Chapter Six: The Envoy

Three wolves waited at the Sterling border when we arrived. Ashford Kingdom colors. Unshifted. Black-and-gold royal guard uniforms, stiff as armor. But it was the fourth figure that made my stomach drop. I knew her the second I saw her.

Lady Serrin Draveth.

She was beautiful in that cold, perfect way that only comes from a lifetime of being trained to be watched. Sharp cheekbones. Ink-black hair twisted into a crown braid. A smile that never touched her eyes.

"Alpha Sterling," she said, inclining her head to Rhys with exaggerated courtesy before her gaze slid to me. "And this must be the famous Ivy Hart. You're smaller than the rumors suggested."

"Funny," I said, "considering the rumors mostly focus on how large I am."

Something flickered across her face surprise, maybe, that I hadn't wilted. She recovered fast. "I'm not here for pleasantries. I'm here on behalf of the King, to collect the girl named in the royal order."

"She's not going anywhere with you," Kaelan said, stepping forward.

Serrin's smile sharpened into something genuinely dangerous. "Kaelan. How sweet. Defending your reject in front of your future wife."

Her words hit like a slap. Kaelan tensed beside me. Rhys went still on my other side. And I hated the way my chest jolted, small and humiliated, hearing it out loud. Official. Real.

"That treaty isn't finalized," Kaelan said tightly.

"It will be." Serrin's eyes never left mine. "Long before your little bond problem resolves itself. Which brings us back to the matter at hand." She held up a sealed scroll. "Royal order, signed by King Aldric himself. The girl comes with us, willingly or otherwise."

"On what legal grounds?" Rhys's voice cracked like a whip across the clearing. "She's under Sterling protection. You have no jurisdiction here."

"I have jurisdiction," Serrin said sweetly, "over anyone posing a documented threat to the stability of the Ashford throne." Her eyes flicked to me with something almost like hunger. "And I think we all know exactly what kind of threat she is, don't we?"

My blood went cold.

She knew. Somehow, impossibly, she already knew what I was.

Kaelan's head snapped toward her. "That's not in the order. That's not what my father"

"Your father doesn't know everything I know," Serrin said, and for the first time her composure cracked just slightly, revealing something colder and hungrier underneath. "Seers have a very particular scent, Kaelan. Ask your bride-to-be how she knows that."

The guards behind her shifted into ready stances.

Rhys's whole body had gone taut as a drawn bow. "Take one step onto this land," he said, low and lethal, "and you'll be starting a war you can't win, Draveth."

"I'm not starting anything," Serrin said. "I'm finishing what your King started sixty years ago and never quite completed."

The trees erupted with Sterling warriors. First a dozen, then two dozen, stepping out of the shadows in perfect formation. They'd been waiting for the signal. For the first time, Serrin's confident smile flickered.

"You're outnumbered," Rhys said quietly. "Leave. Now. Tell the King his order was refused on legal grounds, and if he wants to escalate, he can do it through proper channels, not by sending his son's fiancée to kidnap a woman under my protection."

For a long, terrible moment, nobody moved.

Then Serrin laughed a short, humorless sound and inclined her head with mocking grace. "As you wish, Alpha Sterling. We'll do this the civilized way." Her eyes found mine one last time, and whatever warmth had been missing from her smile before was entirely absent now. "Enjoy your borrowed time, little Seer. It's shorter than you think."

She turned and vanished into the trees, guards falling in behind her.

Nobody breathed until the scent of them had fully faded.

"She knows," I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "She knows what I am, and your father doesn't even know that she knows."

Kaelan's face had gone ashen. "Which means she's not planning to hand you over to him at all."

"She's planning to use me herself," I finished, understanding landing like a stone in my stomach. "Whatever it is Seers can do that threatens the throne, she doesn't want to destroy it. She wants it."