Chapter Twenty-nine: Velvet and Venom

SIGRUN

I had been in the North for long enough to accept that giant wolves existed, but not long enough to stop mentally screaming about it.

And tonight, apparently, I was meeting the people who helped govern them.

No pressure. Absolutely none.

I stared at my reflection for what had to be the fiftieth time. The woman staring back at me looked nothing like the Sigrún I knew. Rita had transformed me into a person who looked as though she belonged in a fantasy movie with an unnecessarily large budget.

The dress was deep blue velvet, soft beneath my fingers and embroidered with silver threads that shimmered like frost. My hair had been braided back from my face with tiny silver pins worked into it.

I looked expensive. But dressing like royalty and being royalty were two very different things. And if there was one thing I had learned since arriving in this world, it was that the North took its titles very seriously.

A knock sounded at the door. My stomach immediately attempted to migrate into my throat.

Oh good.

Time to go meet the medieval United Nations. Except with more fur. And significantly more murder capabilities.

The door opened. Varul stepped inside, and my stupid heart betrayed me immediately, displaying all the survival instincts of a moth flying toward a bug zapper. He was dressed in black, as usual. His shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a low ponytail. He looked the very picture of a dark aristocratic lord. But damn him. Some people were blessed with good genetics, but Varul had robbed the gods.

His eyes swept over me and his expression softened a fraction.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, and my traitorous cheeks warmed.

Rude. My own body had become a collaborator.

He offered me his arm and I took it. Then we left for the Great Hall.

I’d never been in the Great Hall before—a testament to how huge the castle was. The hall itself was enormous. Like cathedral-meets-Viking-longhouse enormous. Massive pillars rose toward shadowed ceilings. Great hearths burned along the walls, filling the air with warmth and the scent of cedar and roasting meat. Long tables stretched across the chamber. Banners hung overhead.

People filled nearly every seat. I counted thirty heads. Every single one of them turned toward us.

Ah. Good old public scrutiny. My good friend. Only now the people judging me could turn into wolves.

Varul’s hand settled possessively against my back. A butler announced us.

“Alpha Varul and Princess Sigrún.”

Everyone rose to their feet. Varul guided me forward. Then the introductions began. Pack leaders. Clan heads. Representatives. Lords.

It was nice to see that the North allowed women to lead as well. I’d met enough Northern women by now to know they were terrifying. In a completely admirable way, of course.

The names blurred together. Frostmere. Stonewatch. Riverhold. Iron Vale. But I tried as much as I could to keep track of the names.

Varul finally led me to our seats, his at the head of the table, and mine at his right, leaving me feeling incredibly small in the high, carved back of my oak chair. I suddenly missed Brooklyn. Not because Brooklyn was safe. Brooklyn absolutely was not safe. But at least there, people judged me for wearing pajamas to the grocery store, not because my marriage might determine the political future of an entire region.

The first courses arrived, served by stewards. I used the opportunity to quietly get a lay of the land, studying the faces of the people who held the script I hadn't been given.

Directly across from me sat Lord Halvar, a broad-shouldered man built like a brick wall. His thick fingers tore off a chunk of dark rye bread with raw, aggressive force, and his thick hair was heavily shot through with gray. He looked like the definition of old-school, carrying himself with a stubborn rigidity that screamed 'traditionalist.'

Further down the table was a woman who practically radiated lethal grace. She wore a collar of pale gray wolf fur over dark leather armor, her sharp gaze scanning the room like a hawk looking for a reason to strike. Elder Nola, if I remembered correctly.

The man sitting to her left was Lord Krev of Riverhold. He looked posh. He was clad in immaculate, dark-blue wool tailored to a lean, athletic frame, and he had these kind, amber eyes that projected deep empathy. He looked like a brilliant administrator who knew exactly how to talk to people. He gave me a warm smile when our eyes met. I smiled back tentatively.

“Lords and leaders of the North,” Varul began, and the hall quieted instantly. His deep, controlled voice carried effortlessly through the space. “We lost eight wolves at Linewatch. Two scouts survived long enough to give testimony. The attackers were larger than any wolf known to the North. Fast. Blue in color. No tracks matching known predators were recovered.”

He paused as a murmur swept through the hall.

I sat up straighter. Blue monsters? This world was determined to make sure I never slept peacefully again.

“Two of my soldiers continue east with fifty riders,” Varul continued. “Ravens are expected by dawn. I left the road to Linewatch because the council called an emergency assembly. I have given my report. My riders continue east in my absence. Now I would like to hear why the North deemed my return more urgent than the border.”

Silence stretched for a few more seconds before chaos suddenly erupted. I barely managed to understand what was being said.

The debate worsened as more wine was poured. Not because anyone was drunk. These people had perfected the art of threatening one another while sounding perfectly civilized. Honestly, it was kind of impressive. Terrifying, but impressive.

“Linewatch must be reinforced,” Lord Halvar said, slamming a fist down on the table. “If these creatures crossed once, they will cross again.”

“Reinforced with whose men?” A grey-haired man who I recognized as Lord Eirik countered, his voice sharp as ice. “Yours, Halvar?”

Halvar’s expression darkened. “My warriors have never shied from duty.”

