Chapter 3: Inside His Territory

 

I didn't sleep.

I lay on top of the blankets in a room that wasn't mine, staring at a ceiling that wasn't mine, running through every version of the conversation with Ronan I could have had instead of the one I actually had. In every version, I said less. In every version, he knew less. In every single one, I woke up the next morning still in control of my own secret.

Instead I woke up to a knock on the door before sunrise, and a voice on the other side that wasn't Ronan's.

"Alpha wants you in the west courtyard. Now, if you can manage it."

I opened the door to a woman a few years older than me, arms crossed, pack marks fresh enough that I guessed she hadn't held rank long. She looked at me the way most of the pack probably would from now on, like I was something interesting that had wandered in from outside and might still bite.

"Does the Alpha usually summon people before the sun's even up?" I asked.

"Only the ones who humiliate him in front of the whole pack the night before." She almost smiled when she said it. Almost. "Move fast. He doesn't like waiting, and today he's got even less patience for it than usual."

I dressed in yesterday's clothes because I hadn't been given anything else, and followed her through corridors that were already busier than I expected for the hour, wolves setting up training equipment in one hall, others carrying crates of supplies through a side door, the whole territory running on a rhythm that had nothing to do with the chaos I'd caused the night before. That unsettled me more than I wanted to admit. I'd expected the rejection to matter more. I'd expected the ground to still be shaking.

It wasn't. Only mine was.

The west courtyard was open to the sky, ringed by training posts and worn dirt where generations of wolves had clearly sparred long before I ever set foot on Blackthorn land. Ronan was already there, sleeves pushed up, talking low to a broad-shouldered man I guessed was his Beta. Both of them stopped talking the second I walked in.

"Leave us," Ronan said. The Beta gave me one long look, unreadable, then walked off without a word.

"You didn't strike me as someone who does mornings well," I said, because silence in front of him felt more dangerous than talking.

"I don't sleep much." He studied me the way he had the night before, like he was reading something written on my skin that I couldn't see myself. "You didn't answer my question last night."

"You didn't ask one. You made an accusation and then told me to get some rest."

"Fine." He crossed his arms. "Here's the question, plainly. Were you at the northern ridge eight years ago, under a name that wasn't Calloway, when a pack up there was wiped out?"

There it was. No warm-up, no circling. I understood, standing there in the cold morning air, that this was a man who didn't waste time softening things he already believed were true.

"If I say no," I said carefully, "you won't believe me. And if I say yes, you'll have every reason to throw me out of your territory by noon."

"Probably." Something flickered across his face, not quite sympathy, not quite suspicion. Somewhere uneasily between the two. "But I'd still rather hear it than keep guessing."

I thought about my two years of planning. I thought about the woman who'd pulled me out of the fire and whispered a description of a scarred forearm before she died in my arms, the debt I owed her, the promise I'd made over her body. I thought about how close I'd come, in a single conversation, to losing all of it because I hadn't accounted for a mate bond, of all things, blowing my cover before I'd even started.

"I'm not going to lie to you and tell you nothing happened up there," I said finally. "But I'm also not going to hand you my whole life story on your say-so, Alpha or not. You want answers, you're going to have to earn them the way anyone else would. Slowly. On my terms."

I expected him to push back harder. Instead, something in his shoulders eased, just slightly, like I'd given him exactly the answer he was hoping for without meaning to.

"That's the first honest thing you've said to me," he said.

"I've been honest the whole time. I just haven't told you everything."

"That's not the same thing, but I'll take it." He nodded toward the training posts behind him. "Here's my offer. You stay inside Blackthorn walls, under my direct watch, instead of back out on border patrol where I can't keep an eye on you. You train with my personal guard instead of the regular rotation. In exchange, you answer my questions when I ask them, and you don't run."

"And if I say no?"

"Then you're a stranger with no papers who rejected an Alpha in his own hall and is refusing to cooperate with a legitimate pack inquiry into a mass casualty event." His voice stayed level, but there was steel under it now. "I don't think you'd like how fast that conversation moves once my Beta and my council get involved instead of just me."

It was a threat wrapped in the shape of a choice, and we both knew it. But underneath the threat was something else, something that mattered more to me than he could have guessed: staying close to him. Staying inside these walls, where the man with the scarred forearm slept, trained, and made decisions I needed to witness if I was ever going to prove what he'd done.

I told myself accepting his deal was strategy. I told myself it had nothing to do with the way the bond hummed low and steady under my skin every time he stood this close, waiting for my answer.

"Fine," I said. "I'll stay. I'll train with your guard. And I'll answer what I can."

"Good." He almost looked satisfied, which should have warned me more than it did. "Training starts now. My Beta will assign you a partner within the hour."

He turned to go, and I let myself exhale, thinking the worst of the morning was over.

That was when the courtyard doors opened again, and the silver-haired woman from the ceremony walked in like she'd been listening at the edge of the whole conversation and had simply chosen the perfect moment to arrive.

"Ronan." Her voice carried the easy familiarity of someone who'd known him a long time. "A word, before you disappear into training for the day."

"Selene." He didn't sound thrilled to see her, which told me something useful about where she actually stood with him, whatever performance she'd put on the night before. "Make it quick."

"It's about the council meeting this afternoon." Her eyes slid to me, cool and deliberate. "There's a growing appetite among a few members to discuss whether a wolf with no verified pack history, no papers, and an unresolved connection to an old northern ridge case belongs inside Blackthorn walls at all. Especially one who publicly humiliated our new Alpha on his crowning night." A pause, timed like a blade. "I thought you'd want to know before it becomes a vote instead of a conversation."

Ronan's jaw tightened, but his voice stayed steady. "Noted. I'll handle the council."

"Of course you will." Selene smiled at me again, the same smile from the night before, sharp underneath something almost pleasant. "I do hope you're worth all this trouble, Wren Calloway. It would be such a shame if the Alpha's first real decision as leader turned out to be his worst one."

She left before either of us answered, and I watched Ronan's expression shift the second her back was turned, something tighter, more calculating, replacing the composed mask he'd worn for her.

"She doesn't like me," I said.

"She doesn't like anything she can't predict." He rubbed a hand over his jaw, and for the first time since I'd met him, he looked genuinely tired, not just unreadable. "Which, right now, unfortunately, includes you."

"Is she going to be a problem?"

"She's already a problem." He glanced toward the doors Selene had just walked through, then back at me, and something in his voice dropped lower, more urgent than the calm authority he'd used all morning. "She's also not wrong that the council could vote to have you removed by tonight if I don't handle this carefully. Which means whatever you're not telling me, you might want to start telling me faster than you planned."

I felt the ground shift under the deal I'd just made, the one I'd told myself would buy me time and safety inside these walls. Instead of buying me time, I'd just walked myself into a countdown I hadn't accounted for, a council vote, a rival already circling, and an Alpha who now had a very real reason to push harder for the truth than he would have if I'd simply refused his offer and walked away.

"How long do I have?" I asked.

Ronan didn't answer right away. He looked past me, toward the doors, toward wherever Selene had disappeared to, and when he finally spoke, his voice was quiet enough that I had to lean in to catch it.

"Less than you think," he said. "The council meets in six hours. If I can't give them a reason to trust you by then, they won't wait for me to find one on my own."

Six hours. Six hours to somehow prove I belonged inside the walls of the man I'd come to destroy, without giving away the one truth that would get me thrown out of them, or worse, before I ever got the chance to finish what I came here to do.