The Breakfast

Sera

I heard Lyra before I even reached the dining room doors.

"—and I'm telling you, he was completely mortified. Just standing there covered in wine with—"

Her voice cut off the second I walked in.

"Sera!" She was up and out of her chair before I'd taken two steps, practically running around the table. "You're awake, I was starting to think you were going to sleep all day—"

"Lyra, let her breathe," my mother said, but she was smiling.

Lyra grabbed my arm anyway, pulling me toward the empty chair across from where she'd been sitting. "Come on, sit, you have to eat. Mom made them put out all your favorites, even though Cook said it was too much trouble—"

"I can walk by myself."

"I know, but you're slow." She practically shoved me into the chair and dropped back into her own. "Anyway, as I was saying before Sera finally decided to join us, Lord Brennan was standing there dripping with wine and—"

I glanced at my father. He'd looked up when I walked in, his eyes tracking me across the room, but he hadn't said anything. Now he was eating again like I wasn't even there.

My mother was pouring tea, her hands steadier than they'd been last night.

"Are you even listening?" Lyra asked.

"What?"

"Lord Brennan. The wine incident. Keep up."

"I don't know who Lord Brennan is."

"Old eastern territory wolf, visits every year for the autumn council, always wears too much cologne and talks too loudly." Lyra took a bite of eggs and kept talking with her mouth half full. "So last week at the state dinner he got absolutely drunk off his ass—"

"Lyra," Mom said quietly. "Language."

"Well, he did, Mother. There's no polite way to say it." Lyra grinned at me. "He decided he wanted to dance with Mother, so he stumbles across the floor trying to look dignified, trips over absolutely nothing, and crashes into the wine table. Just face-first into it. Knocked over three bottles, all of them spilled directly onto him, and he's just lying there in this puddle of red wine looking completely shocked."

I picked up my fork. The food on my plate looked good, but my stomach was twisted up.

"What did Father do?" I asked, mostly because Lyra seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

"Had the guards escort him out. Lord Brennan kept trying to apologize, but he could barely stand up straight." Lyra reached for more toast. "Next morning, he showed up to breakfast as if nothing happened. Didn't even mention it. Just sat down and started eating like he hadn't made a complete fool of himself in front of the entire court."

"Some people have no shame," my mother murmured.

"Or no memory," Lyra added. "I think he actually convinced himself it didn't happen."

Silence settled over the table after that. Lyra ate her toast. My mother sipped her tea and watched me like she was trying to memorize my face. My father just kept eating, methodically, not looking at any of us.

I pushed eggs around my plate and tried to breathe normally. The knot in my stomach was getting tighter.

"So what happens now?" The words came out before I could stop them.

My father's fork stopped halfway to his mouth. He looked up at me, his expression unreadable, like he was trying to figure out if I was asking him or if we were still talking about Lord Brennan's embarrassment.

I met his eyes. "The arrangements. You said yesterday we'd discuss them this morning."

He set down his fork carefully. "We will."

I waited. He picked up his napkin, wiped his mouth, took his time folding it back into his lap.

"When?" I asked.

"When what?"

"When do we discuss it?" My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. "You haven't told me anything except that I'm supposed to be here. I don't know what the plan is, when anything is happening, who—"

"There are things you need to understand first," my father interrupted, calm as anything.

"Okay. So tell me."

Lyra had gone very still beside me. My mother was staring into her teacup.

My father leaned back in his chair. "Six years ago, you ran away the night before your wedding. Do you remember why I arranged that marriage in the first place?"

"For an alliance."

"For an alliance with House Volkov that would have secured our northern borders and prevented half the conflicts we've had with the mountain territories since then." He said it like he was explaining something to a child. "I spent three years negotiating that arrangement. Three years of careful diplomacy, of finding the right match, of ensuring both houses would benefit. And you threw it away in one night."

My face got hot. "I know. That's why I made the bet, I was trying to—"

"The bet was your idea, not mine." He didn't raise his voice, but somehow that made it worse. "You came to me asking for three years to see if your mate bond would work out. Said if it didn't, you'd come home and honor the original arrangement. I agreed because I thought you might finally learn something about duty. About what it means to put something larger than yourself first."

I couldn't look at him. I focused on my plate instead, at the eggs I wasn't eating.

"But you did come home," he continued. "You honored your word. That's something at least."

