Agreement

SLOANE

I don't sleep so much as lose consciousness for two hours and call it rest.

By the time I drag myself into the war room, the sun's barely up and Corvin's already waiting, arms crossed, wearing the specific expression he reserves for mornings after nights he wasn't fully briefed on.

"I want to understand," he says, without preamble, "how my Alpha ended up housing a rival Alpha, an unidentified Lycan, and a near-riot at our own gate, all in the same six hours, without a single member of this council being consulted."

"There wasn't time to consult anyone. There was a horn blast and then there wasn't."

"There was time enough to invite two dangerous strangers under our roof."

"One of them isn't a stranger. He's the reason we're even discussing an alliance in the first place." I pour myself something hot and bitter from the pot someone left on the sideboard, mostly for the excuse of having something to do with my hands. "The other one may be the only reason we find out what's actually killing our people before it kills more of them."

"And you trust him. The Lycan."

"I don't trust anyone in that courtyard right now, Corvin, including myself. I'm working with what I have."

He studies me for a long moment, some of the sharpness in his face softening into something closer to concern. "The pack's talking. You know that."

"I assumed they would be."

"Some of it's fear. Some of it's..." He hesitates, choosing the next word carefully. "Curiosity, about the company you're keeping. Two powerful men under one roof, one of them the man who rejected you in front of half the North. People notice things like that. They talk."

"Let them talk. I don't govern by gossip."

"No," he says, "but you live in a pack that does, whether you govern by it or not."

I don't have a response for that one that doesn't sound defensive, so I let it go, and Corvin, to his credit, doesn't push further. He simply nods once, the closest thing to approval he tends to offer and leaves me to the rest of the morning.

I find Kieran in the training yard an hour later, running drills alone, longer and harder than the morning calls for. He doesn't stop when I approach, though I know he's clocked me the second I stepped outside.

"You're up early," I say.

"Didn't sleep." He finishes the combination he's working through before he finally turns, breathing hard, a sheen of sweat despite the cold. "Figured I'd rather be tired from something useful."

"Kieran."

"I'm fine, Sloane."

"You have a fine voice too, apparently. I recognize it. I invented it."

That gets something close to a smile out of him, brief and tired. He wipes his face with the back of his wrist and finally looks at me properly, and whatever he's been holding back all night is sitting right there, plain, in the way his jaw tightens before he speaks again.

"Two men," he says, quiet. "Both of them looking at you like you're the only thing worth looking at in that entire courtyard, and I stood there and said nothing, because it isn't my place to say anything. It's never been my place." He shakes his head, more to himself than to me. "I've been telling myself that for two years. I'm getting tired of how easy it's gotten to believe it."

"Kieran—"

"I'm not asking you for anything." He says it fast, like he needs to get it out before he loses his nerve. "I know what I am to you. Steady. Safe. The one who doesn't complicate things. I've made my peace with that, mostly. I just—" He stops, exhales hard, starts again. "I watched you look at both of them last night like I wasn't standing three feet away, and for the first time in two years, that actually hurt. I wanted you to know that. Not because I expect it to change anything. Just because I'm tired of being the only person in this pack who doesn't say what he actually feels."

I don't have a ready answer for that, and the silence stretches long enough that he seems to regret it, some of the openness in his face closing back over.

"Forget I said anything," he mutters. "You've got enough to manage right now."

"Kieran." I catch his arm before he can turn fully away. "I'm not going to forget it. I owe you more honesty than that, even if I don't have a clean answer to give you yet."

"I'm not asking for one."

"I know. That's exactly why you deserve one eventually." I hold his gaze, and something passes between us that isn't romance, not exactly, at least on my part, but isn't nothing either, an old, real affection that's been quietly there for two years, tangled up now with things neither of us fully understands yet. "Give me time. That's all I have to offer honestly right now."

He nods, once, and it's enough for both of us to let the moment close.

I call the council together before midday, because putting off the decision any longer feels like its own kind of cowardice.

"I've made my decision about Duskmoor," I tell them, once everyone's seated. "We help them. Conditionally."

Corvin's brows lift. "Conditionally how?"

