THREE

~Calla~

They put me in a chair.

The elders' chamber of Crescent Hollow was a stone room off the great hall with a long table and six old wolves sitting behind it. Maeve sat at my left, holding my hand so tightly that it hurt. Kaius stood at the window with his arms folded. Dorian stood on the other side of the room, as far from his brother as the walls allowed. Alpha Orsen sat near the head of the table with his fingers steepled and an expression of polite interest.

I could not stop shaking. It felt as if someone had sewn two different pieces of cloth to the inside of my chest and was pulling them in opposite directions. One side ached for the man across the room. The other, newer side hummed whenever the king moved.

"The matter is simple," said Elder Corwin, the oldest of the six. "Alpha Ashcroft has rejected her. She has not accepted. By our law, the bond stands."

"And by Lycan law," Kaius said, without turning from the window, "any rejected mate is under the protection of the Crown until the bond is severed. Calla Reeve is mine to protect. She also bears the second thread, which is the Goddess's decision and not mine."

"A second thread is a heresy," Dorian said.

"Then take it up with the Goddess."

"Gentlemen." Orsen's voice was warm and reasonable. "I think we are overcomplicating this. The girl is an Omega, and unranked. If His Majesty wishes to take a servant into his household, the Lycan crown has always done as it pleased. No law forbids a king from keeping a concubine."

The windows rattled.

Kaius had turned. His eyes had gone a darker gold, and I saw the veins stand out on the back of his hands. "Say that again, Marlowe," he said quietly.

I stood up.

I don't know where I found the strength. My legs were jelly, and my head was swimming, but all of a sudden I was so tired of being talked about that I could not stay in the chair a second longer.

"I'm still in the room," I said.

Every head turned. Maeve squeezed my fingers.

"I've been sitting here for twenty minutes," I said, "and not one of you has asked me a question. You're talking about me like I'm a debt that needs settling." My voice shook, but I kept going. "I am not anyone's servant tonight. I am not anyone's concubine. And I am not going to be handed from one brother to the other like a piece of furniture."

Kaius's eyes were on me. The gold had faded back to brown. "What do you want?" he asked.

Nobody had asked me that in my whole life.

I thought about it for a long second. "I want to understand why it hurts so much," I said. "I want to know what the second thread means. And I want to decide what happens next on my own." I took a breath. "Thirty days. At Duskhold, as a guest and not as a mate. At the end of it, if I want to accept Alpha Ashcroft's rejection, I'll say the words myself. And until I say otherwise, nobody marks me."

"Agreed," Kaius said at once.

"No," said Dorian.

I turned and looked at him. It was the first time I had really looked at him since the hall. He had the face of a man who had not slept in a week. His eyes were red-rimmed, and a muscle jumped in his jaw. If I hadn't known better, I would have said he was in pain.

"You don't get a vote, Alpha," I said. "You gave up your vote an hour ago."

Someone at the table coughed to cover a laugh. Dorian flinched as if I had slapped him.

"If she leaves my territory in the company of the Crown," he said, and his voice was hoarse, "I will consider it a declaration of war."

"Then declare it," Kaius said.

"Nobody is declaring anything," I said. "I'm going upstairs to pack."

I had never packed so quickly in my life. There was almost nothing to take. Two dresses, a hairbrush, my mother's old shawl. Maeve helped me fold them in the little room under the stairs that had been mine for eighteen years, and neither of us said a word until I picked up the bag.

Then she pulled me into her arms, and I smelled lavender and woodsmoke, and I could not stop the tears.

"You're the bravest girl I know," Maeve whispered into my hair. "Do you hear me? Don't you ever think otherwise."

Downstairs, the Lycan riders waited at the front door with their horses saddled. The pack had gathered in the courtyard to watch me go, and not one of them said a word. Kaius stood at the foot of the steps, holding the door of a black carriage open for me.

I took one step across the threshold of Dorian's territory, and the world turned inside out.

It was like having a rope tied around my heart and somebody dragging it backward. I cried out and fell to my knees on the stone, clutching my chest, and darkness crowded in at the edges of my vision. I felt a pair of strong arms catch me before I hit the ground.

"I've got you," Kaius said into my hair. "Breathe. I've got you."

Then another voice roared, "Get your hands off her!"

Dorian was crossing the courtyard at a run. He hit his brother's shoulder with enough force to send them both staggering, and for a moment I saw two identical faces snarling at each other in the torchlight, and every wolf in the pack backed away. General Thane threw himself between them. Orsen, at the top of the steps, folded his hands and watched.

He wasn't surprised. He looked, I realized with a cold prickle at the back of my neck, almost pleased.

Maeve pushed through the crowd and pressed something into my palm while the men were still shouting. It was a folded square of paper, yellowed and sealed with a blob of wax.

"From your mother," she said, so quietly that only I could hear. "She asked me to give it to you on your eighteenth birthday. Read it when you're far from here. And Calla..." Her eyes were wet. "Don't let any of them tell you what you are."