"So what now?" I forced myself to look up at him. "You said there was an arrangement. When does he arrive? The alpha I'm supposed to—"

"The original arrangement was with House Volkov," my father said, cutting me off. "Do you remember the alpha's name?"

"Dimitri Volkov."

"And what did I tell you about him?"

I tried to think back to conversations I'd barely paid attention to because I'd already been planning to run. "He was the second son. You said he was reasonable. That he had a good tactical mind and that he'd be... suitable."

"He was all of those things." My father reached for his teacup. "Unfortunately, Dimitri Volkov was killed in battle two years ago."

The words took a second to register.

"He's dead?"

"Yes."

Relief flooded through me so fast it made me dizzy. "So the contract is void then. If he's dead, there's no—"

"The contract was with House Volkov," my father said calmly. "Not specifically with Dimitri. The house still stands."

I noticed movement then. Guards along the walls, moving toward the doors. Starting to close them one by one.

"I don't understand what you're telling me."

"Father," Lyra's voice was barely above a whisper. "Why are they closing the doors?"

My mother set down her teacup with a sharp clink. "Aldric, what's going on?"

He ignored them both. Kept his eyes locked on me. "When a contracted party dies, the contract transfers to their heir. In this case, Dimitri's younger brother. Fenris Volkov, current Alpha of Ironmaw Pack."

The room went completely silent.

I stared at him, waiting for him to explain how that wasn't what he meant, how I'd misunderstood.

He just looked back at me.

"You can't be serious," I said.

"The agreement was with House Volkov. Not with any specific member of the house."

"But you said—you told me it was Dimitri. You said he was reasonable—"

"Dimitri was the Alpha when we made the original arrangement six years ago. He's not the Alpha anymore. His brother is. The contract transfers accordingly."

"That's not—that's a completely different person!"

"It's the same house. The same alliance. The same benefit to both our kingdoms." My father's voice didn't change at all. "The specifics of which Volkov you marry are irrelevant to the political arrangement."

"Irrelevant?" I pushed back from the table, standing up. "You're talking about the rest of my life, and you're calling it irrelevant?"

"I'm calling your personal preferences irrelevant to matters of state, yes." He stood up too, slower, deliberate. "You made a bet, Sera. You gambled that your mate would work out. You lost. Now you honor the terms."

"The terms were that I'd marry Dimitri!"

"The terms were House Volkov." He walked around the table toward me. "I never specified which member of the house. If you'd paid attention to the actual contract six years ago instead of running away the night before the wedding, you would have understood how succession clauses work. This is basic political arrangement. When the contracted party dies, obligations transfer to the heir."

"You knew," I said, hearing my voice go raw. "You knew Dimitri was dead and you didn't tell me. You let me think—"

"I let you serve out your three years with your mate, which is exactly what you asked for." His voice went cold. "What you thought about the arrangements didn't matter because they didn't concern you yet. You were still trying to make your romantic fantasy work."

"It wasn't a fantasy, he was my mate—"

"And now he's not." My father stopped a few feet from me. "Now you're here, and now the arrangements do concern you. Fenris Volkov is the Alpha of Ironmaw. He holds the contract. You will marry him and secure the alliance you destroyed six years ago. That's the end of the discussion."

"I can't marry him," I said. "Father, he's—”

The main entrance doors swung open.

Guards poured into the room, but they weren't ours. Different armor, heavier and cruder, was built for actual combat instead of ceremony. Northern pack colors.

Then someone else walked through, and I forgot how to breathe.

He had to duck to fit through the doorway.

This man was so massive he couldn't walk through a door like a normal person.

This had to be him—Fenris Volkov— a massive man. Easily six and a half feet tall, maybe more, with shoulders so broad he filled the entire entrance. He wore furs over his frame—actual wolf pelts—and underneath I could see scars everywhere. Running across his face, down his throat, over his hands, disappearing under the furs.

His hair was dark and pulled back from his face. His eyes were pale gray and cold.

Those eyes locked onto me the second he entered and didn't move.

I took a step back without meaning to, and my hip hit the table behind me.

My father was talking. Greeting him, probably going through the formal welcome. I couldn't hear any of it over the rushing in my ears.

Fenris didn't look at my father. Didn't acknowledge the greeting, the room, or anyone else. Just stared at me like I was the only thing in the room that mattered.

Then he took a step forward.

Every instinct I had started screaming.

"You're Sera Valdris."

* * *