"Full military support against whatever's hunting both our territories, in exchange for Duskmoor's formal submission on trade routes north of the ridge for the next five years, and Roan's personal guarantee that any future threat to Ashborn will be met with Duskmoor forces first, not last." I let that sit a moment before I add the rest. "And I decide the terms of whatever it takes to actually treat his condition. Not him. Not his council. Me."

"That's a considerable amount of control over another Alpha's affairs," Thessaly says, careful.

"It's exactly the amount of control I'm willing to accept risk for." I look around the table, at faces that have watched me build this pack out of nothing for two years, and let them see, for once, exactly how much this decision costs me to make out loud. "This isn't charity. It's strategy. Whatever's out there isn't going to stop with his scouts or mine. We're stronger united against it than divided, and I'd rather hold the leash on this alliance than hand it to someone who's already proven he'll cut a bond the moment it's politically convenient."

Nobody argues that. A few of them exchange glances, but the room settles, slowly, into something like agreement.

"I'll draft the terms today," Priya says. "You'll want Roan's signature before he's well enough to argue about the specifics."

"Good instinct."

Corvin doesn’t let the meeting close there, though. “And the Lycan. What exactly do you intend to do about him?”

“He’s given us information no one else has. That earns him a roof for now, not a title.” I answer immediately.

“He’s an unknown quantity sleeping under the same roof as our Alpha,” Yusuf says, not unkindly, but plainly. “A Lycan, no less. That’s not a small thing to leave unaddressed.”

“I’m aware of what he is.”

“Are you aware of what he’s actually after,” Thessaly asks. “Because ‘information’ rarely comes without a price attached, in my experience, and I haven’t heard you name his.”

I don’t answer that as quickly as I’d like to, and I can feel the whole table notice the pause.

“I don’t know yet what his price is,” I say finally. “I intend to find out, on my terms, before I decide how much territory or trust he’s allowed to keep.”

“And if his price turns out to be steeper than the information is worth?” Corvin presses.

“Then he’ll learn the same lesson every other outsider who’s tried to leverage something out of me has already learned.” I let that sit, flat and final, before I continue. “He stays as long as he’s useful and as long as he behaves like a guest. The moment either of those things stops being true, he isn’t my problem to manage carefully anymore.”

Corvin studies me a moment, then nods, apparently satisfied enough to let it rest. “Just so we’re clear where this council stands. An unvetted Lycan under our roof is a liability, however useful he currently is.”

“Duly noted.” I stand, signaling the meeting’s actual end this time. “I didn’t build this pack by being careless with liabilities, Corvin. I don’t intend to start now.”

The meeting breaks not long after, and I leave feeling lighter than I have in days, though the feeling doesn’t last nearly as long as I’d like.

I go to Nora that same afternoon, because Thane's words haven't stopped circling since he said them, and I need to hear the truth from someone who's never once lied to me outright, even when she's clearly withheld plenty.

She doesn't look surprised to see me. She never does.

"You look like a woman who slept two hours and ran a council meeting on spite," she says, already moving toward the kettle.

"Close enough." I sit at her table, the same one Callum died beside, and the memory of that still sits heavy every time I'm in this kitchen. "I need you to tell me something honestly. No half-answers this time."

"I don't recall ever giving you a half-answer."

"You've given me plenty. I've simply been too tired to call you on all of them until now." I hold her gaze steady. "A Lycan came to Ashborn last night. He told me what's hunting Unbound bloodlines isn't just interested in killing us. It wants us for something. A key, he called it. A door. He said I'm not the first, and I won't be the last, unless someone stops it."

Nora goes very still, the kettle forgotten in her hand.

"He's not wrong," she says finally, quiet.

"Then tell me what he is right about. All of it. I'm done being handled carefully, Nora. I have two men bleeding for me and a pack looking to me for answers I don't fully have, and I need you to stop protecting me from whatever this is."

She sets the kettle down and finally, finally, looks at me the way I've been waiting two years for her to look at me — not like a careful teacher measuring out lessons in safe doses, but like someone deciding whether the person in front of her is finally ready to be told the truth.

"Sit down properly," Nora says. "This is going to take longer than tea."