Chapter 25

"Moved rooms? Who authorized this?"

Alpha Blackwood's voice was a blade wrapped in silk. Aria heard it through two walls and a locked door—her new room, deeper in the royal wing, nestled between Blake's quarters and a guard station.

He was in the corridor. Arguing with guards.

"I demand to see my daughter. I'm her father. I have rights."

A guard's voice, steady and unimpressed: "All competitors have been relocated per royal security protocol. Visitor access requires authorization from the Royal Gamma."

"Then get me the Royal Gamma."

"He's unavailable, sir."

A pause. Then her father's voice dropped low enough that Aria had to press her ear to the door to hear it.

"You tell my daughter that I know what she's doing. And she can't hide forever."

Footsteps retreated.

Aria stepped back from the door. Her hands were shaking, but her jaw was set. He couldn't reach her here. Not physically. Not without going through guards, through Blake, through the kings themselves.

But physical reach wasn't the only kind of weapon her father had.

The summons came at dinner.

Aria was eating with Luna in the competitors' dining hall when a servant appeared with a folded note. No seal. No signature. Just words in her father's handwriting—sharp and angular, like the letters themselves wanted to cut.

"I know what you've been doing with the kings. I know you've been whoring yourself to them like your mother whored herself to anything that moved. If you don't throw the final trials and come home like a good daughter, I will tell every person in this castle exactly what you are. I will ruin you. And I will ruin them."

Aria read it twice. The words hit her like punches—not because they hurt, but because they were so ugly. So calculated. He knew exactly which wounds to open.

Your mother whored herself.

Her mother. The woman she'd never known. The woman her father had spent twenty-three years using as a weapon against her.

"Aria?" Luna was watching her. "What is it?"

Aria folded the note and slipped it into her pocket. "Nothing. Eat your dinner."

"That wasn't nothing. You went white. Your hands are shaking."

Aria looked down. Luna was right. Her fingers were trembling against the table.

"It's from my father," she said quietly.

Luna's face hardened. "What did he say?"

"Not here." Aria glanced around the dining hall. Too many ears. Too many eyes. Vivian was three tables away, pretending not to watch. A group of Northern Ridge competitors were openly staring.

"After dinner," Aria said. "My room."

"Okay." Luna reached under the table and squeezed Aria's hand. "Whatever it is, we handle it together."

Later came in Aria's new room, after the candles were lit and the door was locked. Luna sat cross-legged on the bed while Aria paced.

"He's threatening to expose the bond," Aria said. "He'll tell the whole court that I'm sleeping with the kings."

Luna's mouth fell open. "He wouldn't."

"He would. In a heartbeat. If it means controlling me, he'd burn this entire castle down."

"But that would ruin him too. His own daughter, involved with the kings—how does that help his reputation?"

"He doesn't care about his reputation. He cares about control." Aria stopped pacing and pressed her fists against her eyes. "He'd rather see me destroyed than free. That's how he's always been. When I was fifteen, I tried to leave. Packed a bag in the middle of the night and made it all the way to the pack border. He caught me. Dragged me back. And then he made sure I couldn't sit down for a week."

Luna's eyes went hard. "Aria..."

"I never tried to leave again. That was the point. Not punishment. Control." She dropped her hands. "This letter is the same thing. He can't reach me physically anymore, so he's using the only weapon he has left. Information."

"Then we take the weapon away."

Luna was quiet for a moment. "Aria, what if we call his bluff?"

"What?"

"Think about it. If he exposes the bond, what happens? The kings are embarrassed, sure. But you're their mate. That's not a crime. It's a blessing. Half the kingdom would celebrate."

"The other half would say I manipulated my way to the top. That the competition was rigged."

"Some people will always say that. But the truth is on your side." Luna leaned forward. "You're their fated mate. The Moon Goddess chose you. No amount of dirty laundry from your father changes that."

Aria sank onto the bed. "It's not that simple. The curse, Luna. If people find out about the mate bond, Knox uses it. The gray cloaks use it. Everyone who wants to see the kings fall will have the ammunition they need."

"Then what do we do?"

"We stall. Keep my father away from me. Keep Vivian happy enough that she doesn't talk. And pray that Darius finds a way to neutralize Knox before everything blows up."

Luna reached over and took her hand. "You're not alone in this."

"I know."

"No, I mean it. You spent your whole life alone. Dealing with everything by yourself. But that's over now. You have me. You have Blake. You have Cade. And you have two kings who would probably start a war for you."

Aria laughed. It was tired and thin, but it was real. "Orion would. Darius would plan the war first, then start it."

"See? You've got a full army." Luna squeezed her hand. "Your father is one man. A mean, broken man who's afraid of what his daughter might become. Don't give him the power."

The words sank in. Slowly. Like rain into dry soil.

Don't give him the power.

She'd been giving him power her whole life. Every flinch, every hidden bruise, every time she made herself small to avoid his anger—she'd been feeding him. Making him bigger. Making herself smaller.

Not anymore.

"Tomorrow is the last day of the Trial of Heart," Aria said. "I'm going to compete. And I'm going to give it everything I have."

"What about Darius's strategy? Holding back?"

"Darius can strategize. I'm going to win."

Luna grinned. "That's the Aria I know."

They talked for another hour after that. About small things—Luna's crush on one of the Ravencrest witches, the terrible food in the competitors' dining hall, the way Orion's laugh could be heard three corridors away. Normal things. Human things. The kind of conversation that had nothing to do with curses or conspiracies or fathers who used their fists instead of words.

It helped. More than Aria expected. She'd been so deep in survival mode that she'd forgotten what it felt like to just talk. To be a twenty-three-year-old woman sitting with her best friend, complaining about bad food and laughing at stupid jokes.

When Luna finally left, the room felt emptier. But not lonelier. Not anymore.

After Luna left, Aria sat alone in the quiet of her new room. She pulled out her father's note and read it one more time.

Then she held it over the candle and watched it burn.

The paper curled black and crumbled to ash. His words disappeared into smoke.

She blew out the candle and lay in the dark.

Tomorrow, she would compete. She would win or she wouldn't. But she would do it on her terms.

And if her father wanted a war, she'd give him one.

The thought should have scared her. But as she closed her eyes, she felt something she hadn't expected.

Calm.

Not the calm of giving up. The calm of deciding. The calm of a woman who'd stopped running and turned to face what was chasing her.

Her wolf hummed inside her chest. Approval. Hunger. Readiness.

Whatever came next, they would face it together.

But somewhere in the castle, in a room that smelled like old wine and expensive leather, Alpha Blackwood sat across from Royal Beta Knox. And the look that passed between them was the look of two men making a deal.

A deal that had Aria's name written all over it.