Chapter 4: What She Learned in the Garden

Elena

Nobody told me the grounds had rules. That was the first mistake — mine, for assuming a garden was just a garden, and theirs, for letting me find that out the hard way.

I'd woken up early, restless in a bed too big for one person, and decided that six days into my captivity — I refused to call it anything softer than that, no matter what Dorian implied about "arrangements" — I'd earned the right to walk somewhere that wasn't a hallway or a dining room. The east wing had a door leading out to a garden, unlocked, unguarded as far as I could tell, and I took that as permission because nobody had told me otherwise.

The morning air smelled like rain that hadn't fallen yet. Rows of something dark and glossy lined the path, and past them, a low stone wall separating the tended part of the garden from what looked like actual forest — real trees, not landscaping, stretching back farther than I could see.

I made it about halfway along that wall before I understood I wasn't alone.

He came out of the treeline without a sound, which should have been my first warning — a man that size didn't move that quietly by accident. Older than Kade, silver threading through dark hair, dressed like someone who belonged at that dinner table and not skulking along a property line at dawn.

"You're the human," he said. Not a question. Everyone here seemed to talk that way, like questions were beneath them.

"I have a name."

"I know your name." He came closer, close enough that I had to fight the urge to step back, because Dorian's voice was in my head again — *don't perform fear you don't feel* — except this time I wasn't entirely sure I was performing. "Rurik," he said. "I run the Ashford territory, what's left of it, since your King decided to make an example of half my compound."

The Ashfords. I remembered the name from the servant's whisper on my first day, from the way the guard had joked about me embarrassing Kade in front of them "twice in one year."

"I don't know anything about that," I said, which was true and felt suddenly very insufficient.

"No," Rurik agreed. "But you're standing in his garden wearing his mark, which makes you the closest thing to him I've had access to in eleven months." He tilted his head, studying me the way you'd study a door you were deciding whether to break. "Tell me — does he still not sleep? He never used to sleep, even before he took the crown. I always wondered if that was grief or guilt. Perhaps you'd know by now."

"I've been here six days. I don't know anything about his sleeping habits."

"Six days." Something like amusement crossed his face, dark and unpleasant. "And you're already walking his grounds alone, past the boundary his own Beta patrols twice a day. Careless of them. Or careless of you."

I understood, too late, exactly how far past the tended garden I'd wandered — the stone wall wasn't decoration, it was a line, and I'd crossed it without noticing, the way you don't notice you've walked into deep water until it's already at your chest.

"I should get back," I said.

"You should." He didn't move to stop me, which somehow made it worse — like he wanted me to know he didn't need to. "But before you do — tell your King something for me. Tell him I know exactly what he did to buy you. Tell him a debt collector who burns down houses to collect his interest shouldn't be surprised when someone starts asking what he's really afraid of losing."

I didn't answer that. I turned and walked back toward the wall at a pace that wasn't quite running, and it wasn't until I was through the garden door and back inside the stone corridor, breathing harder than the walk should have earned, that I let myself feel exactly how frightened I'd actually been.

Dorian found me twenty minutes later, and one look at my face apparently told him everything, because his first words weren't a greeting.

"Where."

"The wall. Past the roses, near the treeline."

His expression did something I hadn't seen from him yet — a flatness, controlled and furious in a way that had nothing performative about it. "That's Ashford border land. We don't patrol past the roses because we're not supposed to need to. There's a treaty."

"There's a man named Rurik who doesn't seem to care much about the treaty."

Dorian went very still. "What did he say to you?"

I told him — the eleven months, the sleeping habits, the message about debt collectors and what they were afraid of losing. Dorian's jaw worked through all of it like he was chewing on something that tasted worse the longer he held it.

"You need to tell Kade," he said finally.

"Tell him what — that I broke a rule nobody explained to me and had a conversation with a man who clearly hates him?"

"Tell him exactly that." Dorian's voice had an edge I hadn't heard from him before. "Because if Rurik got close enough to speak to you, that means he got close enough to take you, and chose not to. That's not mercy, Elena. That's a message. And Kade needs to hear it from you before he hears it from someone slower and less accurate."

He was right, obviously, and I hated that he was right, and I hated more that my hands had started shaking somewhere in the retelling and hadn't quite stopped.

Kade found me before I found him — summoned, apparently, the second Dorian relayed what happened, because he arrived at my door within minutes, and there was nothing lazy or bored about the way he moved this time. He crossed the room in three strides and stopped close enough that I had to tip my head back again, except this time the energy coming off him wasn't cold. It was something hot and barely leashed, and for the first time since the Great Hall, I understood that the calm I'd seen from him so far had been a choice, not an absence.

"Show me your wrists," he said.

"He didn't touch me."

"Show me anyway."

I held them out, more to end the conversation than because I thought he needed proof, and he took them gently — gently, which felt almost more unsettling than force would have — turning them over, checking for marks that weren't there.

"He could have taken you," Kade said, quieter now, like the words cost him something to say out loud. "Past that wall, with no one watching. He didn't."

"I know. Dorian already explained the significance."

"Then you understand this isn't over." He didn't let go of my wrists right away, and I didn't pull them back. "Rurik doesn't send messages for no reason. He's telling me he can reach you. That's not a threat about the treaty. That's a threat about you specifically."

"Why would he threaten me? I'm nobody to him."

"You're not nobody." Something flickered across his face, gone before I could name it. "You're mine. Which means, as far as men like Rurik are concerned, you're the softest place to put a knife."

The word again. *Mine.* It landed differently this time, less like possession and more like something closer to a warning aimed at himself as much as at me.

"I don't want to be anyone's soft place," I said.

"No one does." He finally released my wrists, stepping back, some of the coldness sliding back over his expression like a door closing. "But you're going to need to learn this territory faster than I planned on teaching it. Starting today. No more gardens alone."

"Is that an order or a request?"

"With me," he said, echoing Dorian's words from days ago without seeming to know it, "there's rarely a difference."

He left before I could argue, and I stood there a long moment, wrists still warm from where he'd held them, understanding for the first time that whatever this arrangement was, it had just become much more dangerous than a contract and a clause about companionship.

Rurik knew exactly what he was afraid of losing.

I was starting to wonder if I did too.