KADE ENTERS

Elena's hotel suite overlooked the Ravenshade harbor, and she'd been staring out at the water for the better part of an hour, replaying the conference room, the crack spidering through the glass table, the low involuntary sound Damian had made when she walked away — when the knock came at her door.

Sable, probably, with more coffee and more questions Elena wasn't ready to answer.

It wasn't Sable.

The man in the doorway was tall, dark-haired, dressed in a suit that fit like it had been tailored that morning, with an easy, confident smile that didn't quite reach eyes the color of storm clouds.

"Ms. Marsh. Forgive the late intrusion. Kade Osric." He extended a hand she didn't take. "Alpha of the Ashgrove pack, and — if the rumors are even half true — someone who's been waiting three years to meet you properly."

Elena kept the door only partly open, her body angled to block entry. "I don't recall scheduling a meeting with Ashgrove."

"You didn't. This is a courtesy call, not a business one." His smile widened, unhurried. "Though I suspect by the end of this conversation, you'll want to make it both."

Something in his tone — too knowing, too pleased with himself — made her wolf stir uneasily beneath her skin, a wariness she hadn't felt since the moment she'd walked back into Cross territory.

"You have five minutes," she said, stepping back to let him in, because curiosity, as always, won out over caution.

Kade moved through her suite with the easy confidence of a man who'd never once doubted his welcome anywhere. He stopped near the window, studying the harbor view with apparent casualness that didn't fool Elena for a second.

"Three years ago, a rejected omega walked out of Crimson Hollow territory with eyes that turned gold at the boundary line," he said, without preamble. "My pack has scouts along most major territory borders in this region. Standard practice, given our history with Crimson Hollow. One of them happened to be nearby that night."

Elena's chest tightened. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do. I think you've felt it happening gradually for three years — dreams you can't explain, instincts sharper than they should be, moments where your control slips just slightly more than an unranked omega's ever should." Kade turned from the window, his expression losing its casual edge, replacing it with something sharper, more intent. "My pack has spent four generations searching for confirmation of a bloodline we believed was hunted to extinction a century ago. The Ashwood line, Ms. Marsh. Does that name mean anything to you?"

The floor seemed to tilt slightly beneath her feet. "No," she said, though even to her own ears it sounded uncertain.

"It will." Kade's voice gentled, though the intensity in his gaze didn't fade. "I'm not here to threaten you, Elena — may I call you Elena? I'm here because I believe you're standing at the edge of understanding something enormous about yourself, and I would rather you learn the truth from someone who respects what you are, instead of from a Cross alpha who already discarded you once."

"You don't know anything about Damian and me."

"I know he rejected a mate bond in front of three hundred witnesses to secure a political marriage, and I know that bond apparently never fully died, because my sources tell me it flared back to life the moment you walked into his boardroom yesterday." Kade's smile returned, softer now, almost gentle. "I also know that if you are who I believe you are, an Ashwood royal bloodline doesn't answer to a single alpha's rejection or acceptance. It answers to itself. You have power here that has nothing to do with whether Damian Cross wants you back, Elena. You simply haven't discovered it yet."

Elena stared at him, her pulse hammering, every instinct in her screaming that this conversation was about to change the entire shape of her life.

"What exactly are you saying?" she asked quietly.

Kade closed the distance between them by a single measured step, close enough that she could see the sincerity — or its very convincing imitation — in his storm-gray eyes.

"I'm saying that my pack has been searching for a lost royal bloodline for four generations, and I believe, with everything I am, that we just found her." He held her gaze, steady and unflinching. "I'm saying that whatever Damian Cross threw away three years ago wasn't just an omega he could discard for convenience. He rejected a Luna capable of uniting every fractured pack territory in this region under a single crown."

Elena's breath caught, the dream flashing behind her eyes unbidden — moonlight pouring down in a solid column, a crown woven from pale light, waiting.

Waiting for her.

"And I'm saying," Kade continued softly, "that unlike Damian Cross, I would never be foolish enough to reject something that valuable."