully black, no white showing—but his body was still human. Barely. "Not here. Not now."

Orion snarled. Snapped his jaws. Fought against Darius's hold with everything he had.

But Darius didn't let go.

"Think," Darius ground out through clenched teeth. "The whole court is watching. Healers, guards, servants—everyone. If you go after whoever did this, everyone will know why."

The wolf went still. Not calm. Not even close. But still.

Darius loosened his grip slowly. Orion's wolf turned back to Aria. He padded to her cot and pressed his massive head against her chest, his body shaking with restrained fury. A sound came from him—not a howl this time. A whimper. Soft and broken.

Aria put her good hand on his fur. "I'm okay," she whispered. "I'm okay."

He wasn't convinced. His wolf nuzzled her neck, breathing her in, checking her the only way a wolf knew how. His nose pressed against the spot where a claiming bite would go, and he let out another sound that made her chest crack.

Then Darius was there, pulling Orion back. "Enough. Shift back."

A few agonizing seconds passed before Orion shifted. He stood naked and panting, his eyes still gold, his hands curled into fists. Blake threw a cloak over him.

The room was dead silent. Every healer, every guard, every person present had seen it. The king's wolf, howling for one competitor. Nuzzling her neck. Breaking down in a medical wing.

Rumors would spread like wildfire. They probably already had.

Darius turned to the room. His face was carved from ice. "The competitor was attacked by a rogue wolf on the castle grounds. The kings are concerned for the safety of all participants. This incident will be investigated."

Nobody believed it. But nobody was stupid enough to say so.

Seraphina swept into the room moments later, her black robes billowing. She took one look at Aria, one look at the kings, and understood everything.

"Everyone out," she commanded. "Except the healers and the kings."

The room emptied. Seraphina closed the doors and placed a ward—a shimmer of magic that sealed them in silence.

"What happened?" she asked Aria.

"My father."

Seraphina's ancient eyes darkened. She didn't ask for details. She'd seen this kind of damage before, probably hundreds of times across her long life.

"The healers will fix the body," she said. "But the real damage is already done." She looked at Darius. "The court saw everything."

"I know."

"They'll talk."

"They're already talking."

Seraphina's gaze was sharp. "Then you need a story. A good one. Before sunset."

Darius nodded once. His mind was already working—Aria could see it behind his eyes, the gears turning, strategies forming, contingencies building.

But Orion wasn't thinking about stories. He was standing at Aria's bedside, his hands trembling, his face a mask of barely contained destruction.

"When this is over," he said, his voice barely human, "I will kill him."

Nobody in the room told him he was wrong.

By evening, the story had been crafted and spread. A rogue wolf, disoriented and aggressive, had breached the outer grounds and attacked Aria during an early morning walk. The kings, alerted by the commotion, had responded as any responsible rulers would. Orion's public shift was explained as protective instinct triggered by the sight of an injured competitor.

Most of the court accepted it. Or at least pretended to.

But not everyone.

Aria learned this the hard way when she limped back to her room that night, her ribs wrapped tight and her face a mess of healing bruises.

Vivian was waiting in the corridor.

She wasn't smiling. Wasn't smirking. Her expression was something else entirely—focused, calculating, like a hunter who'd just spotted fresh tracks.

"Interesting day," Vivian said.

"Go away, Vivian."

"The rogue wolf story is cute. Very creative." Vivian stepped closer. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "But I was at the medical wing window. I saw everything. The shift. The nuzzle. The way both kings looked at you like the world was ending."

Aria kept her voice flat. "You saw a king responding to an injured competitor."

"I saw a mate bond in action." Vivian's eyes were sharp, cataloguing every micro-expression on Aria's face. "I've studied mate bonds my entire life. My mother was a bond scholar before she died. I know what it looks like when a wolf recognizes its mate, and I know what it looks like when two wolves are fighting every instinct they have not to claim one."

Aria said nothing.

"I haven't told anyone," Vivian continued. "Not my father. Not the other competitors. Not the council." She paused for effect. "Yet."

"What do you want, Vivian?"

She walked away. Her heels clicked on stone like a countdown.

Aria stood in the corridor, her broken ribs screaming, her swollen eye throbbing, and watched the one person who could destroy everything disappear around the corner.

Vivian knew.

And whatever she planned to do with that knowledge, it wasn't going to be kind.