Chapter 10

Briony's POV

I found Kieran in the war room going over patrol maps with two of his trackers, and I didn't wait for an invitation to interrupt.

"Petra passed a note to a man at the border market. He didn't smell like Ashvale. Didn't smell like anybody I've smelled before, actually."

The trackers went still. Kieran's head came up slowly.

"Describe him."

"Tall. Dark coat, no colors on him. Kept his face turned away from the crowd most of the time." I crossed my arms. "He took the note and disappeared before I could get a good look."

"And Petra?"

"Told me I was imagining things. Then told me to be careful who I said that to."

Kieran's jaw worked once. He turned to the older tracker, rattled off three names and a stretch of border to cover before nightfall, and the two men were gone within a minute, boots already moving down the hall.

"You should've come straight to me instead of confronting her," he said, once they were gone.

"I didn't confront her. She confronted me."

"Same difference, if it puts you alone with someone who might be feeding information to Blackfen." His voice stayed flat, business-only, the same tone he used giving orders to any warrior in the room. "Next time you see something like that, you find me first. Not after."

"Noted." I didn't bother softening it. "Anything else, Alpha?"

Something flickered across his face at that word, quick and gone, but he didn't answer, just turned back to the maps like the conversation was finished.

I left before I said something I'd regret.

Rowan caught up to me in the courtyard, jogging to close the distance, that easy grin of his doing most of the talking before his mouth did.

"He's not mad at you, you know."

"Could've fooled me."

"That's just how he handles being scared." Rowan fell into step beside me. "Man doesn't fear well. Never has. Somebody threatens something he cares about, he turns it into orders and maps and things he can control, because the alternative is sitting with how much it scares him, and he's never once been good at that."

"He made it pretty clear I'm not something he cares about." I kicked a loose stone off the path. "Just something he's stuck dealing with."

"That's not what I saw in that war room." Rowan glanced sideways at me. "You didn't see his face when you said 'a man who didn't smell like Ashvale.' Went white for a second. You were already walking out by the time he got it back together."

"You're making that up to make me feel better."

"A little bit. Not about the white part, though." He bumped my shoulder with his. "Give him time. He's been running this pack alone since before he had any business running anything. Doesn't know how to let somebody help carry it."

"I'm not asking to carry anything. I'm asking him not to treat me like a stranger who wandered into his war room uninvited."

"Yeah." Rowan winced. "He's bad at that part too."

I didn't see Kieran again until after dinner, when I stepped out to the small garden behind the healing house to clear my head before bed. He was already there, sitting on the low stone wall, staring out at nothing in particular. I almost turned around.

"You can stay," he said, without looking over. "It's your garden as much as mine."

I sat down anyway, a few feet of space between us. Neither of us said anything for a minute. The night air had that first real bite of coming winter in it, and somewhere past the wall an owl called out once and went quiet.

"I didn't mean to snap at you earlier," he said finally.

"You didn't snap. You gave orders. There's a difference and you're good at both."

That got something close to a laugh out of him, short and surprised, like he hadn't expected to find anything funny today. "Fair."

"I was scared," I admitted, quieter than I meant to. "Standing there watching her hand that note off. I didn't know if I should say something, do something, or just walk away and pretend I hadn't seen it."

"You did the right thing telling me."

"Doesn't feel like it. Feels like I just handed you one more thing to worry about."

"I'd rather worry about something real than not know it's happening at all." He turned to look at me then, properly, the first time all day his face hadn't been doing math behind it. "You're not a burden, Briony. I know I make it sound like that sometimes."

"Sometimes," I agreed.

"I'm working on it."

We sat there a while longer, close enough now that our shoulders almost touched, and for the first time since the binding stone it didn't feel like there was a war going on underneath the quiet. He reached over, like he was giving me every chance to pull away, and brushed a piece of hair back from my face that had come loose from its pin.

Neither of us said anything. I wasn't sure either of us needed to.

His hand stayed there a second longer than it needed to, thumb resting light against my cheek, and something in his eyes shifted into a question neither of us had said out loud yet.

"Alpha." One of the trackers from earlier jogged into the garden, breathless, and Kieran's hand dropped away fast, both of us pulling back like we'd been caught at something. "Sorry to interrupt. We picked up the scent trail from the market. I want you to see it before it goes cold."

Kieran stood, all business again in half a second, whatever had almost happened between us folded away and put back on the shelf. "Show me."

He was three steps toward the door before he stopped and turned back, nose lifting slightly, like something had just caught his attention that had nothing to do with the tracker's news.

"Wait." He walked past me, straight toward the healing house, straight toward the narrow hallway that led to my room, and stopped dead outside my door.

"What is it?" I followed him, heart already climbing.

He crouched by the doorframe, fingers hovering just above the wood without touching it, jaw tight enough to crack.

"Somebody's been standing right here," he said. "Long enough to leave a scent behind. Not passing through. Standing. Watching.”