Chapter 5

POV: Vera

For a second, nobody moved.

Caius's fingers were locked around Gareth's wrist. He hadn't raised his voice. Four words, and the yard went quiet enough to hear the frost cracking in the grass.

Gareth looked at him — the bandages, the borrowed shirt, the way he leaned against the doorframe like standing cost him something — and sneered. I saw the moment he decided Caius wasn't a threat. It was the same look Derek had given me in the market.

"This is your mate? He's a stranger. Don't think you can fool me with that."

My chest went tight. Not from fear.

Caius was hurt. He could barely stand without swaying. And he'd put himself between me and Gareth because his hand was on my arm. Nobody had asked him to. He'd just done it. Nobody had done that for me since Dad.

Gareth yanked his wrist free and shoved Caius backward. Caius hit the doorframe. A sound punched out of him — short, bitten off. He braced against the doorframe.

I stopped thinking.

My fist caught Gareth square in the jaw. The crack echoed off the side of the house. He left his feet, hit the ground four feet back, and skidded through the frozen grass on his back. I hadn't held back. I hadn't even thought to.

Silence.

The two guards stared at me. Ruth had both hands over her mouth. Caius was still braced in the doorway, watching me with an expression I couldn't read.

Gareth sat up slowly. Blood ran from his split lip. His eyes were wide and glassy. He looked at his own hand like it belonged to someone else.

"That's—" He touched his jaw. "That's not possible. You're an omega!"

I said nothing. My fist throbbed. My wolf was pressing so hard against my skin that my teeth ached. Ten years of hiding, and I'd just knocked an enforcer off his feet with a single punch. Nox stretched inside me, pleased. I told her to settle down. She didn't.

The two guards reached for their belts. Gareth spat blood into the dirt, stood, and his face twisted into something worse than a sneer.

"Enough."

The voice came from the road. Calm. Deep. Carrying the kind of authority that didn't need volume.

Every wolf in the yard went rigid. Gareth and his men dropped to one knee — heads bowed, fists pressed to the ground. Fast. Automatic.

I turned.

A man walked toward us from the road. Tall, broad through the chest, wearing a dark overcoat over military-cut clothes. He moved like no one had ever told him no. The two guards flanking Gareth bowed lower, if that was possible. Somewhere behind me, Ruth's tea mug hit the fence post.

Lycan royal.

His power hit heavier than any alpha I'd been near. The royals ruled all werewolves. Their bloodline sat above every pack, every territory. Even a beta from the royal house outranked our alpha. If this man told the entire pack to kneel, the entire pack would kneel.

I dropped to one knee and bowed my head. My heart hammered against my ribs. Dad's voice rose up in the back of my mind. Stay away from the lycan royals, Vera. He had said it so often that I'd stopped asking why.

Then I looked sideways.

Caius was still standing.

He was in the doorway, one hand on his wounded ribs, watching the royal beta walk toward us with an expression I couldn't name. Not fear. Not surprise. Something that looked almost like recognition.

My stomach lurched. Disrespecting a lycan royal could get you killed.

I grabbed Caius's wrist and yanked downward. "Bow," I hissed. "He's lycan royal. What are you doing?"

Caius looked down at me. Something flickered in his gold eyes — something that might have been amusement. He didn't move.

The beta cleared his throat. "That won't be necessary." He waved a hand. "All of you. Up. Someone tell me what happened here."

I scrambled to my feet, keeping one hand on Caius's arm as if I could somehow shield him from the consequences of his own stubbornness. Gareth opened his mouth, but the beta's gaze had already found me. His eyes were gray and very steady, and I had the distinct feeling of being measured against something I couldn't see.

"My name is Vera Crane." I kept my voice level. "These men were sent by the alpha to evict me and my sister. I told them I have a mate. This is him." I nodded toward Caius. "Under pack law, a bonded wolf can't be driven from her home. They didn't agree."

The beta studied Caius. Something passed across his face, there and gone before I could catch it.

"She has a mate," he said. "I can see him right here." He turned to Gareth and his men. "Report to your alpha that this household is protected under standard bonding law. There will be no eviction today."

Gareth's jaw clenched hard enough to make the muscle jump. But he bowed his head. The three of them turned and walked away without another word. Gareth's split lip was already swelling. I hoped it stayed that way for a week.

I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

"Thank you," I said.

The front door banged open. Cleo came flying out barefoot, yellow pajamas, and threw herself against my legs.

"Vera!" She grabbed my jeans with both fists and stared up at me. "Are they gone? Do we get to stay?"

I picked her up. She was warm and small against my chest, and she smelled like the lavender soap Mom used to keep in the bathroom. "We get to stay."

She buried her face in my neck. I held her there, one hand cupping the back of her head, and for a moment everything else fell away. The frost, the blood on Gareth's lip, the stranger in the overcoat who could have had us all on our knees with a word. For a moment, there was only her weight and her breath against my neck.

The beta was staring at Cleo. Then at Caius. Then back at Cleo. His lips parted.

"She even has a daughter," he said, barely above a breath.

I shifted Cleo on my hip. "Sorry. What was that?"

"Nothing." He shook his head quickly and straightened up. "I'd like to speak with your mate privately, if that's all right. He appears to have been attacked by rogues recently. I'm investigating the rogue activity near this territory."

I looked at Caius. Leaving him alone with a lycan royal made my stomach tight. He was injured. If anything went wrong, he couldn't protect himself.

Caius caught my eye and gave a small nod. "I'll be fine, Vera. Go."

The way he said it, quiet and certain, eased the worry just enough.

So I went.

At the market, I moved through the stalls quickly. Bandages, antiseptic, a fresh jar of herbal salve, rice, bone broth, soft bread. I added a tin of the honey my mother used to stir into tea when someone was sick. If Caius was going to heal under my roof, he was going to eat properly. The stall owners took my coins without meeting my eyes. That was fine. Their bread tasted the same either way.

My knuckles throbbed around the handle of the grocery bag. Gareth's face kept flashing behind my eyes — the shock, the blood on his lip. An omega who couldn't shift had just put him on the ground with one punch. He'd be asking questions. So would the alpha.

I'd deal with that when it came.

I kept thinking about Caius's voice. That flat, cold tone when he'd said "Who dares touch her?" Like it wasn't even a question if he would protect me.

The afternoon light filtered through the trees in long gold bars. I rounded the last bend in the path, and our front yard came into view. I was already rehearsing what I'd say to Caius about resting when I came around the hedge.

I stopped walking.

The royal beta was on one knee in front of Caius. Head bowed, one fist pressed to his chest. The way a soldier kneels before his king.

The grocery bag slid down my arm.

Caius — the man I'd dragged bleeding out of my backyard, the man whose bandages I'd changed three times last night — was looking down at him like he'd done this a thousand times before.

Like being knelt to was something he was used to.