His Mistaken Mate

The Dravon Pack territory was nothing like home. I realized that the moment the car crossed the border and the trees changed. Back in Holt Pack land, the forest was ordinary — tall enough, green enough, the kind of trees you stopped noticing after a while. But here the trees were massive. Ancient. They pressed close to both sides of the road like walls, their branches tangling overhead and blocking out the sky. It was midday but it felt like dusk. I sat in the back seat between two guards who hadn't said a single word to me since we left. There was a third guard driving. Nobody had introduced themselves. Nobody had asked if I needed anything. They had simply put me in the car with a small bag of Lena's things — because apparently my own belongings weren't considered worth bringing — and driven. Five hours. Five hours of silence and dark trees and the slow, creeping understanding that I was not going home. I pressed my face close to the window and watched the territory pass.

~ Nyra ~ He knew. I was almost certain of it. The way he said of course it is — calm, unbothered, like he was tucking the information away for later rather than dismissing it — that wasn't the response of a man who believed me. That was the response of a man who had decided to let me think he believed me. There was a difference. A big one. I thought about it through the entire post-ceremony gathering in the main hall, where pack members filed past us and gave formal greetings and I stood at Kael's side and smiled and said thank you and tried very hard not to look like someone whose heart was beating slightly too fast. He stood beside me the whole time. Close enough that I was aware of him every single second — the height of him, the quiet weight of his presence — but he didn't speak to me. Not once. He greeted his pack members, accepted their acknowledgments, and occasionally responded to something an elder said. He didn't introduce me. Not as Lena. Not as anything. I was jus

~ Nyra ~I figured out Reva by just keeping my mouth shut and my ears open.Two days. That's all it took.Her father, Coran, was Kael's most senior warrior. He'd served the Dravon Pack for decades and was completely loyal to Kael. Not in a political way. In the way where you can just tell someone would die for another person without thinking twice.Reva grew up inside that. Inside Kael's world. Close to him, protected, always around. And at some point she decided that being close meant she had a claim on him.Kael had never encouraged it. But he'd never stopped it either.That was the whole problem.I kept all of this to myself and said nothing. When Reva looked at me I just smiled. That seemed to bother her more than anything else I could have done, which was honestly the point.---On my third morning I came down to breakfast and Kael was already there.Sena stiffened when I walked in. So it wasn't normal for him to be there. Good to know.He was sitting at the head of the table rea

~ Nyra ~I spent all of the next morning acting completely normal.Breakfast. Small talk with Sena. A walk in the garden that stayed well away from the east tree line. I even sat in the main sitting room for an hour where two of the pack women were having tea and let them talk around me like I wasn't there, which they were very good at.Normal. Boring. Nothing to see here.The whole time I was thinking about the library.The problem wasn't getting in. I'd been in and out of the library freely since I arrived. The problem was the blue cabinet specifically. It sat against the east wall, separate from the main shelves, with a small lock on the door handle. Not a complicated lock. But a lock I'd need to get through without anyone walking in.I needed a window of time when the library was empty and likely to stay that way.That window came after lunch.Kael had a meeting with his pack elders in the west wing — I'd heard Maren confirming it with one of the guards that morning. Damon was out

~ Nyra ~Mavira found me in the library after breakfast.I hadn't met her before. She walked in like she owned the room — tall, dark skinned, hair loose around her shoulders, a stack of books tucked under one arm. She dropped into the chair across from mine without being invited, dumped her books on the table, and looked at me like we'd already been introduced."You're the Luna," she said."Yes," I said."I'm Mavira. Damon's younger sister." She flipped one of her books open. "I was at the southern pack for two weeks so I missed your whole arrival. Everyone's been talking about you." She glanced up. "You're not what I expected.""What did you expect?""Someone more put together. More aware of how she looks." She tilted her head. "The women Kael usually has around are very polished. You're just — normal.""Is that a problem?""No." She turned a page. "It's actually nice."I looked at her for a moment. Then I went back to my book.We read in silence and it wasn't awkward, which I hadn't