༄Chapter 6

I wanted to hear what the King would say about that.

Because this marriage had been the King's order. Andrew knew that when he walked through our front door with Hailey on his arm. He had known it every single day for however many months that crescent mark had been sitting behind his ear healing. And now he was sitting in front of the man who had issued that order and asking him to simply set it aside because Andrew had found someone he liked better.

The silence stretched for a while because the King set his glass down. And then he turned to me. “What do you have to say about this?”

My eyes lit up and I immediately redirected that into something more useful. I let my shoulders drop slightly. I let my breath go a little uneven. I looked up at the King with the expression of a woman who had been holding herself together through considerable difficulty and was only just managing it.

“Your Majesty.” I kept my voice soft. “I understand Andrew's happiness at finding his fated mate. Truly. And I have nothing but admiration for what Hailey did, she saved his life, and that's not a small thing. I admire her for it.”

I paused just long enough, the same way Andrew had paused.

“But I am my father's daughter. I am the daughter of Blackthron's Alpha, and I cannot, I genuinely cannot share my husband with another she-wolf. My pack would not survive that humiliation. I would not survive it.” I let the next part come out quieter, more personal. “Andrew already can't stand me, he said so himself just now in front of everyone. If Hailey is also in that house with his full love and his full protection, I have nothing. I will be bullied by both of them and there will be nobody to stop it because he will always choose her.” I looked at the King directly. “So I am asking you, Your Majesty, with the greatest respect please allow me to divorce Andrew.”

Andrew made a sound beside me that was almost a laugh.

“Hailey would never bully anyone,” he said, his voice tight with barely controlled irritation. “She is the kindest person I have ever met, and the fact that you would suggest otherwise says everything about you and nothing about her.” He straightened in his seat. “I want to marry Hailey because she saved my life and I will not let her live without a home because of it. She deserves stability. She deserves protection. That is all this is, and Bella turning it into something ugly is exactly the kind of behavior I was describing.”

I turned and looked at him, anger curling in the pit of my stomach.

“Admirable,” I said. “Very noble. Except you had that mark behind your ear long before she showed up at our door, Andrew. Months before. So let's not dress this up as gratitude.”

“You don't know what you're talking about…”

“Oh I know exactly what I'm talking about..”

The glass hit the floor, the sound cracked through the banquet hall like a gunshot and every single person at the table went rigid. I spun forward and my heart dropped straight to my feet.

Ethan had his hand flat on the table, the shattered remains of his wine glass on the marble below, and he was looking at both of us with an expression that made the room feel ten degrees colder.

Nobody dared to breathe loudly.

I sat there and thought, with great clarity, that I had just argued with my husband in front of the Lycan King like a fishwife at a market stall, and that this was probably going to go very badly for me.

Then Ethan stood. He walked around the table and I braced myself completely and then his hand extended toward me. Not to reprimand me. To help me up.

I stared at it for half a second before I took it and rose from my seat, and then he turned to Andrew with an expression that made Andrew's confident posture evaporate instantly.

“Two Lunas,” Ethan said. His voice was quiet. That particular kind of quiet that was somehow louder than shouting. “In the entire history of the wolf packs, not one Alpha has taken two Lunas simultaneously. Not one. And you stand here tonight and present this to me as a reasonable request.” He looked at Andrew for a long moment. “If you wanted to thank Hailey for saving your life, you could have brought her into the pack. Give her a home, a position, a comfortable life. That would have been gratitude.” His voice remained low. “What you are asking for instead is not gratitude. It is a direct insult to Blackthron's Alpha. And it is a direct insult to me.”

Andrew said nothing. The confidence was completely gone. He was staring at the table.

Ethan turned to me. And my relief lasted approximately three seconds.

“You,” he said, “threatened to take your own life to force your father to petition me for this marriage. You stood in front of Alexander and made him beg on your behalf. And now you want to walk away from it.” He studied my face. “This marriage is not simply about you and Andrew. It is about the stability between two packs. It is about the harmony of this kingdom. I suggest you think very carefully before you decide it's something you can simply discard because it became inconvenient.”

I held his gaze and nodded slowly because there was absolutely nothing else I could do.

I had no move here. None. I had come to this banquet intending to handle the divorce cleanly and walk away and instead I was standing in front of the Lycan King being told my own history back to me. The previous version of me had really, thoroughly, completely boxed me in from every direction.

If I couldn't even get out of this marriage through the King himself, I was going to have a very interesting time ahead of me.

Ethan rubbed his forehead. Something about the gesture was different from everything else he'd done tonight, less controlled, more involuntary, like his hand had moved before he'd decided to move it. He waved toward the door.

“You can go.”

I dipped my head and turned to leave and then I looked at him again without meaning to.

There was sweat along his hairline. Fine, barely visible, but it was there. His jaw was tight in a way that had nothing to do with irritation. His brows were pulled together like he was working through something physical, something he was pushing against from the inside.

I looked away. Then I looked back.

Ethan felt it. He looked up suddenly and his eyes found mine across the space between us and something happened in them, his pupils contracted sharply, a quick involuntary shift, and the color around them changed in a way I didn't have a name for. A smell reached me then, faint and strange, something I couldn't identify but that hit the back of my throat like recognition.

Arabella went completely still. Not excited this time. Not straining or pushing. Just still. The way an animal goes still when it encounters something it doesn't yet know how to categorize.

Ethan's gaze was locked on me and the coldness that had been in it all evening was gone. What replaced it was harder to read, something restrained, something that looked almost like effort, like he was holding himself at a fixed point through sheer will.

I felt it in my chest. A pressure that wasn't unpleasant but wasn't nothing either. Like a hand pressed flat against a door. Then he turned. Abruptly, completely, and walked back into the palace without another word, the other guests finally raised their heads.

I stood there for a moment.

Something was wrong with him. Something was happening in his body that he was fighting against, and it had started… I thought back through the evening, traced it carefully, it had started around me. When I stumbled into him. When our eyes met.

This strangeness was connected to me somehow.