Chapter 6

Blade’s pov 

Ayana appeared in the doorway before I had said a single word to the doctors, and I knew immediately that something was wrong. She never walked into a room I was in without permission, not unless it mattered.

I watched her cross the office, her robe dragging slightly against the floor, her eyes locked on Hazel the entire time. She didn't stop until she reached my side.

"A word," she said quietly. "Now."

I glanced at Hazel, still frozen by the wall with the doctor's needle hovering near her arm. "This isn't the time."

"It's exactly the time." Ayana's voice left no room for argument.

I stepped away from the desk and walked toward the window with her, far enough that the doctors and Hazel wouldn't hear us. Ayana kept her back to the room, her voice dropping even lower.

"She's a witch," she said.

I almost laughed. "You're mistaken."

"I am never mistaken about this." Her eyes were sharp, certain, the same way they had been every single time she had warned my family about something that later proved true. "I felt it the moment I stepped into this room. Her blood carries the mark, it's buried deep and somehow sealed inside her, but it's there."

My stomach turned to stone. "That's impossible. Her father was a werewolf, a weak one, but a werewolf."

"I'm not talking about her father." Ayana's gaze didn't waver. "Whatever runs in her is old. Older than anything I've felt in this palace in years."

I looked past her shoulder at Hazel, standing against the wall with her arms wrapped around herself, watching us with wide, frightened eyes. A woman carrying magic sealed so deep she likely didn't even know it existed inside her.

The seer's words from earlier crashed into me all at once. I had dismissed it as nonsense hours ago, but standing here now, looking at the woman I had just forced into a contract to save my throne, it didn't feel like nonsense anymore.

"Why would her power be sealed," I said.

"I don't know yet." Ayana's expression darkened. "But sealed magic doesn't stay sealed forever. Especially not magic tied to a mate bond."

My whole body went rigid. "She is not my mate."

"I never said she was." Ayana studied me carefully. "But you brought her here for a reason, the goddess herself seems to be paying attention to it. That should concern you."

I clenched my jaw so hard that it ached. Everything I had built my plan around, the contract, the pregnancy, the timeline my grandmother's seers had given me, suddenly felt like it was standing on ground I didn't fully understand.

"No one hears about this," I said. "Not my grandmother, not my men, no one. Just you and me."

"Alpha blade, if the council learns you've bound yourself to a witch—"

"That's exactly why no one learns it." I kept my voice low, controlled. "I don't need another reason for people to whisper about weakness in this pack. This stays between us until I decide otherwise."

Ayana bowed her head slightly. "As you wish."

Truthfully, I didn't care what Hazel was. Witch, werewolf, human, it made no difference to me as long as her body could give me what I needed. My throne wasn't going to be saved by her bloodline's history. It was going to be saved by a child.

"If she gives me an heir," I said, "what will the child be? Werewolf? Witch? Both?"

Ayana considered the question for a long moment. "I can't say for certain without knowing more about how her magic was sealed. But if her witch blood is as old as I sense it is, and it mixes with yours, the child could carry both. That kind of combination hasn't been seen in this bloodline in generations, if ever."

Both, a werewolf and a witch in one body, born directly into my line. If that was true, it would make my heir more powerful than anyone who dared to challenge my throne, stronger than anything my enemies could send against me.

"Find out everything you can about her bloodline," I said. "I want to know what sealed her power, and I want to know before this goes any further."

"That won't be enough time to search everything by morning."

"Report to me by morning," I repeated.

Ayana bowed her head and turned to leave, already muttering something under her breath about the archives she would need to search through.

I looked back toward the wall where Hazel had been standing, ready to tell my men to take her back to her room until I decided what came next but the wall was empty.

I scanned the room quickly, my heart raced hard against my chest before my mind caught up with what my eyes were telling me.

The door behind the doctors, the one leading out into the hallway, was hanging open.

Hazel was gone.