Chapter 7: The Wrong Kind of Riders

They came at dusk … not a war party, not yet, just three riders under a parley flag, and I recognized the lead rider’s bearing before I could make out his face.

Cassian.

My stomach dropped in a way that had nothing to do with fondness and everything to do with old, unhealed panic. Kian was at my side before I’d fully registered moving toward the gate myself, his arm settling around my shoulders, solid and unhurried, nothing performative in it … just where he stood now, as a matter of course.

“Alpha Voss,” Maren said, cool, meeting them with Dorian at her shoulder. “You’re a long way from home for a parley flag.”

“I’m here about the border breach.” His eyes found me over her shoulder before he finished the sentence, then moved, inevitably, to Kian’s arm around me, and something in his face did something complicated and fast that he smoothed over almost before I caught it. “And about her.”

“She’s under Thorneheart’s protection,” Maren said. “If you’ve come to accuse a guest of my pack of feeding intelligence to rogue forces, I’ll want considerably more than your presence to back that claim.”

“I haven’t come to accuse her of anything.” Cassian dismounted, slow, hands visible, the posture of a man trying very hard not to look like a threat. “I came because I found something in my father’s ledgers three nights ago that I think she deserves to know before anyone else in Ironwood does. And because the bond hasn’t faded, and I’ve run out of ways to pretend that isn’t information too.”

“You should know,” Kian said, before I could answer, his voice even but with an edge underneath it I hadn’t heard from him before, “that whatever that bond thinks it’s still doing, Ivy is my mate. Not a hope. Not a maybe. It happened two days ago, in a barn with a broken lantern for a witness, and it’s not something either of us is confused about.”

The yard went very still. Cassian’s expression cracked for half a second … something raw and unguarded passing through before he mastered it again, jaw tight.

“That’s not possible,” he said, quiet. “The bond-mark hasn’t faded. I’d know if it had severed.”

“I don’t know how bonds and mates work when you’re not talking about the ceremony kind,” Kian said. “I only know what I felt, and what she felt, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise to make this easier for you.”

Dorian cleared his throat from behind Maren, an old, weathered kind of amusement in it despite the tension. “For what it’s worth, Alpha Voss … the mark not fading doesn’t mean what you think it means. Some bonds don’t sever clean when they’re broken by force instead of choice. It just means the goddess never agreed with what you did in that hall. Doesn’t mean she’s obligated to fix your mistake for you.”

Cassian’s jaw worked, absorbing that along with everything else.

“That doesn’t undo what you said in that hall,” I added, my voice steadier than I expected, even furious, even with my chest tight from watching two men who’d never met before circle each other over what I was and wasn’t allowed to be to either of them. “I’m not something to be reclaimed because a footnote turned up. I already chose. I chose before you found any of this.”

Cassian didn’t argue. He looked, for a moment, like a man absorbing a loss he hadn’t fully believed was possible until it was standing in front of him with its arm around someone else.

“I know it doesn’t undo anything,” he said finally, quieter now. “I’m not here asking you to undo it either. I’m here because whatever this treaty actually requires, it’s connected to whatever hit our eastern fence last night, and you deserve to know that before it gets used against you by someone who isn’t being honest about what you are.” His eyes flicked once more to Kian’s arm around me, something he didn’t try to hide this time. “For what it’s worth … I’m glad someone’s been decent to you this week. I wish it had been earlier. I wish it had been me. I know I don’t get to say that and mean anything by it, given everything, but it’s true anyway.”

Kian’s hand tightened slightly at my shoulder, not possessive so much as steadying, and I was grateful for it.

“One conversation,” I said to Cassian. “In front of witnesses. And you don’t come back onto this land again without an invitation, whatever the treaty says.”

Something that looked almost like relief crossed his face, followed immediately by something that looked like he understood exactly how much ground he still had to make up, and that a bond-mark that hadn’t faded wasn’t going to be enough to close a distance this wide.

Good.

“For what it’s worth,” he added, quieter now, meant only for me, though I doubted Kian missed a word of it, “I’ve thought about very little else since that night. Not the treaty. Not my father. You. The way you looked at me right before your face closed off entirely … like you’d expected exactly this and were disappointed anyway. I don’t think I understood, until I saw that look, how much worse disappointment is than anger. Anger I could have argued with.”

“You don’t get to make this about how it felt for you,” I said, though something in my chest tightened anyway, unwillingly, at the honesty in it.

“You’re right. I don’t.” He held my gaze a moment longer, then looked away first, which surprised me. “I’m not trying to earn anything back tonight. I know that’s not how this works, especially not now. I just needed you to know I’ve felt the weight of it every day since, and that seeing you happy … really happy, in a way I never once made you … is going to be harder to live with than I expected, and I still think you deserve it anyway.”

Kian’s hand tightened slightly around mine, not possessive so much as steadying, and I was grateful for it … for having something solid to hold onto while old wounds and new information both pulled at me from opposite directions.

Maren led us inside, Kian’s hand finding mine as we walked, threading his fingers through mine in full view of Cassian, who watched it happen and said nothing this time, some of the fight visibly gone out of him now that the shape of things had been named plainly instead of left to hope around.

We hadn’t made it three steps into the hall before a second rider … one of Cassian’s escort, breathless, having apparently ridden hard to catch up … burst through the door behind us.

“Alpha,” he said, “you need to see this. It came in just before we crossed the border.”

He held out a folded page, and I recognized the wax seal on it even from across the room. The same shade of blue.

Cassian broke it, read it once, and his face went the color of old ash.

“What is it,” Maren said.

“A letter,” Cassian said slowly, “addressed to my father. From Selene Calder. Requesting an audience tomorrow morning to discuss, in her words, ‘urgent concerns about her sister’s location and intentions.’” He looked up, and whatever composure he’d walked in with was gone entirely now. “She’s not just feeding the Ashen King information, Ivy. She’s building a case against you. And she’s bringing it to my father in less than twelve hours.”