“No?” came a dry, smooth reply from Elder Nola. “That is not what your eastern neighbors claimed three winters ago, Lord Halvar. We must balance our defenses with patience, not anger. Let us not burden the Alpha's first meal back with panic.”

Oooh.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. There were a few scoffs and snickers. Lord Halvar turned red. Poor guy. I felt a little sorry for him.

I understood none of the history, but there was clearly context. And everyone else had the script except me.

Varul remained silent through it all, yet somehow the entire room still revolved around him. Everyone looked to him like a default reaction. It was very attractive.

Ugh. I needed standards. Higher standards.

Lord Krev raised his cup before the room could fracture again.

“Lords,” he said smoothly, voice carrying just enough authority to sound both calming and respectful, “let us set aside dispute and honor the fallen of Linewatch in the First Toast.”

The hall shifted instantly, and whatever arguments had been building collapsed into ritual.

He reached for a heavy silver chalice, lifting it high above his head toward the rafters, his expression turning solemn and deeply reverent.

"To the ice that tempers the blade," Krev intoned, his voice echoing through the great hall. "To the blood that feeds the earth. And to the pack that outlasts the storm."

In an instant, every lord down the long table raised their horns and cups in unison, repeating the ancestral words in a low, rhythmic chant: “To the ice, to the blood, to the pack.”

I followed late, a beat behind everyone else, trying to mirror the movement. I locked eyes with Lord Halvar across the firelight, offered a small, tentative smile meant entirely to smooth over the earlier argument, and extended my arm—tipping the rim of my cup directly toward him in a sharp, polite flick of my wrist before bringing it to my lips.

The shift in the room happened so fast it gave me whiplash.

Lord Halvar’s face went from ruddy red to an ash-white, unbridled rage. He didn't just slam his cup down; he hurled it across the room, the dark red wine splashing across the stone floor like blood.

"Sacrilege!" Halvar roared, his shoulders expanding, his veins popping as if his very bones were shifting beneath his skin. "She mocks the blood! She tips the cup before the Alpha drinks, and she points the rim at me. She curses my bloodline!"

I froze, the pewter goblet still pressed against my lower lip, my eyes wide.

Uh, okay—what the absolute fuck?

I swear, my heart stopped at the sight of a man transforming into a beast. I was going to have nightmares about this for days to come. A scream surfaced up my throat.

I had completely misread the room. In my ignorance, I had somehow turned a gesture of peace into a supreme, heretical insult to a werewolf’s ancestors.

"She will learn respect to the bloodline," Halvar snarled, his voice deep, distorted, and dripping with saliva. "Or I will tear it out of—"

He never finished the sentence.

Varul exploded out of his chair. The sheer physical mass of his movement shattered the gravity in the room. The heavy oak of his chair scraping violently against the stone floor like a clap of thunder.

The temperature in the Great Hall plummeted to absolute zero.

Varul seemed to grow even larger as he looked down at Halvar, his dark eyes turning a pitch-black so deep it swallowed the firelight. A low, vibrating frequency rolled out of his chest—a sound so heavy it made the pewter plates on the table rattle and turned my bones to jelly. It was the sound of an executioner stepping onto the block.

Oh. My. God.

"Finish that thought, Halvar," he said.

His voice was dangerously quiet. It was a soft, velvety purr that carried a terrifying, lethal promise.

"Tell the hall exactly what you think you are going to do to my wife. Because I promise you, before the skin on your face finishes shifting, I will rip your throat out through your spine and feed what is left of your pack to the crows at Linewatch."

The entire hall went so silent you could hear a pin drop. My heart was roaring from fear, adrenaline, and a frankly terrible combination of excitement. He was defending me!

Nobody breathed. Nobody blinked. Thirty hardened warriors sat frozen under the suffocating weight of their Alpha King’s absolute dominance.

Lord Halvar froze mid-transformation, trapped beneath Varul's lethal glare. The thick fur on his neck bristled, but the raw, unbridled rage in his amber eyes suddenly flickered into survival instinct. He looked up at the absolute finality written in his Alpha’s towering posture.

Slowly, agonizingly, his bones cracked back into place. The fur receded. He sank back into his chair, his chest heaving, his eyes dropped to the table in a silent, bitter submission. A wise retreat.

"She is a stranger to our ways, Lord Halvar," Varul intoned, his voice still icy enough to freeze water. "Her insults are born of ignorance, not malice. But your insult—your threat to your Luna—is treason. If you forget your place in my court again, I will not use words."

Varul let the threat hang in the air like a noose before he finally sat back down.

There was a stretched moment of silence, where everyone seemed at a loss of what to do or say.

Beside me, Varul calmly sipped from his goblet as though he had not just threatened to brutally murder a man in his council.

I swallowed, the adrenaline from the altercation causing my hands to tremble. I hid them under my thighs. Shit.

Dinner eventually resumed. Conversation slowly returned, though it was subdued, a fragile glass palace built over cold fury.

At some point, I caught more than one pair of eyes—especially Lord Krev's analytical amber ones—drifting between me and Varul, as though there was some unspoken question they expected us to answer.

I had no idea what that question was. I would soon learn. Unfortunately.